Sandy Watson judged our third competition and in breaking with our normal practice, he judged the images without having previously viewed them.  This added an air of anticipation and gave some valuable insight into how the images were assessed.

From the outset he set the scene by declaring that he was more of a mentor than a judge and clearly directed his attention and comments to the picture rather than the mount in which it was presented. In a number of cases he suggested where he felt that monochrome would have illustrated the detail and texture more clearly in the image. He also encouraged the photographer to try something different and be prepared to make your own mark on an existing image through the use of simple props.

The winning print entitled “Mother and child” featured a hi light image of a pen and its cygnet submitted by Jim Bullock. The projected image section was won by Chris Hayward with his silhouetted image of “Fishing at Dusk”