The Society’s second Set Subject competition took place via Zoom on the evening of Wednesday 16th December. Members were invited to enter three digital images according to the themes ‘Something Old, Something New and Something Blue. The judge was Richard Jakobson, a society member. Eighteen members entered giving a total of fifty-four images. Even within the confines of the set subject there was still a wide range of photographic genres represented, including nature, creative, still life, landscape, travel, portraiture, architecture and sport. There were also some novel interpretations of the three themes, including two images from the ‘Something Blue’ section. One image featured Keswick’s Century theatre or as it was affectionately known, ‘the Blue Box’ and another featured a close-up of the head of a Bluefaced Leicester sheep.
Richard judged the images in order, starting with ‘Something Old’ and finishing with ‘Something Blue’. No marks were awarded in this competition but Richard gave a critique of each image, often pointing out ways of improving an image and in some cases using Photoshop Lightroom to illustrate his suggestions. At the end of the judging Richard chose his winning image within each of the three sections. Fred Bell was awarded first place in the ‘Something Old’ section with his black and white image, ‘Abandoned’. This moody image featured a derelict single-storey house in a bleak-looking landscape.
In the ‘Something New’ section, first place was awarded to Keith Snell for his appealing image entitled ‘First Steps’. This showed a pin-sharp moorhen chick taking its first vulnerable steps across the surface of a leafy pond, expertly caught with one foot poised ready to complete the step.
In the ‘Something Blue’ section ‘Blue Ripple’ by Sue Rugg took first place. This delicate minimalist image of a blue seascape was chosen by Richard as his ‘Best in Show’ and he remarked that he would be very happy to have a print of the image hanging on his wall.
Alan Walker thanked Richard for his hard work commentating on the images and for so excellently illustrating his suggested improvements. He also stressed what a good job Richard had done since he took over the role of judge at short notice owing to the illness of the Society’s chairman who was going to judge the competition. A change of judge meant that Richard was unable to show his own images, including his ‘outside the box’ interpretation of ‘Something New’ which was a night time cityscape of New York.
Tricia Rayment
All the entered images can be viewed on our Gallery Page: