Our second competition of the season was judged on Zoom by Laura Pearce from Yeovil Camera Club. Laura’s critiques of the images were straight to the point and she gave an array of suggestions on how improvements could be made to enhance the final result. Her feedback was well received and attendees took away plenty of ideas to explore. Attempts at adopting different approaches, perspective and techniques were encouraged, especially where such actions contributed to and extended the context and narrative portrayed by the image. Her general comment about “bringing out the light” encapsulates the very essence of photography and served as an ongoing reminder and challenge to us all.

The winning projected image was a landscape “Storm clouds over Coniston Hills 2” by Adam Kowalczyk

with “Mutual preening” from Jim Bullock in second place

and “Organ Loft” by Nigel Bailey in third place.

Clive Greenland from Corsham Camera Club gave a Zoom talk entitled  ” What the judges are looking for, ” which is a topic that intrigues us all and invokes a range of opinions and discussions.

After introducing himself and describing his photographic experience, Clive outlined some of the general challenges faced when judging images. Open subject competitions in particular tend to be more difficult to judge than themed competitions where a closer agreement can be reached and less subjectivity exists.  He then described the 10 key elements that he considered to be the systematic basis for assesing an image and forming a rational judgement on its photographic merits. Each element was illustrated with images to reinforce the importance and contribution that it made.

Some questions were raised around consistency in judging approaches and how the judge’s personal preferences could be controlled. The evening concluded with Clive showing a series of  wildlife and aviation images to further reinforce the points made previously. Plenty of food for thought as our next competition submission deadline was imminent.

A dozen or so members joined the call and were able to see a selection of the WCPF Digital Projected Competition images that had been judged in the early part of the year and assembled into a slide show. Nearly 50 clubs across the region had entered and each club had submitted 18 images for judging. Unfortunately a transgression of one of the rules meant that our Club’s score had been reduced and our position affected accordingly.

Following this, a selection of the winning images at the 2020 Southampton International Exhibition of Photography were shown. This event was in its 107^th year and attracted 1200 entries from 45 countries. Firstly the three print sections of mono, colour and nature were viewed. The evening concluded with around 90 projected images in open, nature and landscape categories. There were many stunning images which hopefully have encouraged and provided new subjects and techniques for members to experiment with.

Several members took this opportunity to show and discuss some of their work. Adam got the ball rolling by sharing his collection of “photo-a-day” images which he started at the beginning of the year. Unfortunately some health issues intervened during the summer so he was disappointingly not able to maintain the project. Thereafter Dave G highlighted the usefulness of a couple of Topaz software programmes – deNoise and Mask which he found particularly useful to speedily edit his bird images without the need to spend long periods at the computer.

After a break Tony gave a presentation on his lockdown walks around the Wootton Bassett countryside area and the images he had been able to capture in the process. This was followed by  some images from a recent visit to Salisbury cathedral by Peter. Jim rounded off the evening with three sets of images featuring some humorous cutlery shots, carefully captured images of an agility dog traversing a see-saw and a creative composition, courtesy of Photoshop. All contributers were thanked and it proved to be a full and informative evening.