COMPETITION TIME!
29th September 2025
The largest turnout of the new season greeted judge Peter Jones, when he came to decide our first competition of the year. As an open competition there was no theme and members old and new had risen to the challenge, producing 77 images across the three classes.
First came the colour prints and Peter’s key points soon became apparent. He really 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.
Peter held back the very first image, and this was soon joined by a further five, four of which were nature and the other two portraits. It seemed that the decision about how to award the higher marks caused Peter much more trouble than the initial screening. A common factor among the final six was that they all had backgrounds which did not compete with the subject.
After considerable deliberation, Lee Dalgleish was declared the winner with his beautiful image of a bee. Joint second prize winners were Simon Carr with a shot of two greater spotted woodpeckers; Alan Burkwood with ‘Cariad’, a posed shot of a well-lit young woman standing beside a pile of suitcases and leaning her elbows on them, and Tom Coulson with a characterful portrait of an equally well-lit woman with her hands holding back her hood. Unusually both images were praised for the positioning of the hands, which are always difficult to photograph well.
We moved straight on to the monochrome class, where the comments were much the same. In this class a number of people were judged to have areas which were too dark or which might have been improved by cropping. Images are shown against a black background and it is important to know where the photo finishes. To achieve this, it is often recommended to put a fine white ‘key line’ around the image. Peter commented on the ideal thickness of the lines he saw.
Although the class is monochrome, this does not mean only black and white. Most images benefit from a wide range of tones between these extremes to create detail and interest. Peter retained four of the photos for his final judging and after reviewing each of them, he awarded first place to Andy Stephenson with a well captured shot of three costumed reenactors entitled ‘Temperance Street’. Peter particularly liked the composition and that the characters were set against beautifully lit brick and cobbles.
There was a single second place winner in Simon Carr with his shot of a Joshua tree in the desert, which was a particularly good example of a range of tones. This time two members shared third place. They were Joyce Bell with ‘Solomon’s Tower’, and Jenny Smith with Low Tide. Strangely they 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 final class of the night had a bumper entry of 42. This presented Peter with quite a challenge. We had a six second preview of each image, which enabled Peter to quickly skip over several which he decided would be held back.
Our digital projection system allows all of the images to be shown together to assist the final judging. This helped Peter reduce the task in front of him. Five members came away with a pleasing score of 18, while much deliberation and a reassurance that we could have joint winners resulted in second place scores of 19 for reigning Junior trophy holder, Ami Haughton, with a colourful shot of the bridge and sculpture at Lincoln by night and new member, Robert Neal with his ‘Wasp at Rest’.
Peter thought long and hard before awarding his top score of 20 to two very different images. Melvin Lambert, also a relatively new member, had submitted ‘But is it Art?; 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 this month’s Retford Life magazine. On this occasion his joint winning shot was of a fox in the snow, which was very well captured while the snow was not over exposed.
Next week we welcome Ashley Franklin with the first of his presentations entitled ‘Wider World of Photography 1’
You can find us in St Joseph’s Hall, Babworth Road, Retford at 7.30pm On Monday nights until 8th December 2025 when we break for Christmas.. Our web site: www.retford-photographic.co.uk is the place to look for more information about the club. Feel free to drop us a line if you would like us to look out for you when you arrive.
First came the colour prints and Peter’s key points soon became apparent. He really 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.
Peter held back the very first image, and this was soon joined by a further five, four of which were nature and the other two portraits. It seemed that the decision about how to award the higher marks caused Peter much more trouble than the initial screening. A common factor among the final six was that they all had backgrounds which did not compete with the subject.
After considerable deliberation, Lee Dalgleish was declared the winner with his beautiful image of a bee. Joint second prize winners were Simon Carr with a shot of two greater spotted woodpeckers; Alan Burkwood with ‘Cariad’, a posed shot of a well-lit young woman standing beside a pile of suitcases and leaning her elbows on them, and Tom Coulson with a characterful portrait of an equally well-lit woman with her hands holding back her hood. Unusually both images were praised for the positioning of the hands, which are always difficult to photograph well.
We moved straight on to the monochrome class, where the comments were much the same. In this class a number of people were judged to have areas which were too dark or which might have been improved by cropping. Images are shown against a black background and it is important to know where the photo finishes. To achieve this, it is often recommended to put a fine white ‘key line’ around the image. Peter commented on the ideal thickness of the lines he saw.
Although the class is monochrome, this does not mean only black and white. Most images benefit from a wide range of tones between these extremes to create detail and interest. Peter retained four of the photos for his final judging and after reviewing each of them, he awarded first place to Andy Stephenson with a well captured shot of three costumed reenactors entitled ‘Temperance Street’. Peter particularly liked the composition and that the characters were set against beautifully lit brick and cobbles.
There was a single second place winner in Simon Carr with his shot of a Joshua tree in the desert, which was a particularly good example of a range of tones. This time two members shared third place. They were Joyce Bell with ‘Solomon’s Tower’, and Jenny Smith with Low Tide. Strangely they 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 final class of the night had a bumper entry of 42. This presented Peter with quite a challenge. We had a six second preview of each image, which enabled Peter to quickly skip over several which he decided would be held back.
Our digital projection system allows all of the images to be shown together to assist the final judging. This helped Peter reduce the task in front of him. Five members came away with a pleasing score of 18, while much deliberation and a reassurance that we could have joint winners resulted in second place scores of 19 for reigning Junior trophy holder, Ami Haughton, with a colourful shot of the bridge and sculpture at Lincoln by night and new member, Robert Neal with his ‘Wasp at Rest’.
Peter thought long and hard before awarding his top score of 20 to two very different images. Melvin Lambert, also a relatively new member, had submitted ‘But is it Art?; 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 this month’s Retford Life magazine. On this occasion his joint winning shot was of a fox in the snow, which was very well captured while the snow was not over exposed.
Next week we welcome Ashley Franklin with the first of his presentations entitled ‘Wider World of Photography 1’
You can find us in St Joseph’s Hall, Babworth Road, Retford at 7.30pm On Monday nights until 8th December 2025 when we break for Christmas.. Our web site: www.retford-photographic.co.uk is the place to look for more information about the club. Feel free to drop us a line if you would like us to look out for you when you arrive.