Tag Archives: competition

Competition: Food & Drink

Our penultimate Club competition of the season took place on Wednesday 17th February and was judged by Ken Ainscow of Lytham St Annes Photographic Society. Ken is a long standing friend of our Club and has judged for us many times over the years, with members all appreciating his skill and critique. Sadly for us this was to be his last judging as he is retiring from the circuit at the end of this season, however we do hope that he will visit us in other capacities in the future.

There were some cracking images and Ken stated more than once that he was impressed by the standard of the pictures on show. We began with the Club open colour section and our congratulations go to winner Kim Rigg with Fishy Encounter, while new member Cathy Cash was runner up with Pouring Pomegranates. Both Kim and Cathy are very new to photography, so it’s a joy to see their images doing so well.

Next to be judged was the Advanced open colour section, with several photographs scoring top marks. 19 points were awarded to Dylan Reynolds with Familiar Taste of Poison, Jeff Bagnall with Red Hot Chilli Pepper and Simon Raven with Fresh Apple. Once again Maureen Smith and Jo Knight battled it out for the top spot, with Maureen’s An Apple A Day and Jo’s two images Gravity and Repast all being awarded 20 points. Well done to Jo who’s light painted Gravity (not a composite she is at pains to add!) was announced as overall winner.

As there were so many images to get through we forewent our usual half time break, though I snuck off to raid the biscuit tin as all the pictures of delicious food had given me the raving munchies 😆.

The next section to be judged was Club monochrome where 19 points were awarded to Phil Drayton for Dissolving Skittles, while Kim Rigg’s Line Caught Mackeral was announced overall winner. Kim’s skills have come on in leaps and bounds this season and I’m sure all our members are delighted to see her hard work and dedication rewarded 🙂.

An administrative glitch meant that Ken hadn’t seen or pre-scored the Advanced mono images, so he was very much put on the spot to judge blind which is a big ask. However he did an admirable job and commented on the strength of all the images shown. 19 points were awarded to Dave Nelson for Eggs, Maureen Smith for Love a Coffee and Jo Knight for Coffee with Milk. The top spot was fought over by Dylan Reynolds with The Core Explosion, Gavin Lowe with What’s Cooking and Jeff Bagnall with Egg. Our congratulations to Dylan whose image The Core Explosion was announced as overall winner.

Next week is critique night, with club members sending in images they need help with which will be viewed by 3 of our more experienced photographers who will offer advice on how the image could potentially be improved. The aim is to help members who are struggling with particular pictures, but we also hope the evening will act as a learning experience for all club members.

Competition: Inter-Club Battle

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Wednesday 27th January saw our annual inter-club battle with Morecambe Camera Club. Due to the lockdown we were unable to meet in person, which is a real shame as these events are a rare opportunity to meet up with members from other Clubs, however the competition went ahead via Zoom and was judged by Nick Hilton DPAGB EFIAP BPE5* of Southport Photographic Society.

It was fabulous to see such a wide variety of styles and genres in both colour and mono represented in the competition, with 50 images submitted overall, so I think it’s fair to say some members were disappointed that nearly two thirds of the entries from both clubs scored 15 points or less despite receiving generally positive critique from the judge. There was also disappointed in our Club that images which had been awarded multiple gold medals in Salons and Federation competitions didn’t score highly. It can be quite confusing when a picture does well in some competitions but badly in others and as a beginner photographer it’s something I found utterly bewildering. However, judging is a difficult job (don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it!) and always subjective – it would be a dull world if we all liked the same things.

Congratulations to Morecambe who were the overall winners on the night (not said through gritted teeth, honest 😁). For the second open competition in a row nature dominated the top spots, with all of the 18, 19 and 20 points awarded to wildlife images (sadly only one of which belonged to Kendal *sob*). There really were some cracking pictures and it was a delight to sit back with a brew and view so many inspiring photographs. We aim to try harder next year 😉.

Next Wednesday is our annual Editing Competition, which each member being given 3 random pictures to ‘improve’ as they see fit. The only rule is that there are no rules, though we are under strict instructions to have fun and be creative! Both guests and new members are welcome at our Zoom meetings, with half price membership fees for the rest of the season. Please see our membership page for more information and to book your slot.

Competition: Open

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Our first competition of 2021 was held via Zoom on Wednesday 20th January and judged by Simon Ray of Lytham St Annes Photographic Society. With two leagues (club and advanced) and separate competitions for colour and mono there were a huge amount of images covering just about every genre of photography, which made for a full evening though without our usual coffee break!

The winner of the advanced colour section was Russell Millner with his beautifully captured image of an ‘Arctic Tern in flight’. Dylan Reynolds’ cute pet jumping spider was runner up in his image ‘Sleepy Hollow’.

Nature themed images dominated the night, with Russell also winning the monochrome section with his evocative ‘Shaking in the Sun’. Runners up were Jo Knight with ‘The Stag’s Head’ and Simon Raven with ‘Mist on the Lake’.

Wildlife success continued in the club league, where the winner of the colour section was Robert Metcalf with his very well captured ‘Four Spotted Chaser’. Second place was shared between Kim Rigg’s ‘Over Kendal roof tops’ and Elaine Elrick’s ‘Looking at you, looking at me’.

Rounding off our outdoor themed winners was Ann Dallaway’s ‘Herdwick’ in the club monochrome section, with second place shared between Elaine Elrick’s ‘That Wanaka Tree’ and Alvina Labsvirs’ ‘Where To Now’.

Next week is our annual inter-club “battle” with Morecambe Camera Club. It’s a shame that, due to the pandemic, we can’t meet in person however the evening will proceed via Zoom, kicking off at our usual 7.30pm. Guests and new members are welcome – please see our Membership page for details of how to join in.

Competition: Leading Lines

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Our third club competition of the season was held on Wednesday 2nd December and judged by John Wiliams EFIAP/b, MPSA, DPAGB of Penrith & District Camera Club. A very experienced PAGB judge who has seen hundreds of thousands of images over his photography career John was nevertheless impressed with the quality of our images and admitted choosing the outright winners was a difficult task!

Two pictures were awarded 20 points in the Club Colour section: Going South by Ann Dallaway and Going Straight to Mount Cook by Elaine Elrick. Both photographs were an excellent representation of the leading lines theme and would have held their own in the Advanced league, so big congratulations to Elaine who was declared overall winner.

The Club Mono section was equally hard fought, with three images scoring 20 points: View from Under the Bridge by Elaine Elrick, Walk to the Pier by Kim Rigg and Wintry Road by Phil Drayton. Well done to Kim whose atmospheric Pier shot was overall winner.

The quality of images carried through to the Advanced League, with two photographs again being awarded 20 points: Bir Hakeim Bridge by Jeff Bagnall and Runaway by Jo Knight. I wouldn’t have liked to be the one to choose between these two very different pictures, so congratulations to Jo whose creative image just scraped the top spot.

Three photographs battled it out for first place in the Advanced Mono section: Glasgow Walkway by Dave Nelson, Beetham Tower by Maureen Smith and Walk to the Lighthouse by Simon Raven. Well done to Simon who was overall winner with his strong and dynamic Lighthouse picture.

Next week club members have the challenging task via Zoom of judging images sent to us from North Fylde Photographic Society. It’s always a joy to look at images from photographers outside of our own club and I’m sure it will be a fun and interesting night. Guests are welcome for a small fee – see our membership page for details and to book a Zoom place.

Competition: L&CPU club knockout

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Having had individual success in the Federation annual competition during the summer, our Club decided for the first time to enter the L&CPU Club Knockout competition which was held via Zoom on Saturday 21st November.

The rules requested we send in 8 images, although only the first 7 would be used in the competition, the 8th image being held back in the case of a tie break. We had to send the images in the order we wished them to be shown, and the first 4 pictures had to be from 4 different authors although up to two images per author were allowed.

At the start of the event, all images were shown on screen before judging began and we noticed that 3 of our entries were missing. Our External Competitions Secretary queried this and we were told that as 160 images had been received for the competition only 4 per club would be shown. Apparently, the rules state that “the number of images used in the competition will depend on the number of clubs entered”, although as a club we had no clue how many other clubs had entered or that there was a 160 image cap. So we had some very disappointed photographers who had gone to the effort of sending in their images only for them not to be used 🙁.

Of the four images used in the competition, three were thrown out in the first round. However, Jeff Bagnall’s ‘Broken Politics’ saved the day getting through to the final round of 11 images which is a fantastic achievement considering the high standard and number of entries. The judge, Mike Sharples of Smethwick PS, was clearly impressed with Jeff’s photograph and it was solely down to his image that Kendal ended up in joint 8th place overall out of 41 clubs.

I think it’s fair to say that our first forage into the Federation Club knockout was a learning curve in terms of how the event is run, but we’ll know for next year. Big congratulations, however, to Jeff on his very well deserved success and for representing the club 🙂.

Competition: Knock-out

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Wednesday 18th November saw our annual Knock-out competition, where pairs of anonymous images are voted on by club members and each photograph is either kept or knocked-out until one winning picture remains.

It’s usually a night of fun & banter, glow-sticks and shout-outs, but this year Covid put paid to the usual frivolity and we had to make do with quietly putting our hands up to choose our favourite image (although there were still blatant offers of bribery 😆).

As the night wore on it became more and more difficult to choose from the remaining excellent pictures, particularly when they were very different to each other, but we eventually whittled the contenders down to two final images: ‘Lakeland November’ by Jeff Bagnall and ‘Displaying Black Kites’ by Jo Knight. It was a close battle, but congratulations to Jo who was chosen as the over-all winner.

Our thanks to Jeff for all his hard work in putting together the competition.

Next week the club are virtual visiting with Permajet where we are very much looking forward to Colin Hulley’s talk on ‘Printing with confidence’. Printing well, including getting our images to match on paper what we see on our screen, is something many photographer’s struggle with and I’m sure we’ll pick up lots of tips on how to better our printed pictures. Guests are welcome for a small fee – visit our membership page for details and to book your Zoom slot.

Competition: Old, Broken or Decayed

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Our first set subject Club competition of the new season took place via Zoom on Wednesday 28th October and was judged by commercial photographer Joanne Withers. The evening was split into colour and monochrome sections with two leagues – Club for beginners & intermediate, and Advanced for more experienced photographers.

It was fascinating to see different club members’ interpretation of the brief, with virtually all genres of photography represented over the evening. It was also heartening to have such a high level of participation in the competition.

The Advanced Mono section scored well with the judge, with four images being awarded the top mark of 20 points:
Barbed Wire at Sachenhauzen Concentration Camp by Russell Millner
Forgotten Friend by Dylan Reynolds
Skull by Simon Raven &
Old Micrometer by Jeff Bagnall, with warm congratulations to Jeff who scooped the title of overall winner 🙂.

Barbed Wire at Sachnhauzen Concentration Camp by Russell Millner

The Advanced colour section also had four images scoring 20 points:
Going to Seed by Dave Nelson
Morris Minor by Jeff Bagnall
Broken Pencil by Dylan Reynolds &
Sunflower also by Dylan Reynolds
Dylan scored a hat-trick of twenty pointers on the night and also bagged the title of overall winner of the advanced colour competition. Apparently, Joanne’s cheque is in the post 😆.

There was a clear winner in the Club mono competition. Big congratulations to Ann Dallaway with her image of ‘Shavings’.

The Club colour section, however, was hard fought with no less than five pictures scoring top marks:
Trashed TukTuk by Alvina Labsvirs
Old Lime Kiln by Phil Drayton
Ghost House by Elaine Elrick
All Coiled up also by Elaine Elrick &
The Old Farmhouse by Ann Dallaway
Well done again to Ann, who pipped everyone to the post with her award of overall Club colour winner 🙂.

Club member Russell Millner is our speaker for the next Zoom Club meeting on Wednesday 4th November with his talk on ‘Photography over 50’. Fifty what, though, is the question. Fifty quid? Fifty frames per second? Fifty shades of grey? Join us as a guest to find out! Details on our membership page.

L&CPU Annual Novice Cup

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Judging for the 2020 L&CPU Interim Annual Novice Cup took place via zoom on Sunday 11th October. It is difficult to define what is a novice photographer, but it is generally considered as somebody who hasn’t competed in a lot of national/international competitions, who doesn’t hold photographic distinctions, or who hasn’t been in a club very long. Many of our members qualify as a novice and I’m delighted to say that several took courage in both hands and entered this regional Federation competition.

There were two sections, open and nature, with each photographer allowed to enter up to 4 images in each section. The Novice Cup is traditionally a Club competition and usually 6-8 images per Club are allowed to be entered, however due to Covid the rules for this year were changed and individuals entered under their own steam although there was still a Club award for both sections.

The nature section was judged first from 10.30am-12.30am and the standard for a novice competition was exceptionally high. I am therefore absolutely thrilled that the Gold medal for best nature PDI went to club member Russell Millner for his image depicting a ‘Family of Bears on Baffin’ 😃. The accolades didn’t stop there, either, as Russell was also awarded a Commended for his image ‘Polar Bear Resting’. Big congratulations to Russell on his success!

Judging for the open section began at 1.30pm and finished at 3.30pm. To those of us watching, the scoring seemed a little lower than in the nature section despite some really strong images so we were thrilled when club member Maureen Smith was Commended for her photograph of the ‘Imperial War Museum, Salford’. This is Maureen’s second award in L&CPU annual competitions this year and a great achievement on her first entry into Federation events 😀.

Everyone who entered the competition should be receiving their scores directly from the L&CPU shortly.

As I mentioned earlier, this is traditionally a Club competition and Kendal PC came 5th overall which is brilliant! Well done to all the members who entered and helped the Club achieve such a great result 😊.

We are a talented Club and I hope members’ successes this year will inspire others to have a go at regional and national competitions and to dip their toe in the water of International Salons, such as those run by FIAP, the PSA and BPE. More details can be found on how to enter salons in the Members’ section of our website.

Open Competition 30th September 2020

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Our first Club competition of the new season took place via Zoom on Wednesday 30th September and was judged by North Fylde Photographic Society. The evening was split into colour and monochrome sections with two leagues – Club for beginners & intermediate, and Advanced for more experienced photographers.

Members of North Fylde had previously spent an evening viewing our images and scores were a group consensus. Apparently there had been lively discussions with sometimes polarizing opinions but the Club had been impressed with the quality of our images, particularly in the monochrome section.

Paul King CPAGB and Dave Bibby CPAGB EFIAP BPE3* represented North Fylde and passed along the Club’s comments during an entertaining evening. Critique was positive and helpful with some really good tips on improving our pictures. It was particularly nice to see new members entering their photographs, which we all know from experience is terrifying the first time you do it!

Congratulations to Alvina Labsvirs who received the top score of 20 points for ‘Kingfisher’ in the Club colour section. Alvina also scored 19 points for ‘Night Watchman’, alongside Elaine Elrick’s ‘Passing Through’.

Alvina continued her winning streak in the Club monochrome section, scoring 20 points for ‘Fishing’, with Elaine Elrick’s ‘Night Reflections’ receiving 19 points. There were some cracking images in the club section, well done all!

Fishing by Alvina Labsvirs
Night Reflections by Elaine Elrick

In the Advanced league, congratulations go to Jo Knight who was awarded the top score of 20 points for two images, ‘Life Behind Bars’ & ‘Painted Lady on Thistle’ in the Colour section, while 19 points were awarded to both Dave Nelson for ‘Fell Ponies’ and Russell Milner for ‘Polar Bear Resting Before The Next Swim’.

In the Advanced Monochrome section, Jo was awarded another 20 points for her ‘Swaledale Sheep’ sharing joint first place with Gavin Lowe’s brilliantly titled ‘The Big Wobbly Thing’, with 19 points being shared by Dave Nelson for ‘Allium Red Mohican’ and Dylan Reynolds for ‘Lambretta in Mono’.

Our next event on Wednesday 7th October is a talk by Stewart Wood on macro photography, in particular jumping spiders. Extreme macro is a difficult technical subject and I’m sure we’ll all learn a lot, even if the arachnophobes amongst us will be watching from behind a cushion 😱

All are welcome to attend this Zoom event. It’s never too late to become a member of the club, or if you’d like to be a guest just for the evening you will find details on our membership page.

Club evening: Open Competition

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Club member Jo Knight treated us to a “brilliant”, “fun”, “inspiring” and “thoroughly enjoyable” evening via Zoom on Wednesday 23rd September. She kicked off with advice on how to use layers and masks in Photoshop, then went on to demonstrate two popular plug-ins, the results of which impressively took 30 years off her age – if only we could all do that in real life!

Our next club evening on Wednesday 30th September is our first competition of the new season, with an Open theme. Our images have already been assessed by North Fylde Photographic Society and representatives from North Fylde will give us their verdict and scores live via Zoom.

This is a great opportunity to see over 80 images in both colour and monochrome produced by club members with skills ranging from beginner, through intermediate to more advanced workers.

All are welcome to attend. It’s never too late to become a member of the club, or if you’d like to be a guest just for the evening you will find details on our membership page.

We look forward to seeing everyone next Wednesday for what promises to be an interesting and entertaining night!