Club Meeting, 'An Evening with John McGuinness' - Tuesday 23rd September 2025.
On Tuesday, September 23rd, Morpeth Camera Club welcomed guest speaker John McGuinness from Tynemouth
Photographic Society. John is a well-known local photographer with over 25 years of experience in the field. With
an interest in various genres of photography, he focused specifically on Travel and Astrophotography during this
presentation.
A trip to the Faroe Islands in April this year produced a wonderful array of landscape images, together with a brief
description of the lifestyle, traditions, and its many bridges and tunnels, which provide the infrastructure unique to
the islands. We enjoyed the stunning landscape, which included tiny remote villages, sweeping and dramatic valleys,
vertiginous sheer cliffs, together with wonderful sunsets captured with his drone.
With the islands being subject to variations of weather, we also saw wind-lifted waterfalls and mountains shrouded
in mist. With images of heritage trails which depicted life in the Faroe Islands back to Viking days. The Lake Above
the Sea, the Drangarnir, a pair of iconic sea stacks situated between Tindhólmur and Vágaroff, the old town of Reyn,
and the statue of the ‘Nix’ mythical horse, John perfectly captured the atmosphere of these beautiful islands.
For the second part of his presentation, he continued with another passion of his: Astrophotography. He started by
outlining twenty-two reasons why this genre is so challenging. He provided details about his equipment and the many
different software programs he utilises to transform raw images into a usable format.
We saw moon shots, and he described how the moon was formed and how the Earth survives because of it. He then
illustrated the length of a sunset, which is determined by the latitude at which one is situated. For instance, the sun
sets more rapidly nearer the equator. He went on to show images of the Aurora over Iceland and Norway, comparing
them to sightings in Whitley Bay and Dunstanburgh.
We enjoyed seeing many images of galaxies and constellations and were in awe of his ability to name them all. He
ended by saying that astrophotography has been somewhat marred by the advent of many satellites that orbit the
Earth.
Club Chairman Jeremy Cooper thanked John for capturing the lifestyle of the Faroe Islands and for transporting us
into the realm of Astrophotography, after which refreshments were enjoyed.
Steph.
Photographic Society. John is a well-known local photographer with over 25 years of experience in the field. With
an interest in various genres of photography, he focused specifically on Travel and Astrophotography during this
presentation.
A trip to the Faroe Islands in April this year produced a wonderful array of landscape images, together with a brief
description of the lifestyle, traditions, and its many bridges and tunnels, which provide the infrastructure unique to
the islands. We enjoyed the stunning landscape, which included tiny remote villages, sweeping and dramatic valleys,
vertiginous sheer cliffs, together with wonderful sunsets captured with his drone.
With the islands being subject to variations of weather, we also saw wind-lifted waterfalls and mountains shrouded
in mist. With images of heritage trails which depicted life in the Faroe Islands back to Viking days. The Lake Above
the Sea, the Drangarnir, a pair of iconic sea stacks situated between Tindhólmur and Vágaroff, the old town of Reyn,
and the statue of the ‘Nix’ mythical horse, John perfectly captured the atmosphere of these beautiful islands.
For the second part of his presentation, he continued with another passion of his: Astrophotography. He started by
outlining twenty-two reasons why this genre is so challenging. He provided details about his equipment and the many
different software programs he utilises to transform raw images into a usable format.
We saw moon shots, and he described how the moon was formed and how the Earth survives because of it. He then
illustrated the length of a sunset, which is determined by the latitude at which one is situated. For instance, the sun
sets more rapidly nearer the equator. He went on to show images of the Aurora over Iceland and Norway, comparing
them to sightings in Whitley Bay and Dunstanburgh.
We enjoyed seeing many images of galaxies and constellations and were in awe of his ability to name them all. He
ended by saying that astrophotography has been somewhat marred by the advent of many satellites that orbit the
Earth.
Club Chairman Jeremy Cooper thanked John for capturing the lifestyle of the Faroe Islands and for transporting us
into the realm of Astrophotography, after which refreshments were enjoyed.
Steph.