Twelve of us met at the Highland Park Distillery for the Viking tour. After the film which contained lovely photos of familiar places plus a few well known local faces, we went to the maltings floor. Unfortunately no malting was taking place there but was later on in the tour. This was followed by a trip to the peat burning fire for drying the malted grain. Then to the Still Room which could only be photographed from outside the door due to health and safety concerns. Thence to the barrel store and a view of the angels' share evaporating. Finally a tutorial on how to properly taste whisky with a dram of 12 year old. It was an excellent trip on a very stormy and wet day.

 

Lunch was taken at The Kirkwall Hotel and photos perused. First up was a selection of the photos from the 12 tasks set us in St Margaret's Hope. It was interesting to see the variety of photos produced with the Tea Set under the stone steps as the favorite subject. Also the pictures reflected the very changeable weather on the day that we were there. One "View from the Bellevue" had a misty background while another taken minutes before had a very dark threatening sky. Views along the harbour front earlier showed cloud and a threat of drizzle while the ones taken an hour later had blue skies and high cloud. We will look at more photos from this trip in January.

 

"Fruit and Veg" was the monthly theme and lots of fresh fruit and veg were to the fore. The ones that caught the eye were the Mushroom Cloud concocted by Steve and Hilary's flower carved Water Melon. Thanks to every one who put in photos.

 

For the next meeting, we will meet in Dounby in the old computer room in the school and look at a couple of people's projects in the usual 50 photos/20 min presentation format. We just need a couple of volunteers to step to do this. Steve has already said he will do a quick session on how he created his Mushroom Cloud and the Orange photo. We also intend looking at the extra photos from St Margaret's Hope. Please bring the 12 items specified by Tom on his sheet plus any others that you were pleased with. Max number 15 on a memory stick for immediate projection. Please make sure there are no other photos on the memory stick as we don't want to be wading through hundreds to find the ones that are to be viewed. That has happened in the past and this time will mean that the contributor's photos will not be viewed.

 

The next meeting is Wednesday 23rd JANUARY at 1.30 pm at the Dounby School.

The project for the month is "Music/Musical instruments" 

 

Keep clicking, Tim.