‘Winner on the night’ Competitions both Print and Image, Tuesday 4th October

Hi Folks,

Winner on the night Competitions both Print and Image, Tuesday 4^th October

Mary Ward was invited to judge both the print competition in the first half of the evening followed by an image competition after coffee. The idea of  the early club competition was to give new members an idea of how these internal competitions work.

This year when entering any print competitions members will have to also enter their images on the club website before bringing along their prints, as now the images will also be shown on screen whilst the judges give their analysis of any print.

In the first half of the evening in the print competition there were seventeen entries and after the break there were a further thirty eight images entered for the image competition.

To start the evening we were shown a print of a super sunset with two anglers on a beach overseeing three fishing rods. The Judge said the pebbles lit by the orange sun made the picture. My thoughts were could this be the first sunset picture to win since joining, as everything about this print seemed to look great but the judge awarded a mark of 18.

The next picture was of a fountain in Chatsworth House and the judge said it has crisp clear detail and wanted it held back.

The next photograph to impress Mary was of a chef at a counter shaking a sauce bottle over a meal. Mary loved the orange colours of the sauces and the orange lighting which was in contrast to the grey steel fans and vents in the background. The print was held back.

Another sunset of a mill impressed me and also the judge ‘it seemed’ but was only awarded 17.

The next Print to be held back was a print of Brooklyn Bridge which was a study in B&W. The photographer had position themselves well said Mary and the symmetry of the structure led the eye to a flag flying at the top of bridge.

My white tree blossom seem to go down well with Mary and she said the print had a classy feel to the presentation was I to get a first 19 lol, well no just 17 but was still pleased as that has given me a benchmark for photographs I have held back for later competitions which I feel are better. That of course is no guarantee that the judges will be thinking the same lol.

Mary loved the print of a lighthouse in B&W and the photographer had just retained a red band around the lighthouse but she spotted the red edging just didn’t quite tie up with the white wall of the lighthouse but was still impressed to hold it back.

Of the four held back Mary awarded

1st place to Nick Bennett for the print of ‘Brooklyn Bridge’

2^nd to Mike Ashcroft for the ‘Under to pass sauce and serve’

3^rd to Chenxi Ni for the Lighthouse

prints were on display to have a closer look.

We then had an early coffee before the image competition started

There were so many for me to report on but I did keep the odd note on what was said about each one.

The first image was of a girl fruit picking which Mary liked, saying it was a beautiful study in B&W and the lighting made it look so natural, so she asked for it to be held back.

The next to be held back was an image titled Georgina, Mary said the dramatic red background made the model leap out of the image as well, she liked the detail in the scarf and the black shadow formed behind the model.

An Image called Red and Black which had a pattern design of a grid of red from a structure, revealing also it’s shadow in black and a couple of lines on a beige background made a good image for Mary to hold back

As the evening passed Mary was concerned that she may be running a bit late but was really impressed with a Flamenco Dancer it was immediately held back without much comment.

Another image of a stag was held back after Mary pointed out that some stags like to show grass and various pieces of shrubberies on their antlers to attract the female deer and she like the light shining on the spine of the stag.

The last to be held back was an image called the Engineer, Mary did say if we didn’t know anything about this character most would guess he was an engineer of some sort. Mary loved the way the light had been captured in his beard.

So the six held back were shown again and Mary decided to give 5 of them 20 marks and awarded the positions as follows.

1^st was to John Tindell for the Flamenco Dancer

2^nd was to Dave Cullimore for Georgina

3^rd place to John Tindell  for Red & Black

Next week we have

Practical Photography – White on White, Black on Black