General Notes from the Vice Chairman
On Thursday 29th March, we had Competition No. 5 on Any Subject. We had an overwhelming number of entries for the prints with 67 images. For the enprints we had 20, and for the slides 17.
The judge Ian Betts (who kindly replaced Ken Scott at very short notice) had suffered a migraine during the afternoon. However by the evening he was able to go through all these entries, and we thanked him for his great effort in judging so many, and for giving constructive comments on them all. I was very conscious of our time limit with so many entries, but we made it in the end.
The Committee is grateful to everyone who participated in this competition. It is pleasing to see the enthusiasm amongst all our members for competition work.
The coffee and tea rota now seems to be working well, thanks to the volunteers, without whom there would be no refreshments.
Our Chairman is back and will be with us for our next meeting on 13th April, “How Images can be turned into Art” by Graham Smith ARPS, which should be most instructive. Also on that night don’t forget to bring your entries for the next competition, which is No. 6 ”Best of Year”
Paul Hayward
2006/07 Fifth Slide Competition
Ian Betts, the replacement judge for this competition, survived his baptism of fire (67 prints & 14 enprints) and still had enough energy at the end of the meeting to give a very fair and unhurried appraisal of our 17 slides. Eric Keevy was awarded the “best slide” and 20 marks for “Foot in Mouth” a fine colourful slide of a Macaw doing just that. Derek Grieve (Soft Bloom) and Jean MacWhirter (The Eyes have it) both got 19 marks and John Goodfellow (Beach Huts) and Eric Keevy (Pelican) got 18 marks.
The Crouch Slide Competition has been held annually for many years but this year (held on 23rd March at Southwick) had an air of sadness about it. The expected 10 competing clubs had been reduced to 8 as Worthing and Henfield had both dropped out for lack of slide workers, yet another sign of the changing nature of photography. Chichester was a clear winner, dropping only 4 points out of a possible 100. Littlehampton was second and we came third, not a bad result as both those other clubs are considerably larger than Storrington.
Ian MacWhirter
2006/07 Fifth Print Competition
Our thanks to Ian for stepping in to judge this our last competition. He started by saying that he enjoyed our pictures very much and that a large proportion of them were of the standard seen in the Regnum competitions.
So, this was the decider. Peter Michell (our new star) was leading the field by one point from Eric Keevy, (one of our old time stars), with Martin Tomes two points behind him. Not far behind them were Chairman Peter, Vice Chairman Paul and our outstanding natural history photographer Ian MacWhirter.
We had our highest entry of prints ever – sixty seven!! We will have to rethink our competitions next season, or your print secretary may have a medical breakdown!
In the event Ian gave a good appraisal of all our works whilst being chivied along by me and Paul. He held back seven prints for final marks after the break. Along the way he awarded eight 18s to: Peter Michell for ‘the Rescue’; Robert Mitchell for ‘Firing up’; Diana Walker-Cleveland for ‘Ruana Bush Walk’ in her first ever entry in a competition – very well done Diana; Mary Crabb for ‘Blushing Bloom’; Peter Picthall for ‘The Link’ and ‘Artic Eyrie’; Martin Tomes for ‘Wing Walker’; and finally my ‘Through a crooked Gate’.
The 19s went to Mike Davison’s ‘In the shade’; Ian’s ‘First venture from the burrow’ and his ‘Black-browed Albatross in flight’; Peter Picthall’s ‘Pink Ice’; and finally Paul Hayward’s ‘Will you stop nagging’.
20 marks went to Mike Davison’s ‘Sand patterns with flower’, but the winning print was Ian’s ‘I took the short cut’, another king penguin picture. All the top seven pictures were very good indeed with top honours going to Ian and Mike Davison.
So, how did all this affect the final result for the season? Unfortunately Peter Michell did not get top marks this evening, however, he was able to maintain his winning position overall and came home 3 points clear of Martin Tomes, Ian MacWhirter and Eric Keevy who all shared second place together with the same score! (Peter gained four 20’s during the season). Close behind them was our Chairman Peter Picthall with one point less in fifth place, and vice-chairman Paul was sixth.
Very well done Peter in your first season back into photography. Martin and Ian did very well as we have come to expect, but a special mention of Eric who has always been amongst the top people at Storrington, apart from last season when he did not pick up a camera because he had health worries, now safely behind him.
This has been an exciting season with all the top people with only a whisker between them, but mainly because of all the new talent in the club. The overall standard has been of a very high order and all our beginners have been showing some great images so that we are assured that the competition will ‘hot up’ even more.
Finally, the en-print competition. Ian gave an appraisal of all the entries and awarded top place to Jane Coward with a lovely picture of a Robin, and second place to a picture of a Cat also taken by Jane, and finally third place to Peter Jeffries with his picture of a Rose.
This took Jane into the lead in the final placings for the season ahead of Sue Worsfold who came second. These two ladies have dominated the en-prints all season with Sue in the lead until this evening, and Jane amazingly being second in every competition, but managing to be first as well in this last evening. Very well done to you both, but especially Jane. Third place went to Diana Newnes. Well done to her too.
Derek Grieve
RPS Nature Group Success
As many of you know Ian and Jean MacWhirter take part in the Royal Photographic Society’s Nature Group. This year Ian had 5 prints accepted. one of which was awarded the Gold Medal (that means it was the best print) out of 105 prints. Ian also had 4 digital files accepted, one of which got a Selector’s Award. Jean did well with slides, having 3 accepted, one of which was Commended and another Highly Commended.
This was against stiff competition including photographers with FRPS & ARPS distinctions, some of whom are professionals. The accepted images are subsequently used to produce a slide show which goes to photographic clubs around the country and abroad during the following year.
Ian and Jean are both suffering from shock at having done so well, but it is believed that they will be back to normal soon. Congratulations go to Jean and Ian on this major achievement.
Martin Tomes
Full Enprint Results
Fourth competition 15th April 2007
1 Jane Coward Robin 3 2 Jane Coward Cat 2 3 Peter Jeffries Rose 1