During the imposed Lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic, EPS introduced a monthly photo challenge, here you can see some of the results of that. Lockdown began, in the UK, on 23rd March 2020. Our first challenge was for April 2020. There were no prizes or specific rules. Members were invited to submit their images and a few words to accompany them. Members were also invited to submit up to 10 images made during Lockdown that did not adhere to the themes of the monthly Challenges, that gallery will be completed later. All images are the copyright of the individuals. The April Challenge theme was “Creative images taken at home”. The May Challenge was “Five minutes from home”. For the June Challenge the theme is “No more than 5 miles from home” for the first time since lockdown powered transport is allowed.

Alan Givens

May Challenge

Since my wife uses a walking stick we had to find somewhere reasonably flat for  outdoor exercise. The closest harbour is Dysart, but is a bit uneven,  so we go to West Wemyss harbour.After a walk along the pier and my wife returning to the car, i had another wee walk along the pier and made these images.Ive arranged them into a panel of 10 with the theme being ” blue”.

Alexandra McOrist

June Challenge

Alistair Cowan

April Challenge

May Challenge

Andrew McKie

May Challenge

June Challenge

Andy Hayes

June Challenge

Barbara Bartkowiak

May Challenge

June Challenge

Barbara Bogacka

June Challenge

Bill Johnston

May Challenge

Brian Flemming

May Challenge

June Challenge

Caroline McDermott

April Challenge

For my photo, I decided to treat myself to a bunch of tulips on one of my very rare outings to the supermarket. I work in resilience planning for the NHS so you can imagine, have been really busy over the last few months. Fortunately I can work from home but when I saw these flowers I decided I deserved a treat so bought them for myself.  I mainly enjoy macro photos of plants. The tulips were on my living room windowsill. Now there is so much new life in spring I am taking a lot more photography outside in my garden as it is full of life. I been posting on FB and Instagram as I find it cheerful to see others’ photos and hope others will enjoy mine as well. 

Christopher Osborne

April Challenge

June Challenge

David Buchanan

June Challenge

David Greer

April Challenge

I used my free time during the April Covid-19 Lockdown to experiment with three new photographic techniques viz. ICM, Focus Stacking and Photomoshing/Glitching. 
The rest of the time, I hung out of my balcony, somewhat precariously, to take pictures of strangers in the street

May Challenge

June Challenge

David Wolfenden

April Challenge

May Challenge

June Challenge

Derek Robertson

May Challenge

June Challenge

Dennis  Linn

April Challenge

June Challenge

Donald Stirling

April Challenge

Dragged out my ’toy’ collection to use as subject matter.

May Challenge

June Challenge

Doug Berndt

April Challenge

I see my camera as a friend that accompanies me out of doors. It’s rare for me to take images indoors. For my images – the idea came from Gavin Hoey here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKp8YO2DkwA -I also used various PS built-in 8-bit artistic filters on the images. You can find Gavin’s background images here – https://www.gavtrain.com/?p=6869 My backgrounds were derived from these but are not straight copies – credit to Gavin for the originals.

May Challenge

Images around Fairmilehead area of Edinburgh – a changing decorated window, warning signs, Mortonhall golf course closure, abandoned road works, ornamental rabbits left on a hedge for kids amusement, painted stones at Fairmilehead Parish church door. Kid’s street game follow the line to a rainbow, a neighbour isolated behind her washing line and enjoying the sun. St Fillan’s Church services cancelled.

June Challenge

With the changing rules easing lockdown restrictions, we were allowed to travel a little further with recommendations being not more than 5 miles. I had not been in the City Centre since March and took the opportunity to visit Edinburgh Waverley Station. People were still travelling by train but very few and there were more employees than passengers. The station was marked out with social distancing stickers that included footprints on the escalators. I’d spoken with the customer service assistant that you can see at the foot of the escalator, who told me how great it was to photograph the empty station and to go and enjoy myself. Shortly after that I met a Network Rail employee who told me “You can’t take pictures in here!” (Apparently it would have been OK if I’d just been using my phone!). I’d have loved to have stayed longer, but when asking for a permit to photograph was told that Network Rail had a duty to enforce social distancing for safety purposes, I struggled to find someone to distance from.

Douglas May

May Challenge

Edinburgh Council have used section 14 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to close off part of Braid Road near my home.It is said to be for the purpose of supporting social distancing for cyclists and pedestrians. It has certainly given Braid Road an eerie and isolated feelingwith no motor vehicles and in particular a line of parked cars for visitors to the Hermitage. Meantime further up the road work continues. On an emptyPentland Terrace a short distance away two cyclists, like many other cyclists, cycle close to the pavement and do not give the pedestrian thedistance she should be entitled to expect.

June Challenge

Edward Richards

April Challenge

New Home I spent some time making and giving away bird nesting boxes from scrap materials. Decided to put one up on a tree in the garden and it was occupied in 24 hours. Lockdown supplies  I always liked making still life compositions from things lying about the house and lockdown consumables seemed a good opportunity. Spring Cleaning Was really cleaning conservatory  when decided it could make a still life. Drew a freaky face on box of gloves but no one has noticed it! Wind Spinner. Tried to keep movement but also show vanes on spinner. Double Camellia Colourful but short lived blooms. Camera Canon G7X shutter priority at 1/500 because a strong wind blowing.

May Challenge

Empty Queensferry Road This is usually busy 24/7 and is eerily quiet in the lockdown
Empty Play Park Again usually a very busy park with kids enjoying themselves and again deserted with COVID
All Mod Cons This boat has sat on waste ground beside the River Almond for years complete with toilet. It disappeared the day after it was photographed.
Cramond Brig from beside cottage ruins, just to complement the story that follows… Jock Howison’s Cottage Ruins – This is a ruin immediately beside Brig and was occupied by a farm labourer named Jock Howison
King James V Statue Apparently King James was attacked on the Brig by robbers and was saved by Howison coming to his aid. The statue was erected to mark the occasion but it is half a mile away across the Queensferry Road, now in a courtyard housing development.
I have lived in this area for 39 years and never knew the story or found the statue till the lockdown!

Eric Robinson

April Challenge

Fiona Spence

June Challenge

George Milligan

May Challenge

June Challenge

Gair Brisbane

June Challenge

Graham Morrice

April Challenge

May Challenge

June Challenge

Hilda Dalgetty

June Challenge

Isobel Lindsay

April Challenge

May Challenge

James Glass

May Challenge

Jim Moir

May Challenge

Jean Manson

May Challenge

Krysia Kotowska

April Challenge

June Challenge

Louise Wallace

May Challenge

June Challenge

‘5 wee Lochs within 5 miles’. … I  thought, as a country member,  that would be appropraite for a city club  presentation  🙂 The distance went from 0.6  to 4.6 miles. The theme went slightly off by the inclusion of the Pen and cygnets as there are some wider shots of the Pot Loch, but the swan family were quite far away and I chose a closer shot. 

Mhairi Chambers

April Challenge

For my 3 images i decided to use both my 60mm macro lens and the in camera focus stacking setting in my Olympus EM5 mkiii by seeing what was around the house. All the images were shot hand held, as i was interested to see the results without resorting to using a tripod. The spider obliging appeared as my camera was to hand…. luckily for me!

May Challenge

1)Bowling Suspended-taken at the Merchiston Tennis and Bowling Club. I pass this on my daily walk and it was obvious that the green was being kept tidy and cut. I liked the striped pattern on the green. 2)House of the Future,Maybe-This was taken at the old Boroughmuir High School. Cala Homes has a sign at the front gates made of plexi glass and when passing one day, I realised it distorted the surrounding buildings and any vehicle passing at the time so I went back took the shot.It’s cropped in to just show the Cala Homes logo.3)Reaching For the Sun-This was taken at St Peters Place,it was growing at the bridge over the canal. 4)Outside Looking In- also taken at the bowling green.I liked the shadow pattern of the wrought iron fence,so i stood beside it,that’s my shadow in the shot.Felt like i was behind bars looking in at the planter.5)Trio of Fox Cubs- taken overlooking a neighbours garden in which 6 fox cubs and their mum are currently living.Its a bit of a jungle so difficult to shoot when there is only a small patch of sunlight in which they play and snooze!

June Challenge

1)Graffiti in DT2-Taken at Straiton Pond nature reserve. I had not been there for several years and found this on the wall of a tunnel under the bypass. Converted to black and white in Olympus Workspace. 2) Honey bee at work-Also taken at Straiton, I had been trying to get shots of a honey bee for a few weeks and finally succeeded. 3) Just bumbling along-Also taken at Straiton, I like the colours in this one with the blurred green background and the yellow of the bee sitting on the reddish flower. 4)Whose Art is it Anyway?- Another one from the Straiton walk, as in many other places in and around Edinburgh these days, tunnels get “decorated”. Some is very artistic, others you can debate whether its art or graffiti. I liked this section, converted to black and white using Olympus Workspace. 5)The Big Yellow Store- Calder Road in Edinburgh. I liked the lines and angles of the building, plus the blue sky goes well with the bright yellow of the building.

Martin Ashford

May Challenge

Newhaven Sunset (Almost) -Wanted to stay another 20 minutes to catch the sunset but two very burly policemen turned up and started dispersing people – though it prudent to pack up! Sunset through the flowers – Walking back to Trinity along lower Granton Road, noticed a young girl taking a picture of the sunset through some wild flowers that were growing out of a crack in the promenade wall. I waited a minute or two, walked to the same spot and stole her idea! Supermoon – walking home, biggest lens I had with me was a 90mm prime. It was light at the time but I lowered the exposure in Adobe Camera raw to silhouette the branches, then added a graduated filter to darken the sky.

June Challenge

Muriel Binnie

April Challenge

Two images were inspired by a Bailey and Chinnery video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIh7v29WA9c  The other three were taken using a lightpad.  For lightpad mastery  – look for Jane Simmonds on flickr or Instagram.

May Challenge

The black and white images were all taken in the same local graveyard.  With one exception, they are multiple exposures taken in camera.  B&W suited my mood and gave more intense results, sometimes capturing two headstones in the same image.  This seems to me to represent the lock down – separation yet community reliance.  

The coloured image is also a multiple exposure – there was an irony in Classic Laddie whisky packaging in a shop window counterpointed against a local authority street sign right outside – is it advocating roof repairs without a rope?

June Challenge

Neil Scott

April Challenge

May Challenge

These were all taken in my garden.  I had just bought a 100-400mm lens for my Fujifilm X-T2, meaning to try my hand at bird photography when the lockdown started.  I was therefore on the way!  My main photographic interests are people, including street photography and still life/abstract stuff, so this was well outside my comfort zone.  I had to learn to use manual focusing after learning about focus peaking, and was using ISO ratings of 3000-5000 and shutter speeds of 1/2000 or less – all completely different from my usual settings.  Since the birds are travelling extremely fast my initial success rate was probably around one percent.  In other words only one image out of 100 was acceptably sharp (or indeed the bird was in the frame at all!) My hit rate has since improved, with much appreciated help from Eric Robinson, Jim Moir and Sandy Cleland.

Pete Gaskin

April Challenge

Robert Dewar

May Challenge

June Challenge

Robert Ruscoe

May Challenge

Shirley Finlay

May Challenge

Tom Flint

May Challenge

Unda McKie

May Challenge

Images are taken on Calton Hill – 5 min from home.  The rat family (while not the favourite subject of mine) has lived next to Calton Hill stairs for few years and were quite obliging on Sunday morning. I am not sure of the name for the plants, but they are one of the carrot family and are currently all over the parks and greens.

June Challenge

Zoltan Laszlo

June Challenge