The yearly results for our Members’ Evening Competitions are now in!
The Mono Print section was won by Simon Raven. In second place was Maureen Smith and in third was Dave Nelson. Well done Simon on your fab images over the year and congrats to Maureen and Dave.
The Colour Print section was won by Dave Nelson. Second place was awarded to Amy Bateman and third to Jeff Bagnall.
The PDI section mirrored the Colour Print with Dave first, Amy second and third Jeff. Big congratulations to Dave, a worthy winner, and well done to Amy and Jeff. Below is a selection of images from the PDI league and the winning authors: Tyan by Amy Bateman, Grand Central Station by Jeff Bagnall and Dawn from my camp by Dave Nelson.
Everyone’s scores over the year are available in the members’ section of our website.
Each year, The Lancashire & Cheshire Photographic Union (L&CPU) hold a print & PDI competition to find the best photographers in our region. The most successful images are then used by the Federation in national competitions against other Federations.
This year, due to Covid restrictions, the competition was PDI only and cleverly live streamed on Zoom so that any L&CPU member could log on and watch. The judging process is very different from that of a Camera Club competition, with no opportunity to study an image closely and marks being almost instantaneously given, which is how International Salons are also judged. It’s therefore important for images to have immediate impact and to stand out from the crowd.
There were 3 sections: Colour, Mono & Nature and judging the 2000+ images took a mammoth 8 hours! Slideshows of images from each section are available on the links below:
I am delighted to announce that 2 of our Members received awards in the Open Colour Section 😃. Both Maureen and Jo were first time entrants into the Annual and had images which were Commended. This is a brilliant achievement considering the exceptionally high standard of the entries – well done girls!
The Enemy Outside by Jo Knight
High Tide by Maureen Smith
Jo’s image depicting the Covid pandemic was also amongst the winning entries in a global competition run by FIAP, an international organization of national associations of photography. FIAP wanted to mark this important moment in history with images taken in our homes during lockdown and chose 10 winning images submitted by thousands of photographers from 90 countries across 5 continents. The overall winner will be announced in a Zoom ceremony in September, the prize for which is a trip to Oman in 2021 for the next FIAP summit. FIAP have also donated €30,000 to Covid research. Congratulations to Jo and good luck!
The club hosted another lively and fun Zoom competition on Wednesday 1st July, with an open subject. Attendance was slightly down on previous weeks but there was still a good selection of images and a wide variety of themes.
Before scoring began we discussed recording the Zoom meeting so that a video could be placed online, accessible to Club members only via a password for those unable to join in with the meeting. It was agreed we’d give this a go and will let members know via email if/when the video is available to view.
Congratulations to our winner Dylan, with his creative and technically difficult shot ‘Rainbow Drops’. Second place went to Jeff’s painterly and timeless photograph ‘On The Struggle’, and third place to Graham’s tack sharp and well captured ‘Nature In Perfect Harmony’. Well done guys!
Next week is the Club’s Annual General Meeting, with Gavin dressing up as a spaceman and Jo in a ballgown and wig (at least I’m sure that’s what was agreed, or maybe we’d all had a swig of Russell’s psychedelic elixor 😄). All joking aside, it’s an important night, albeit maybe not quite as exciting as our usual meetings, and I hope as many members join in as possible. See you then!
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic we had a reduced annual competition this year, with PDIs only and no prints. There were two leagues, beginners & advanced, and three categories in the form of nature, people/portraits and open which incorporated both mono and colour.
Our competition was held via Zoom and judged by Alan Walker MPAGB, ARPS, EFIAP, MPSA. Fifteen members submitted up to six images each, which made for a diverse and interesting night.
Big congratulations to Alvina who won both the People/Portraits & Nature categories in the beginners league, and to Kim who won the beginners Open category. Well done both on your cracking photos!
Reflections of Grasmere by Kim Rigg
Night Watchman by Alvina Labsvirs
Brahimi Starling by Alvina Labsvirs
The Advanced league was hard fought with some excellent images. Maureen and Jo both scored 20 points in the Open category, with Jo’s ‘Disobedient’ image eventually being chosen as the overall winner. She also scooped 20 points in both the Nature and People/Portrait categories.
Jade by Jo Knight
Disobedient by Jo Knight
Mallard with Ducklings by Jo Knight
I think we all enjoyed Alan’s positive judging style and really helpful comments on how to improve our images, even if we finished late and for some it was well past their bedtime 😉. I’m not sure Russell would agree, however, as his stunning dragonfly picture was assumed to be a composite, and had the judge known it was actually a perfectly legitimate wildlife picture the winner of the the advanced Nature category might have been very different!
Thanks as always to Dave for organizing the competition and to Gavin for hosting Zoom.
This Wednesday we are going for something a little bit different with an evening on editing. Dylan will be looking at how to edit images to produce a good monochrome, while Jo will be putting together a very simple composite in Photoshop. Hope to see you then!
The Club had its second Zoom competition on Wednesday 10th June. Sixteen members joined in a fun and interesting night and it was great to see such a wide variety of subjects in the images submitted.
The thing which always strikes me on competition nights is how varied everyone’s perception of an image is. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it’s perfectly true – we all like different things. All we can do is take the photographs we enjoy and if other people enjoy them too it’s a bonus.
The best part of competition nights for me, however, are the suggestions on how an image can be improved, whether that’s keeping an eye out for dust spots on your lens, removing cromatic aberations, cropping to improve composition or removing distracting objects we hadn’t spotted ourselves. We often get so involved in our photographs we miss things and when we see our image through someone else’s eyes it gives us a fresh perspective. Listening to the constructive critique of our own, and other members’, images is a great learning tool.
Congratulations to our winner Jo Knight, with her image of ‘Mongolian Man’, though she took huge offence to everyone thinking it was a selfie and she’d just let herself go during lockdown 😄. Second place went to Russell’s beautifully toned image ‘Wing Walking’, and third to Dylan’s brilliantly imaginative ‘DandylEYEon seed’.
Thanks to Gavin for hosting the meeting and Dave for his hard work in putting the competition together.
Next week is our Annual PDI competition judged by Alan Walker MPAGB, ARPS, EFIAP, MPSA. I hope as many members as possible will join in on the night to hear Alan’s thoughts on our images.
There are lots of avenues for our photographic skills outside of Camera Club evenings which I thought it would be nice to share. We all want to encourage our members and celebrate their achievements, plus I hope it will provide information on the varied ways we can use our photographs in the wider world.
I’ll start with offering massive congratulations to Amy Bateman, who has been shortlisted for Landscape Photographer of the Year. LPOTY is Britain’s leading landscape competition and attracts in excess of 30,000 entries each year. There is a £10,000 first prize up for grabs and winning entries are exhibited in Waterloo station, which has a staggering ¼ of a million people passing through it each day. A book is also available of the best entries. I don’t think Amy is allowed to tell us yet which image has been selected, and the winners won’t be announced until October so it’ll be a long wait, but it’s a huge honour to be shortlisted and we wish her lots of luck!
On a totally different theme, Jo Knight’s Lockdown image was chosen for the cover of the May edition of the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain’s newsletter. She also had an article included earlier on that month. The PAGB E-news offers a way of seeing other photographer’s work, keeping up with trends, finding inspiration and is a platform for keeping abreast of news from the Camera Club world. E-news welcomes articles written by members and it’s a great way of raising your profile as a photographer. Subscription is via email – click on ‘Sign Up’ on the top right of the home page.
FIAP (Fédération Internationale de l’Art Photographique) are running a one-off, free international competition called ‘We Stay At Home’ to mark the global Lockdown. Up to 4 colour, or monochrome, images can be submitted but they must have been taken after 15th March in the place where your lockdown occurred, which for most of us will be our homes. FIAP is an international organization of national associations of photography. More than 85 national associations are members, including the PAGB and therefore our Club, which means FIAP comprises nearly one million individual photographers. FIAP is the only international photographic organisation recognised by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and they run the FIAP distinction scheme (more info from the Salons & Distinctions link in the member’s section of our website). The closing date for the We Stay At Home competition is 31st May, so if you want to enter you’ll need to get your skates on.
We’d love to hear about any achievements by our Members! Please email details to the webmaster (contact link is in the Member’s section of the website).
Welcome to our new blog, keeping members updated and giving visitors to our website & social media a glimpse into life at the Club!
We were all disappointed to have to end the season so abruptly due to the Covid-19 pandemic and we’re not sure yet how the next season will pan out, but in the meantime Gavin has kindly organized Zoom meetings online which give Club members a chance to meet up in cyberspace.
Most of us had never used Zoom before and there were various technical issues, but we all got there in the end! There was plenty of dodgy lighting and dodgy hair-dos after 2 months of lockdown, plus the rule to raise your hand before speaking was abandoned very early on, but it was great to be able to see everyone in person and have a good catch up 😄
For anyone who hasn’t yet taken part and is a little bit nervous about using Zoom it takes only a few seconds to download on your mobile or tablet (search for zoom in your app store), or your laptop/desktop (download ‘Client for Meetings’ here). If using a computer make sure you have a webcam with microphone and Windows set to Allow Apps to use both (go to settings/privacy/camera on your machine).
Once installed, click on the Zoom icon to open, then click on Join A Meeting and enter the meeting ID number which will have been emailed to all members. You will then be prompted to input the password included in the email and that’s all there is to it! If you have any issues Gavin will do his best to help.
This week Dave organized our first Zoom competition. 18 images were entered, which could be viewed in the members’ section of our website, and voting done via email or during the zoom meeting. It was a really fun night, with a variety of excellent images and lots of helpful critique from members.
Big congratulations to our winner Amy, who took a wonderfully evocative image of ‘Rosie’s Lamb’. Second place went to Phil with ‘Castle Star Trail’ (apologies for earlier boo boo with the 2nd place image – note to self, only write blog posts at 6am after you’ve fully woken up and had at least two mugs of tea!) and third to Jo with ‘Lockdown’.
02-Rosies Lamb
04-Castle Star Trails
05-Lockdown
Next Wednesday evening we are Zooming to offer critique on any pictures members need help with – see Dave’s email for more info. Look forward to seeing you!
