A Photo Finish

Meeting Report

It was good tosee such a gathering of Storrington members at the Barn Theatre in Southwick last night for the 2016 Regnum Crouch Projected Image competition. Before the main event started I’m sure we had already won the prize for the highest proportion of a club’s membership in attendance. It was especially good to see the MacWhirters whose house move has kept them from club evenings recently.

After the introductions, and the customary plea for clubs to attend the Regnum Crouch AGM, Alec Pelham introduced Wayne Grundy ARPS, the judge for the evening. This event is pre-judged so the scores and indeed, the results, are known beforehand although kept under the greatest secrecy. Wayne explained that this had given him the opportunity to take a particularly close look at the photographs from all eight clubs taking part and was so impressed by all the images that his marks were only in the range 17-20 – a close competition in prospect then.

The first image of the night was one of ours – Derek’s “Bee Eater tossing a Bee”. Kind words from the judge on all aspects of the picture – and we opened our account with a 20 and the customary round of applause.

Next round we were represented by Anne’s “Salisbury Cathedral Font”. Again kind words from Wayne but he had some reservations about some of the colours in the background part of the picture – rather bright and over-saturated to his eyes. Even so this excellent shot scored 19 and we were still in the lead.

Then we were in Jean MacWhirter’s safe hands with her “Little and large” picture of a huge elephant seal being given the eye by a tiny bird. This is such an enjoyable image that surely no marks could be lost for composition but was Wayne happy with the technical aspects? Yes, of course he was and another 20, more applause and off we went to the tea interval in joint first place with Worthing.

Suitably fortified we returned for Martin’s “Broadway Tower” landscape to go into bat for us. More kind words and the suggestion that the image might have some commercial potential but then Wayne mentioned the dreaded HDR word and a score of 18. But that was the same as Worthing’s score that round so we were still in the joint lead but with Steyning coming up on the rails.

Next Derek again and his “The blackbird and the wasp” picture. After praise for all technical aspects of the photograph the judge gave us his thoughts on dividing a picture in half by the horizon – generally not be encouraged he thought – but in this case, because of the reflection it was alright and 20 it was – well done Derek again. But also 20 for Worthing and for Steyning – very tight at the top.

So the decider – Worthing fielded a striking but rather odd picture of sunset rain over Brighton – odd because the position of the sun would seem to indicate a sunrise picture. However Wayne took it on its photographic merits but thought that the Armageddon sky was rather over saturated which spoilt the image – 18 – we were still in with a shout. Steyning had entered another Brighton picture, this time of a busker under railway lines near the station. We held our communal breaths as it scored 18.

Then onto the last picture of the night, David Seddon’s “Uniform Squared” – by this time I was pretty sure we’d won as the order would have been arranged so that the deciding winning picture would be displayed last. It all started well with praise for the composition and content and how well suited it was to monochrome. Home and dry I thought. But then “It’s a bit bright at the top – I’d have toned that down” and “it could be a more punchy monochrome conversion”. Oh dear – were we to fail at this eleventh hour – were we to have to share the spoils or could we still win outright? Then the score, with its announcement delayed in the best reality television manner - 19 – we’d won by a single point with Steyning third.

The best image of the night was by Keith Brooks ARPS from Mid Sussex entitled “Against the Light”. Quite simply a stunning shot - of hot-air balloons taking off at a rally in France. Just a wonderful image – I don’t think that there would have been many present who doubted that this would be the winning image from the moment it was first shown.

So the formalities remained. Alec Pelham asked “What is it about Storrington? A sleepy place in West Sussex with a very small camera club – have they nothing better to do than take great photographs?” A good observation, particularly about the size of the club, which is the wonderful thing about our success in this competition.

I collected the trophy, and made the same joke as I made when I collected the print trophy last year – I don’t think anyone noticed! Of course all congratulation and thanks are due to our members who contributed to our success on the night – but this is a whole club effort. As in everything competition improves the breed and the overall high standards in our regular competitions are what have elevated our very best images to be the best in the county.

So next year all of us must up our game to get our images selected for the county competitions. We must try and win the Regnum Print and the PDI in the same year – that would be a thing!

The results

1 Storrington 116 (maximum 120)

2 Worthing 115

3 Steyning 113

4 Mid Sussex 112

4 Littlehampton 112

6 Southwick 111

7 Henfield 109

7 Chichester 109

The full results can be viewed on the Regnum Crouch website.

A Bee eater bird tossing a bee

Bee Eater Tossing a Bee by Derek Grieve

 

Broadway tower

Broadway Tower by Martin Tomes

Small bird with an elephant seal

Little and Large by Jean MacWhirter

 

Salisbury Cathedral Font

Salisbury Cathedral Font by Ann Nagle

 

A blackbird with a wasp

The Blackbird and the Wasp by Derek Grieve

 

Escalators with people on

Uniform Squared by David Seddon

 

Submitted by Chris West on