This evening we were very happy to welcome back Paul O’Toole who has judged several of our competitions in recent times. He is Irish (there’s a surprise!?) and looks just like a shorter version of Chris Evans, but without the very recent birth of Twins. Folk who do not listen to Radio Two will not know what I am talking about.
We had been asked to submit two images for discussion by Paul (and the audience at large). As he had been sent them in advance he had added his version of the same subject matter of several of these images. Thanks to all who contributed, 24 I believe, plus those that Paul added.
Things started fairly slowly with extended discussions about the first few images so that by the break we were not nearly half way through the images up for critique.
So Paul had to put his skates on to get through the remainder which probably meant that the later pics escaped with less said about them.
We had some very varied views about the merits or otherwise of each picture and several times the authors were asked to tell us why they had taken their shots. The answer was nearly always because they liked their subjects and the way that they had taken them. It was agreed by all that the most important person to please was always the photographer, and never mind what others thought of them, least of all competition judges!! One of mine was written off with the comment why did you bother to take that!! In the old days in competitions such pictures were labelled as a 'record shot' and given a low mark!
In the event there were some very frank views and criticisms of the images and I am sure that we all took away some useful advice.
Thank you Paul for a very enjoyable evening, just listening to your Irish lilt was a pleasure in itself.