As a follow up to an earlier Zoom presentation on Smartphone Photography last season, we held our own competition to allow members to practice some of the techniques and learnings gained from the presentation. The original image had to have been taken with a smartphone and a range of processing techniques could be applied thereafer as desired.

The competition attracted over 40 entries and was judged by Lorraine Robins from St Austell Camera Club. Lorraine gave a detailed description of her observations in each image as well as offering some ideas and approaches to consider. With the subject being “Open”, a range of images were submitted mainly covering landscapes and street photography, where the unimposing use of a phone can be readily exploited.

The winning image was a monochrome entitled “Lady on the Tube” by Adam Kowalczyk.

The winning entries in the Western Counties Photographic Federation’s (WCPF) digitally projected images competition were viewed using Zoom meeting and some members also met up at The Angel Ballroom.

Held earlier in the year, this is the most popular competition run by the WCPF and attracted over 1000 entries from 58 clubs across the south west region. Each club could submit 18 images and the subject mater was “Open”. As you would expect, the standard of images was extremely high and the judges scores were all contained in the range from 9 to 15 points.

The winning club was Bristol Photographic Society and the Gold Medal award for the best overall image went to “Deck Houses” by Peter Haworth ARPS from Bath Photographic Society.

We did not enter the 2021 competition but had participated in the competition in 2019 where we came a creditable 40th out of 57 clubs and narrowly missed being the best “rookie” club. We entered again in 2020 but this time we did not fare quite so well. Hopefully our appetite has been “whetted” to enter the 2022 competition and bench mark our images against the best in the south west region..

Our first competition round, which contributes towards the Mayor’s Cup at the end of the season, was judged by Robert Eschle from Truro using Zoom Meeting. Unlike previous years, it was decided to add a themed competion to each round in an attempt to encourage members to go out and take more photographs. So there were two competitions to be judged on the night – an Open competition and a themed competition “Reflections”

Robert gave a detailed critique of each image and made suggestions on how the images may have been handled and subsequently presented with different crops and compositional variations, where these were physically possible.

The winning Open image was a fish eye image of Christchurch College by Rob Slade

and the same author gained first place in the Reflections category with his image of the building formerly known as Colston Tower in Bristol city centre.

Dr Keith Snell from Keswick Camera Club treated us to his talk entitled “My Restless Lens” which covered a range of genre from  Abstract – patterns and shapes; Portraits and Figurative Art; Wildlife and Landscapes. Keith’s images were taken on several continents and all demonstrated his knowledge of the subject matter and the precision and attention to detail in his approach. Each image was supported by an explanation of the compositional techniques used employing powerful use of leading lines, the rule of thirds and the importance of geometric shapes, especially triangles.

Wildlife images ranged from chinstrap penguins in the Antarctic to a cayman devouring an anaconda in the Panatal region in Brazil, puffins in the Farne Islands and many African birds, all photographed in context.

In the landscape section, Keith demonstrated the simple, but not necessarily easy art of careful and controlled intentional camera movements to create pleasing, impressionistic type images.

Whilst the images alone were a feast to enjoy, the accompanying narrative delivered in an enthusiastic and engaging style took the overall experience to another level and members will have taken away many ideas and techniques to practice and develop.

We start the 2021/22 season with a special meeting to commemorate the Club reaching the ripe old age of 40 years. A “Summer” Competition was announced in July which was open to members of the public as well as Club members and the entries will be judged by Eddy Lane.

Awards will be presented to the top 3 entries and afterwards Eddy will show some of his wildlife images taken during the lockdown.

Over a cup of tea and with a slice of anniversary cake we will then look back over the past 40 years and recall some of the more amusing moments.

Past and present members are warmly invited to attend the meeting which will be held at our new meeting venue – The Ballroom on the first floor of The Angel Hotel, 47 High Street, RWB from 7.30 pm onwards.