Meeting Report

Judge Graham Smith ARPS

A big change from last months judge with 36% of the 58 entries achieving top marks (18-20). This was very much in line with Graham’s approach to judging, although his marks were down on last year. As usual the held backs were numerous which meant that John and I earned our money as competition secretaries.

20s

The winner overall was Ruth Calvert – Smith. Ruth is a new member and this was her first and only entry this season called “Bliss”. More a work of art than a photograph, but very much admired by Graham. Well done Ruth, perhaps you could tell us how you achieved the effect.

Joint second went to Max Burns with “Tulip” a beautifully conceived picture, and Martin Tomes with “Tranquility” which Graham felt would be great to see on a dentist’s ceiling to take your mind off the pain.

Other 20s were Martin Tomes again with “Hollyhock”, two from Ian MacWhirter “Female Siskin” and “Paired Common Blue Damselflies”, Ann Nagle with “Fox in the Rough”.

19s

Daisy Kane with “Langur Monkey Guarding Temple”, Ian MacWhirter with “Nestling Albatrosses” and Jane Coward with “Hug a Hound” and “The Swan Man of Bosham”.

Meeting Report

The competition was held at Hailsham and six of our members attended. The judge was a very amusing gentleman by the name of Clive Tanner.

In Round One, Daisy Kane was only awarded 15 points for her beautiful picture of an Indian lady surrounded with her cooking pots, which must have disappointed her greatly (she was there). Paul and I both agreed that when projected here, it lacked the real colour saturation that it had when viewed elsewhere previously. This is one of the problems with P. I.s in my opinion. Slides were always the same.

However in Round Two our fortunes changed with one of Chairman Peter's renown naked lady pictures entitled 'Katie' which was awarded 20 points much to our great delight. Very well done Peter.The judge was very taken with both her and you!

Next up in Round Three, we had Paul Hayward's 'Mist Sunrise' with its fantastic recession of hills which was highhly praised and given 17 points. So, at tea time we were lying third and our spirits were high - mine especially as I won a bottle of whisky in the draw.

After the break we had Jean MacWhirter's 'Gentoo Penguin feeding Chicks' which was credited to Ian both here and in our newsletter. Sorry for someone's error Jean, but it made Ian smile with delight when it scored 19 points. This gave rise to rounds of applause and put us up to Second place.

Meeting Report

Paul gave us a really amusing talk on his trip to Antartica towards the end of last year.

He had us smiling and laughing throughout with his descriptions of his companions and some of the incidents that occurred, all the time showing his wonderful images of the ship, the rough seas and the fantastic Artic scenery; but above all, his wildlife shots of the penguins, seals, sea lions and the birds  with a 'winning shot' of an albatros in flight.

Amongst his fellow passengers were Chris Patton the wildlife photogapher and current presenter of Autumnwatch and the travel reporter for the Independent newspaper Simon Calder who used to do travel reports on Radio 2 on Saturday mornings.

Finally, he showed us a video made during the trip by a fellow traveller who has worked with David Attenborough.

Thank you Paul, we all really enjoyed your evening.

Derek Grieve.

Meeting Report

Our first competition went very well with Tony Riley standing in for Walter Benzie as our judge. Derek Grieve got the best print award.

You can read more about it in our October newsletter.

The results are now out.