The Lows and Highs of Competition

Meeting Report

Five of us gathered yesterday for theSussex Federation Photographic Competition. We met at a new venue, The Kings Centre Burgess Hill, and also on a new day a Saturday. I am not sure if the change of day had an effect on the attendance generally or not, but I felt there were fewer people than last year when it was clear we had out grown Wivelsfield Village Hall. The Kings Centre can hold 500 people.

The doors opened at 1.30 so there was plenty of time to view the prints prior to competition, buy raffle tickets, and get refreshments. The number of competition entries I have also seen at other competitions struck me. Now at Print Competitions the images are also projected as PI’s so that everyone can see the image if they are not able to view the print so well. This made me think how one almost needs to Print an image and also have a PI to compare it with to see which medium suits the image best, as certainly some viewed better as PI’s than Prints. I don’t know about you but by this stage of the season I am usually scrabbling around for Competition entries and put in whatever comes to hand rather than thinking which medium suits the image.

In the first two rounds we scored quite low, but in the third round Ian Mac Whirters Suburban Sophistication scored 20. This is a lovely image of a fox drinking from a birdbath in Ian’s garden. So we went into the break happily 8th out of 19 clubs.

Round 4 and 5 saw us scoring 17 for Crowned Crow by John Gauvin and Quiet Moment by Ray Foxlee, the Judge liked both the images. Instead of the scores table being shown after every round they were shown at half time and at the end of Round 5.

At this point the raffle was held and John Goodfellow and Jean Mac Whirter won prizes. There was a separate raffle for an Epson Printer, I know Ian hoped to win it but sadly it went elsewhere.

Following the Raffles we came to the Best Image of the Competition and very deservedly it went to Ian, the Judge told how much she liked this image and how well the cheekiness of the Fox had been captured. So Ian received his cup, which he has previously won in 2008. So well done to Ian and all those who had entries in the competition.

The winning club was Rye and District with 96 points. So congratulations to them on a lovely set of images. We came 5th in the Competition, this was a big improvement on our 10th place last year.

Our Judge was Chris Neill-Griffin B.A in Photography, who may soon be awarded an MA. She knew what she liked photographically and as she explained had to be nit picky at this level. Her marking range was 13 – 20; only five images were awarded 20’s. Her critic was helpful and she particularly picked up on technical faults within the images, post processing and printing. She also felt some of the images were too closely cropped. At one point when she awarded a 13 to a particular image there was an audible gasp from the audience and Chris reminded us about judging being a very subjective thing. Well done to Seaford Photographic Society for hosting the event so ably, not so easy to do in a new venue.

The Sussex Photographic Federation who is responsible for this Competition is looking to drastically change the competition in the future. We as a club need to look carefully at the proposed changes and consider whether it is the right way forward or not.

Submitted by Anne Nagle on