The Regnum Print competition is one of two conducted by the Regnum Crouch group between 6 camera clubs from Henfield, Littlehampton, Mid-Sussex, Southwick, Steyning and Storrington. In the print competition 8 prints from each club is presented and judged in a series of rounds. This year the judge was Paul Graber ARPS from Guildford.
This talk was originally commissioned in 2019 when she was artist in residence at Parham House. A confident, enthusiastic and entertaining Elizabeth Zeschin delighted members with a life in photography presentation. Born in the USA she studied theatre in Chicago before becoming an assistant to a leading theatre and film photographer.
Our first competition of the 2023-24 season was ‘any subject’ and took place on 19 October 2023. It was judged by David Hughes of Godalming Camera Club and an accomplished wildlife photographer.
Throughout, David gave copious feedback which was helpful to all and made for a very enjoyable evening. He was particularly impressed by the quality of the printing.
For this season the scoring system has been changed; judges are being asked to choose their favourite image and then a number of Highly Commended and Commended images.
Influenced by the radio programme 100 Best Tunes John Bradshaw FRPS brought 100 interesting images to the club covering his over 30 years of photography. A member of Chichester Camera Club and the Arena and Focus groups of leading photographers, John talked about five different genres of photographs that were far from being "snaps".
Although generically called critique the term is not universally popular and an alternative of "critical assessment" was introduced by the chairman as four groups of members sat down to peer review 12 images from four of their peers. We have held critiques before where the whole audience is free to comment on the presented image but this time the format was changed.
The first meeting of the new season began with both a welcome and a farewell. Some new members joined returning stalwarts for a welcome to the club only to be followed by Janet Brown, the chairman, explaining that she was standing down on health grounds. Fortunately Chris West, a former chairman, had agreed to fill the role until the end of the season. He then proceeded to outline the programme of competitions, talks and experiences. Members then provided some examples of their activities during the break since the end of the previous season in May.
As is traditional the final meeting of the year was the Annual General Meeting. After the formalities of apologies and previous year minutes the chairman Janet delivered her report on an eventful year with its usual mixture of meetings, competitions, photoshoots and hints and tips. In external competitions we held our own and had particular success in the SCPF PDI championships where we came sixth out of thirty eight clubs.
Based in Dublin Joe Houghton is a professional photographer with a day job as a professor of management at a Dublin university. He runs a photography training business and was Nikon’s trainer in Ireland for 10 years. He began his talk with the Henri Cartier Bresson image Behind the Gare St Lazaire, arguably the earliest street photograph. It would be panned by judges today but is one of the 100 best photographs of all time according to Time magazine.
Our final competition of the year, “The Best of Year”, took place on 27 April and was judged by David Eastley. A welcome visitor, David has judged for us a number of times before. His photographic interests are wide ranging and he loves to “push the boundaries and promote creativity” in photography. He described how photography is evermore becoming ‘photographic art’. He shares the view of many club members that what is important is the end result, the impact on the viewer, and not how the image has been achieved.
Our fifth competition of the 2022-23 season took place on 13 April 2023 and was judged by Paul Graber ARPS, from Guildford Photographic Society. Paul was a welcome visitor who has judged for us before.
This was a set subject competition: ‘Abstract or Experimental’ for prints and ‘People’ for projected images. Paul explained what he would be looking for in these set subjects.
Abstract / Experimental: is there an air of mystery and do I have to think hard about what the image is?
