There was a good number of entriesto this set subject, and a very high standard of varied images. Most were black and whites, but there were a few sepias, although one of mine was a “false orangey colour” in our judge’s words, so take care out there next time round! The main advice was to think whether the toning added or subtracted from the image. With just a couple of the entries, he would have liked to see the colour version, as he felt that converting to black and white doesn’t always work.
The judge was David Eastley, and I would highly recommend him for future competitions. He marked between 13 and 20, and there were not too many hitting the top scores. It certainly felt like a fair reflection of the images. As our chair, Anne said in her summing up at the end, we had heard some interesting comments and critique, and we all had things to go away and work on to improve our understanding of monochrome.
The evening was won by Liz Barber for her “Rudbeckia”, and she arrived in the nick of time to witness her first ever competition victory. Well done to Liz for her image, which the judge said had a timeless feel, and could be a Victorian picture. He also commented on her good technique and control of the printing process and fine detail. The control of the printing was a recurring theme of the evening, with a few images unfortunately falling victim to a colour cast.
The other 20s were Derek Grieve’s “Downs Way”, one of the traditional landscapes the judge enjoyed; Ian McWhirter’s “Fox Drinking” providing one of the “aaah” moments of the evening with his excellent portrait of a wild fox at his garden birdbath; and Ian again with “Falling water Iceland” which was probably one of my favourites (I don’t suppose you’ll be surprised that it was a watery one for me!) with its two little figures showing the scale of the curtain of water.
The 19s were Ray Foxlee’s “After the Storm”, another landscape with a dramatic sky giving a sense of energy in the judge’s words; John Gauvin’s “Freesia”, another excellent flower image; and Ian again with “Summer evening, Honfleur”. Ian’s triple success has leapfrogged him over Di Walker and Daisy Kane for the lead of the Print Worker of the Year, so the final competition will be very interesting, with John Gauvin up into equal third as well! Ian has also jumped from 4th to 2nd in Photographer of the Year behind Ray, who still has an excellent lead. As my son would say, the competition is heating up.
The 18s were all beautifully simple images, which our judge liked a lot. He commented at one point, “the simpler the image, the stronger it becomes”. Hmmm I must try and remember that in my photography. Anne Nagle’s “Bird reflection” was beautiful, with a gull (?) on water, perfectly reflected, with some other vague reflections adding to the feel in the water; Di Walker’s “The Passageway” was an eye-drawing stroll down a deserted alley; “Into the Forest” by James Heath was a beautifully balanced image of textured tree trunks, I can’t remember where he said these were (sorry Jim, but I do remember that he said your image of the “Broads Wind Pump” was better than he had achieved when he had been there!); “Lion” by John Gauvin was a superb close-up of the lion’s head; and last, but by no means least, “Tim” by Juliette Lester. It is lovely to see another new member of the club doing well, and all of Juliette’s images got great comments. When seeing “Tim” the judge commented on the cleverness of the image, saying that it was “something very different from what he had seen in a very long time”.
Well done to all those who entered, now I must go and try and improve my images for the next competition if I want to stop sliding down the rankings!