Not so good this time

Meeting Report

The Crouch Projected Image competition was hosted bySteyning and held at The Henfield Hall, Henfield. Ten members of SCC attended.

The Judge was David Eastley and he started by pointing out that all the images that he was judging were the best from our respective clubs and therefore he was going to be very harsh in his marking to spread the marks: which he did from 13 to 20. The overall average mark was 17. He also pointed out that the authors worked of their images on their computers; David judged the images on his computer and now they are being shown on Steyning’s computer and projector and therefore there were going to be differences in rendering of the images. And so it proved to be with, David saying time and time again (mainly with B W images) that this image was much darker on his computer. Sometimes this meant that this turned out better, but mainly not so well.

Eight clubs took part with each club submitting eight images, so 64 in total. We won the competition last year with a lot of very high marks but sadly we could not repeat that performance this year. Steyning and Chichester produced the most high marks both with three 20s (last year we got three 20s as well).

During the evening there were some outstanding natural history images with our Anne Nagle producing two of them.

In round One there were two - Mid Sussex’s with a superb ‘’Nuthatch’ (19) and Steyning with a brilliant ‘Bee on a Flower’ getting 20. Alex’s ‘Squash’ got 15 in this round.

In round Two, Steyning got another 20 with another very good natural history image of a sea eagle just up from the water with a fish in its talons. David Seddon’s ‘Lake view’ got 17 and at this stage we were fourth overall.

Round Three, Southwick got a 20 with a superb portrait, but sadly Ray’s ‘Looking down the long mile’ only got 13. Again there was a superb dragonfly image.

Round Four Alex’s image ‘Wish I had a finger’ (a BW picture of a bison with its tongue up its nostril) caused laughter and Judge David said it was the best title of the evening. It gained 19 marks. Again there was a superb picture of a Vulture, looking straight at the camera from Henfield. We were now seventh with Steyning first and it was time for tea and coffee.

Afterwards, Round Five and David Seddon’s ‘Derelict Shed’ got 16. Southwick got the only 20 with ‘Pride’.

Round Six was our best with Anne Nagel’s beautiful ‘Wild Swan Anemone’ getting 20. This was the round with the most high marks with Chichester getting 20 with a very good Fungus image. Steyning was still lying first and we were sixth.

Round Seven and another outstanding image from Anne Nagle of two Bee-eaters - one with a dragonfly in its beak got 18 (deserved more in my opinion). Mid-Sussex got a 20 with a really great image of a kingfisher with a wriggling fish in its beak.

Finally, Round Eight and Jane Coward’s ‘Wet feet in the frame’ got a 17. Again Henfield had a great image of a Red backed Shrike getting 19. But the winning image of the round was Chichester’s ‘Aurora Reflections’ which got a 20.

This gave the final result with Steyning top with 144 marks; Mid-Sussex and Chichester tieing in second place with 143. Storrington came fifth with 135.

You will see very different marks for the same images entered in the South Downs Trophy competition. There were only four clubs taking part in the later and the clubs that also took part in the Crouch also entered their same images in both competitions. (I received some criticism for us entering the same images in both comps.)

Submitted by Derek Grieve on