We hadn't done anything like this for a long time, we had a knockout competition judged by the members. The rules were so simple as to be almost non-existent, each member could enter up to three prints of any age, but they had to be mounted on a 500x400mm mount. Two prints were shown at a time and the members voted on which one they thought was best.
Set Subjects, always a tricky one! You either love them or hate them but they do challange!
Chairman Anne arrived armed with at least three large bags of goodies and Audrey was already there setting out her wonderful mince pies.
Soon, Liz arrived to prepare and start heating the punch and we then set out the room with several tables with four chairs each. These had a coloured sticker on it and as the members arrived, Jean,recruited for the purpose, dished out at random coloured stickers for each member to display on their chests.
Thus, several teams of four all sat at separate tables for the quiz questions, composed by Anne and assisted by the charismatic Alex.
Our second PI competetion started with our new club projector, so once set up and tested showing good results we could look forward to a good evening of images with out any hiccups.
Our Judge for the night was Bob Webzell ARPS, We had another good turn out for this competition with 63 images to see.
Well, This report is very late due to some slight hiccups at the start of the year.
The first print competition of the season saw Carole SpeightARPS return to adjudicate our images. Carole is a member of Chichester Camera Club.
On Tuesday evening we participated with Worthing (hosts) and Steyning in the Mix Match Competition.
I normally write my reports in bed the morning following, with a mug of tea. However, on this occasion, my head was buzzing with stuff , so I have started writing this report in bed 'on the night'.
SCC was electrified this evening by Ken Scott's latest talk entitled 'Besides and Beyond'. Nobody could have failed to be inspired and motivated by Ken's pictures and enthusiastic words.
I have had the pleasure of hearing at least six of Ken's talks over the years and have always been very impressed with his passion for his photography, and indeed of his life generally.
The second print competition of the season saw Malcolm Bull adjudicateour images. Malcolm originates from Essex, but now resides in Shoreham and is a member of Steyning Camera Club, you can view Malcom's work on Flickr.
Malcolm is new to the judging circuit, having completed a judging course last year in the hope that understanding judging he would have a better idea of what judges are looking for in regards to his own images.
We are lucky to have Mike Eddows who is a proffessional theatre photographer as a member of our club. Mike offered to do an evening of hands on theatre photography for the club. We set out to create an image for a show poster and a couple of images for publicity.
Tamplin Stage Lighting very kindly lentus lights so we were able to create theatre lighting conditions.
The Regnum Print competition was held at the Southwick Community Centre and was hosted by Southwick CC.
Six stalwart members of our club attended the Wivelsfield Green Village Hall to cheer our club on in the Sussex Federation's Digital Image competition this Sunday afternoon.
Tonight, Martin Tomes, our resident 'Techno" gave us a very interesting and informative talk on HDR images and Panoramas.
Our World Globetrotter Paul Hayward gave us a very entertaining and humorous talk on his visit to Burma (now Myamar) followed by another trip to photograph the 'Horses of the Camarge'. Aside from his excellent images, he kept us well informed about the people and the customs in his very relaxed and at times very funny way of talking. Added to this there developed a lively interaction with the audience.
Twenty people attended our opening meeting which is about the same number as we get on a normal club night. We know of at least six members who are on holiday and of others who could not attend for one reason or another.
Jane Coward our Treasurer was kept very busy receiving subs for the new year.
Twelve members attended our 'Field day' at Eastbourne all of us successfully meeting at the entrance of the pier at 1.30pm.
Several of us purchased some very good fish and Chips from a counter just where we met, whilst others had excellent sandwiches further up the pier.
This year we had our annual barbeque in the garden of our new Chairlady Anne Nagle, which was a delightful venue with lovely views.
Alex, our top volunteer had stepped up to do the cooking but had to withdraw due to work commitments. So, another of our 'will do anything gentlemen, Martin Tomes stepped into the breach, and was assisted by another 'wll do anything' member Paul Hayward.
This was our last PI competition of the year, we had 66 images submitted, so a good night was ahead of us.
Our judge for the evening was Andrew Perry ARPS. PIs always have more of a turnout in images submitted than prints. This was a good evening of scoring by the judge with seven 20s, five 19s seventeen 18s given and nine 17s
20s
This was our third print competition of the year,
I always look forward to the print competitions as I love looking at well printed pictures, which is something that I struggle with! It is always interesting to see what prints are put forward by the members of the club, as some photos are better submitted as prints and some lend themselves towards PIs. (something that I have to work on for next season)
We were not dissapointed, our judge for the evening was Carole Speight ARPS DPAGB APAGB.
The AGM took up the first half of the evening but was preceded by awarding the competition cups for the season.This was slightly, but only slightly, embarrassing for the outgoing Chairman who had to award three cups to herself!
For the Best of the Year competition, we invited Ken Scott back to adjudicate our images and prints. Ken is a member of Steyning Camera Club and is best known for his mountain landscape photography. A respected judge on the camera club circuit, he is also an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society.
Last night we had the 'Mix 'n' Match' competition with Steyning and Southwick Camera clubs, held at the Steyning centre. We were in the smaller of the halls but we all squeezed in without a problem. Unfortunately it was badly attended by our club members, only eight of us, by far the smallest number of supporters.
Anyway, we had a lively time and a lot of laughs barracking the poor judge Mike Chambers from Eastbourne CC.; We have a great relationship with Steyning in particular as several of us regularly support their events and outings and have done over several years.
We had our panel competition night which was very badly supported in terms of entries, although quite a good number of members attended the night.
There were only seven submissions which were put up on our deluxe print easel by Alex ably assisted by Vice Chairman/lady Anne. the panels had been laid out so that members could have a good look at them beforehand and then they were displayed in a random order and the members present gave a mark out of 20 on a voting paper provided.
After this the authors of each panel was invited up to explain his or her panel.
Our old friend (not in years!) Walter came to judge our leg of the Southern Federation PI competition. Each club taking part gets a judge to mark all the entries in their league and then all the totals from all the other clubs who hold similar meetings are added up for the final result. We have not been doing very well.
The first thing that Walter commented on was the lack of titles being revealed for some very silly reason. It makes the job of the judge that little bit harder and does not always help the authors of the images as we will see later.
A loyal band of six SCC members attended the Adestra hall in Hassocks for the Crouch PI competition hosted by Mid Sussex CC. Ten clubs were entered with six PIs each. The judge for the evening was Clive Tanner FRPS.
In round one, Ian MacWhirter's 'Glaucous gull with Guillemot prey' was awarded 18 points a very good start as that gave us the lead straight away.
Round two saw Anne Nagle's 'Puma on the rocks' getting another 18, great. However Steyning collected a 20 (one of only five in total awarded)and this gave them the lead.
Rosie Armes,who has more photographic honours after her name than you can wave a stick at, gave us a rare showing of the most amazingly wonderful prints second to no other collection that I have ever seen at SCC. They were simply inspiring.
Rosie started by showing us her ARPS panel of 15 prints which were taken at a fairground and it was awash with bright colours. It illustrated how a collection of prints arranged properly can hold together and create a wonderful spectacle although some of the images on their own would not have impressed.
A good turnout of stalwart SCC members (eight of us) turned up at Heathfield for the Sussex Fed print competition. Unfortunately we did not do too well (as usual), however, one of our best photographers Jean MacWhirter did very well indeed to get one of only eight 20s out of the 100 prints entered.
Twenty clubs from all over East and West Sussex, and a couple from Kent, including some very good and much larger clubs than us took part, each entering five prints. This is in a different league to the Regnum Crouch competitions when only about ten clubs enter.
Martin gave us a very well prepared and thorough talk about flash photography. He was assisted by Liz Barber and used our ever willing vounteer Alex as a model. (He started off taking a couple of shots of Paul in his usual position at the front but thought better of it as the results were a bit scary!) Those of us who use Canon gear were asked to bring their flash guns, which I duly did, but forgot the batteries, plonker!
Our second set competition was judged by Tony Riley, and the subject was "Patterns in Nature".
The second Print competition of the new season was held on the 1stDecember. The Judge for the evening was Rosie Armes . Rosie is a member of Chichester Camera Club, lives on Hayling Island and has been photographing for about seven years and in that time has gained a plethora of distinctions.
Samples of her work can be seen at http://www.rosiearmes.com/rosie/Portfolio/Portfolio.html
To quote the Chairman!
We had a really enjoyable last night of our pre Christmas programme, thanks to a small band of people who really worked hard to make it.
Anne Nagle, Alex Swyer, the Chairman (Di Walker) and Audrey all were responsible for:
The venue was Wivelsfield Village hall and the competition was run by our friends at Steyning CC, and aloyal band of seven Storrington CC members turned out to see the fun.
This competition is altogether a step up from the Regnum Crouch events as there are always at least 20 clubs from East Sussex, West Sussex and Kent taking part, amongst whom there are some very good competitors.
Last night we had a real treat when Pete (as he is known to his friends) gave us a really entertaining talk about Photoshop. He is one of Chichester CC's top photographers and we have seen his work over many years at Chichester's annual exhibition at South Mundham village hall. This is an event not to be missed as Chichester have a large number of very talented photographers including Mike Davison who we trained at Storrington!!
The first Print competition of the new season was held on the 6th October. The Judge for the evening was Bob Webzell. Bob is self-taught in Photography and was awarded his Royal Photographic distinctions in 1999 and 2001. A past president of Brighton and Hove Camera Club, he supports educational developments in Tanzania.
The Regnum print competition was hosted by Bognor Regis CC at the St Mary's centre Felpham.
The Judge was Caroline Colgate ARPS and she was very good giving very specific reasons for all her marks for the entries.
Eleven clubs took part, but the evening was dominated by Chichester CC who started of with a 20 in the first round and followed that with two more out of a total of only six awarded altogether. Their lowest score was 16 for the brilliant shot of Carmarge Horses taken by Rosie Armes!!
Our first PI competition took place this week with 73 images submitted for scrutiny. For some this was a new experience, for others old hat, but just as hard for old and new alike. A new judge was selected for this first competition of the season, John Staples ARPS. The evening started with a run through of all the submitted images as requested by the judge, so he could get a feel of the pictures. Personally I think this is a wrong way to judge, as a preformed opinion can be formed on certain images rather than marking them one at a time.
We welcomed back Leslie who has become an annual attraction in our calender of events. This evening was devoted to layers. Some people (including me) have some difficulty in understanding the concept of layers. If I had had Leslie explaining them to me before I would have picked it up much faster. Leslie teaches Photoshop Elements at Lodge Hill Computer Centre, Coldwaltham, Pulborough if anyone is interested in improving their skills.
This second evening of our new season has been set aside for members to give a slide show of their 'stuff'.
We had lovely flower images from Daisy; A taste of Morroco from Chris West; A tripto Germany from Peter Pictall; A holiday in Iceland from Peter Michell; A boat trip to the Northern lights from Audrey all before the break.
Afterwards, Chairperson Di chose her favorite print from those entered and Charmaine Hayes won the bottle of wine for her image of a surfer (her son?) taken by her whilst in the sea herself.
Our first meeting of the season was very successful mainly because of the very encouraging number of new members who signed up to join us. Jane Coward nearly wore her pen out writing receipts. We have sadly lost two members to our friends at Steyning. Tim and Clive both felt that they would get more of what they want for their photography at Steyning which is a bigger club and offers more workshops and speakers. Both of them had committee jobs at Storrington and we are very grateful for all the work that they did for us.
Saturday dawned quite brightly but by lunch time dark and threatening clouds were very much in evidence and the Chairman person was visibly twitching in case she had to dash out and bring all the seat cushions indoors.
The evening started with the presentationof the cups for last year's competitions.
Walter Benzie, having giving a talk earlier in the season,came back to adjudicate the 'Best of the Year' for both Prints and PI's, with Martin taking the Print title and Paul taking PI.
At his suggestion we allowed Walter to allocate 1st, 2nd, 3rd and Highly Commended in this competition, rather than our normal method of allocating points, feeling that it was right in this contest as there is no league positions to be contested.
Print Competition
The third and final PI competition of the season was judged by John Lynch. This was the first time John had judged one of our competition and it was fascinating to see another style of judging.
For some time (years), I have been suggesting to successive fixture secretaries that I have a friend in Arundel who is a Theatre photographer who had said to me that he would come to camera club and give a talk on his work. This always fell on deaf ears.
However, we had a spare slot and Chairperson Di said “what about your friend Mike Eddowes filling the void?” And so I arranged it.
We held our judged by the members panels evening again this year. We don't get a judge in, everyone present is given a peice of paper and required to score each panel as it is shown.
Putting a panel together isn't about picking your three best images and presenting them all at once, it is about finding three images which work well together. That might mean similar shapes or colours or some other unifying theme.
This was our first photographic show for the general public (in my time in the club, and not including county competitions) but as we had recently hosted a couple of these, we were well versed in how to set things up. The event was at Pulborough Village Hall.
However, what gave us concern was whether we would be able to attract enough people to make the whole exercise work for us as a fund raising event.
Another of the club’s old friends, Walter Benzie ARPS cameto give us a talk on how and why he went about getting his Royal Photographic Society distinctions. Walter is a member of Guildford Camera Club and said he very much likes coming to SCC as we were the first club at which he judged a competition, we in turn like him coming to either judge or talk as he has such a relaxed, honest and straight up way of talking, which is also very amusing and downright funny.
This event was held on 13th March at Hailsham and was hosted by Rottingdean and Lewes CC. An almost capacity audience enjoyed the ensuing battle between the 22 clubs that had entered. Liz Boud judged the 110 prints with competence, good humour and consistency, few if any authors could have felt unjustly treated. Storrington's fortunes fluctuated by the round, at one time it looked as if we were heading towards the lead, but we ended equal 7th with our usual rivals Steyning. The surprise in the results was Chichester CC at next to bottom - they are used to being at or very near the top.
The Regnum Crouch P.I. competition was held at the Steyning Centre and was hosted by Littlehampton CC. The Judge was Chris Palmer ARPS AFIAP DPAGP APAGB who has more decorations than WWII General Montgomery. He gave very few high marks, three 20s, one 19 and two 18s. He did not like SCC's offerings and our highest scorer was Charmaine with her portrait of her Son, 'Out of the Darkness' which he awarded 16 points. All our other entries got 14 or 15, and we ended up joint 8th out of eleven clubs with 88 points.
We hosted our first at home Southern Federation competition this evening with our friend Trevor Gellard returning for the second time this season to judge. We have been members of the Southern Fed for quite some time to enable us to get a good deal on the club's insurance, but as its member clubs are all so far away we have never taken part in anything with them. With the advent of the PI competitions of course we can now enter stuff by sending a CD, job done.
