OPEN COMPETITION 1

Judge Phil Newman had an excellent response to consider in this season’s first competition. He was consistent and there was no doubting his likes and dislikes. Top of the list were bright things anywhere in the image followed closely by images which were too dark. He identified where he felt a stunning image hiding was in what he saw with and gave suggestions for improvement which assumed familiarity with Photoshop and isolating elements to adjust independently. Less experienced members could take heart from knowing they had taken something essentially good.

Phil made a number of references to cropping, but only to remove things detracting from the focus on the main subject. This often related to another of his major bug bears – incomplete items on the edges such as cropped off bases of umbrella stands and pier supports; parts of the scene cut off apparently without reason; chimneys with no pots – remove them entirely or get them all in and truncated trees on the horizon.

Phils suggestions for both processing and composition were useful. He liked simplicity and the use of a small human figure in a wide view for scale. In a passing comment he revealed that the horizon should never be central. He also referred to shots taken by simply raising the camera to eye level and suggested getting down or up to improve the perspective although he admitted getting low is harder these days – a comment which could well apply to many of us.

Eyes without light look dead. They need a catch light to bring life to the image. Other shots were commended for their striking simplicity while over busy images, where the eye never settled, were penalised. Phil also looked for a narrative to make sense of the image.

The big winners were nature shots, which surprised Phil who admitted it was not his specialist area. The printed images were judged first with Simon Carr winning with a very sharp shot of a golden eagle. Joint second were Joyce Bell, a long-time member with her giraffe with its head in the clouds and new member David Wagstaff with a female portrait of commendable simplicity.

The monochrome print winner was Andy Stephenson with a delightful shot of a hedgehog which clearly enchanted Phil. He declared that technically it was spot on, but it had something about it which went beyond that. Joyce Bell and David Wagstaff again shared second place. Joyce’s shot was a striking skeletal tree and David’s was a portrait of a bearded man with heavily tattooed arms. Phil particularly liked the way the arms framed the beard, but not the way the eyes drifted off rather than engaging with the camera.

The final, and biggest class was for the 35 digital images. Eight made the final judging and two shared first place – both of them nature shots, and strangely shown one after the other. Robert Neal had a colourful shot of mating soldier beetles on a thistle, the colours of which worked well with the lovely diffused background. Lee Dalgliesh had entered fly on a leaf which was a very unusually coloured macro shot with a fine art feel to it.

Joint second was Andy Stephenson with a seafaring shot showing a man sitting on the deck of a yacht with sails which complemented the colour scheme and gold masts which framed the image. Sharing second spot was Kim Shapiro with a striking shot in autumnal colours against a grey background which intrigued Phil, who could not work out exactly what it was. Asked later Kin revealed it was a colourful bush in bloom overlaid on a shot of a concrete slab.