Retford and District Photographic Society got back to business in September with Chris Newham talking about his photographic exploits on the Faroe Islands. The club’s landscape-loving members were able to indulge their tastes without the ‘abundance of weather’ Chris spoke of and the effect these can have on camera work.
At the end of the month, after a practical evening, the club held their first competition. Judge Peter Jones evaluated the 77 images entered across the three classes. Peter clearly doesn’t like distractions, be they highlights on the edges, overly bright whites or busy backgrounds. He likes well controlled exposures, interesting compositions and pin sharp subjects. He was very impressed by the quality of the work, and in particular the nature images.
After considerable deliberation, Lee Dalgleish was declared the winner of the colour print class with his beautiful image of a bee. Joint second went to Simon Carr with two greater spotted woodpeckers; Alan Burkwood with ‘Cariad’, a posed shot of a young woman leaning her elbows, and Tom Coulson with a portrait of a woman with her hands holding back her hood. Unusually both portraits were praised for the positioning of the hands, which are always difficult to photograph well.
In the monochrome class, Peter awarded first place to Andy Stephenson with a well captured shot of three costumed re-enactors entitled ‘Temperance Street’. Simon Carr took second with his shot of a Joshua tree in the desert with a good range of tones. Two members shared third place. Joyce Bell’s ‘Solomon’s Tower’ and Jenny Smith’s ‘Low Tide’ were fairly similar, both including posts which provided lead in lines to the key element in the photo, and both were praised for that.
The digital class had a bumper entry of 42. After a six second preview of each image, Peter could quickly skip several which would be held back. Five members scored 18, while much deliberation and a reassurance that we could have joint winners resulted in second place scores of 19 for junior member Ami Haughton, with a colourful nighttime shot of the bridge and sculpture at Lincoln and new member, Robert Neal with his ‘Wasp at Rest’.
Peter struggled before awarding his score of 20 to two very different images. Melvin Lambert’s ‘But is it Art? was a well spotted shot of a wrecked bicycle pushed into a waste bin with one wheel and much of the frame pointing skywards. His fellow winner was Mike Vickers, whose wonderful image of a bear chasing a salmon graced the front of October’s Retford Life magazine. On this occasion his joint winning shot was of a fox in the snow.
You can find the club in St Joseph’s Hall, Babworth Road, Retford at 7.30pm on Monday nights until 8th December when they break for Christmas. Visit http://www.retford-photographic.co.uk for more information about the club.