The Society’s Fourth Open Competition took place via Zoom on the evening of Wednesday 10th March. This was the last of the four Open Competitions that constitute the league for the 2020-21 season. The judge was John Fare from Workington. John is a Northern Counties Photographic Federation judge.
Thirty members entered a total of eighty-eight digital images which were all given a score out of twenty. For this competition all the images were required to have been taken in the British Isles but there was still a wide range of photographic genres submitted, including nature, creative, landscape, sport and portraiture. At the start of the judging, John commented on the excellent quality of the images which he stated was to be expected from a club that did so well in external competitions, such as those held by the Photographic Society of America. He added that all the images scoring eighteen and above he would class as excellent.
Over one-third of the images achieved scores of eighteen and above. Four images by three members achieved a top score of twenty. These were ‘Wide Eyed and Over’
and ‘Hermes’
both by Bob Given,
‘Summer Storms’ by Ken Rennie
and ‘A Pine Marten’ by Simon Roberts.
An impressive score of nineteen was awarded to fourteen members for their images and these were ‘A Foxy Look’ and ‘Bringing Home Dinner’ both by Simon Roberts, ‘Kingfisher, Failed Catch’, ‘Gannets, Bempton Cliffs’ and ‘Mountain Hare’ all three by Carol Minks, ‘Alium with Love in a Mist’ by David Woodthorpe, ‘Kestrels Fighting Over a Mouse’ by Alan Walker, ‘Backlit’ by Tony Marsh, ‘Water Vole Washing’ and ‘Waiting For the Bus’ both by Julie Walker, ‘The Orange Cloud’ by Carmen Norman, ‘Scale Force’ by Ken Rennie, ‘Badger at the Pool’ by Ronnie Gilbert and ‘Weather over Wythburn’ by Chris Burgess. A further fourteen images received scores of eighteen and these were ‘Anticipation’ by Julie Walker, ‘Iceworld’ by Marcus Mackay, ‘Trees in the Mist’ by Patricia Martin, ‘Night Bright’ and ‘A Good Day’s Work’ both by Sue Rugg, ‘Sunset on the Crags’ and ‘Let it Rain’ both by Keith Snell, ‘Barn Owl with Vole’ by Ronnie Gilbert, ‘The Balancing Dipper’ by Gordon Train, ‘Goldcrest’ and ‘Juvenile Pied Wagtail in the Rain’ both by Tony Marsh, ‘Sulking in the Rain’ and ‘Red Fox Hunting’ both by Alan Walker and ‘Looking Towards the Mighty Buachaille Etive Mor’ by Fred Bell,
At the end of the judging, John chose his top images from some of the different photographic genres represented and these were ‘Wide Eyed and Over’ by Bob Given (Best People), ‘Summer Storms’ by Ken Rennie (Best Landscape), ‘Mountain Hare’ by Carol Minks (Best Nature)
and ‘Waiting for the Bus’ by Julie Walker (Best Creative).
John also revealed his overall winning image of the competition and this was Bob Given’s ‘Wide Eyed and Over’, a brilliantly captured pin-sharp image of an athlete performing a back over jump as she crests the top of the bar, eyes staring ahead and hair flowing.
David Rayment thanked the judge for all the time he spent on our images and for his in-depth analysis and suggestions for improvements.
All the entered images can be viewed in our Gallery pages