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This week Zoom meeting was the judging of what is known as the Three Way Battle. This is a yearly low key and fun competition between the three camera clubs based in Penrith, Carlisle and Keswick. Each club enters fifteen digital images with only one image allowed per photographer, and the images are scored out of twenty. The judge for the event was John McVie, a well-respected and experienced photographer and judge from Dumfries. Interestingly, out of the forty-five images more than a third were of natural history.

Keswick did extremely well with the highest total score and the only two images to score the maximum twenty points: Sue Rugg, with a dreamy shot of white ponies on the equally white sand dunes of Luskentyre Beach in the Western Isles,

 

and David Stephenson’s terrific monochrome winter panorama of a churchyard in Iceland, with David’s shot being picked as “Best in Show”.

 

Carol Minks scored nineteen with a shot of a Mistle Thrush on Rowan berries, taken I think in Bells Close car park,

 

as did David Rayment with a Dipper with a beak full of insects bobbing on a rock in the river with its wings outheld.

Pictures from Ken Rennie, Chris Burgess and Alan Walker scored eighteen points.

An enjoyable and satisfying evening which showed the breadth and depth of photographic talent within the society. The only disappointment was that we could not extend things into a chat and a buffet after the judging, something to look forward to with next year’s event.

Tony Marsh

February 17th saw an excellent presentation from Tom Langlands on street photography. Tom is an award-winning photojournalist based in Annan, Scotland who is known for his wildlife and landscape photography as well as street photography.

Tom described how he went about taking images of people on the street and he gave some helpful tips on how to take photographs discreetly. These included blending in to the scene by wearing neutral colours and not pointing the camera in one direction for too long. He illustrated his talk with a wide range of photographs including ones of street musicians and other performers, shoppers, stall holders and produce in indoor and outdoor markets, participants in parades and demonstrations, and people at work.

 

These were taken in a variety of locations ranging from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee to cities further afield including Berlin, Florence and Santiago de Compostela in Spain. In the latter the pilgrims provided a seemingly endless supply of subjects for Tom’s camera.

He explained that the story telling quality of an image is very important and he uses the juxtaposition of people and other elements, such as signs and posters, to achieve this. Light, water and shadows are also considerations when deciding on his compositions and he will often employ unusual techniques such as taking reflections in mirrors, sunglasses and, on one occasion, in a crystal ball.

 

Patience was frequently required, for example he sometimes finds an interesting setting and then waits for a suitable person to walk in to the scene. It is also important to be observant and to look for the unusual.

Towards the end of the evening Tom talked about two projects that he had recently undertaken. The first concerned homeless people. This section contained many powerful and emotive images in which he contrasted the desperate circumstances of the homeless people he photographed with the evidence of wealth all around them such as banks, restaurants and cafes.

 

The second was undertaken in the last twelve months and documented the impact of Covid19 and the associated restrictions on the people and streets of his home town. The images of empty streets and people wearing masks provide an important historical record of Annan during this period.

 

This was a memorable evening with many superb images and an equally entertaining narrative.

Julie Walker

The main topic for the evening was the Society’s third Set Subject competition. Members had been invited to enter three digital images according to the theme ‘Man-made or Woman-made’. The judge was Society member and former Chairman Dr Keith Snell LRPS EFIAP EPSA. Seventeen members entered giving a total of fifty-one images. A wide range of photographic genres was represented, including architecture, landscape, cityscape, travel, still life and food with about one-quarter being presented as black and white images.

At the start of his judging, Keith stated that he marked the images according to how apposite they were to the theme of the Set Subject and how photographically commendable they were. He stressed that the human made element should be the main subject in the image and that the image should tell us something as well. Keith gave a critique of each image often suggesting photographic improvements that could be made. He did not give any scores but he did pick out those images he considered deserving of a top score and also those worthy of Highly Commended and Commended status. He pointed out that his choices were very subjective impressions within the vast excellence of images submitted. Three images merited a top score and two of these, ‘New York Cityscape’ and ‘Man’s Pollution’, were by Alan Walker. Keith described the superbly composed image ‘New York Cityscape’ as conveying a real feeling of claustrophobia with a human figure overshadowed by towering skyscrapers but also featuring at ground level a colourful street scene so typical of New York.

 

In Alan’s second top scoring image, titled ‘Man’s Pollution’, a plastic bottle is shown floating in a bright green patterned liquid, the whole image illustrating the destructiveness of mankind.

 

The third image to be awarded a top score was Richard Jakobson’s perfectly-lit ‘Hand Made’ image, a magnificent study of the hands and braceleted wrists of a Namibian Himba lady making an ochre skin paste known as Otjize. Keith pointed out that this image featured both the made element and the maker. At the end of the judging Keith chose ‘Hand Made’ as his overall winning image of the evening.

 

Four images were awarded Highly Commended and these were: ‘Hand Finishing’ by Sue Rugg,

 

‘Lloyds Building’ by Richard Jakobson,

 

‘Manmade Bowls’ by David Woodthorpe

 

and ‘Mysore Palace India’ by Tom Stenhouse.

 

In addition six images were Commended and these were: ‘Tanfield Train Sheds’ by Alan Walker, ‘Green Door, What’s That Secret….’ by David Rayment, ‘Memorial in Blenheim Palace Chapel’ by Sue Rugg, ‘1 Poultry’ by Richard Jakobson, ‘Man to Man’ by Marilyn Woodthorpe and ‘Mosaics, Monreale Cathedral, Sicily’ by Tony Marsh. Keith finished his comments by stating that he had enjoyed looking at the splendid set of images and that for the most part members had really addressed the brief. David Woodthorpe thanked Keith for his comprehensive analysis and assessment of all the images.

Tricia Rayment

All the entered images can be seen on our gallery page: 2021 Galleries

The Northern Counties Photographic Federation Club Competition was held on 7th February by Zoom. The competition comprised 20 images from each of 20 clubs in the NCPF. The “judging bar” was set high and no images at all achieved top marks. Nevertheless KPS was the winner of the competition with 236 points and Ken Rennie’s image “Three in One” was judged “Best in Show, scoring 14 points out of a possible 15.

 

4 other KPS members scored 13 for their images. Sue Rugg for Afraid:

 

and for The Homestead:

 

Julie Walker for “Adjusting her Ballet Shoes”:

 

and “Grecian Beauty”:

 

Ronnie Gilbert for “Golden Eagle with Red Fox”:

 

and “White Tailed Eagle Patrolling Forest”

 

and Carol Minks for “Male Bearded Reedling”:

 

 

The Society’s Third Open Competition of the 2020-21 season took place via Zoom on the evening of Wednesday 20^th January. The judge was John Williams EFIAP/b MPSA DPAGB from Penrith & District Camera Club. John is a very experienced Northern Counties Photographic Federation judge and he has judged at Keswick on a number of occasions. Twenty-eight members each entered three digital images and within the entries there was a wide range of photographic genres represented, including landscape, nature, portraiture, travel, sport, creative and macro photography with just over one quarter as black-and-white images.

John commented on the really high standard of photography at Keswick and this was well illustrated at the start when three out of the four initial images achieved top marks. In total, eight images received top scores of twenty with Ronnie Gilbert and Alan Walker each scoring twenty for two of their entries. The top scoring images were: ‘Fall’ by Ken Rennie,

 

‘Adolescent Brown Bear, Finland’ by Carol Minks,

 

‘Gramps and Grandkids’ by David Woodthorpe, ‘Common Buzzard in Snow’

 

and ‘Golden Eagle with Red Fox’ by Ronnie Gilbert,

 

‘Autumn Frame’ by Antony Melling and ‘Leading from the Front’ and ‘Apprehension Before Take Off’ by Alan Walker. An impressive score of nineteen was awarded to four other images and these were ‘Blizzard at Vic Church’ by Fred Bell, ‘Kelpies Arise!’ by Ann Healey, ‘Emma in Pink’ by Julie Walker and ‘Tibetan Toothless Old Man’ by David Woodthorpe. A further twelve images received scores of eighteen and these were ‘Strong Heart’ and ‘Coigach’ both by Deborah Tippett, ‘Great Grey Owl Alert’ by Alan Walker, ‘Yellow Tulips Mono’ by Patricia Martin, ‘Ezekiels Fun Park’ by David Rayment, ‘Fairy Queen Dreaming’ by Keith Snell, ‘Diamond Beach, Iceland’ by Fred Bell, ‘Whitby Piers in Winter’s Late Light’ and ‘Final Lap World Series Triathlon’ both by Sue Rugg, ‘Blea Mirror’ by Carmen Norman, ‘Into the Night’ by Marcus Mackay and ‘Coyote in Midwinter, Yellowstone’ by Carol Minks. At the end of the judging, John chose his top images from some of the different photographic genres represented and these were: ‘Autumn Frame’ by Antony Melling (Best Landscape), ‘Leading from the Front’ by Alan Walker (Best Nature),

 

‘Kelpies Arise!’ by Ann Healey (Best Creative),

 

‘Gramps and Grandkids’ by David Woodthorpe (Best People).

 

John chose ‘Autumn Frame’, a beautifully captured atmospheric woodland scene, as his overall winning image.

 

Tony Marsh, the Society’s external competition secretary, thanked John for excellently judging the images, especially for pointing out the positive parts of every image as well as, where appropriate, suggesting improvements that could be made.

All the entered images can be viewed on the Gallery pages:

 

Our speaker on 13^th January was Peter Weaver who comes from the Bristol area. He is an enthusiastic member of the Hanham Photographic Society and as well as being their Programme Secretary he also organises club outings. The title of Peter’s talk was “My Digital View” and during the evening he presented a sizeable collection of his images featuring a wide range of subjects.

Peter explained that he prefers to get his images right in the camera rather than spending a huge amount of time processing them on his computer. Unlike some photographers he is happy to go out in all weathers, suitably attired, and he showed a number of images, especially landscapes, that he had taken in the pouring rain. He said that he is a keen walker and he usually carries a camera and two lenses on these walks.

The majority of the images he presented were taken in the South West of England although he also showed some from elsewhere including Northumberland, Kent, Norfolk and Wales. Many were taken at county and agricultural shows and featured people together with their horses, livestock or pets.

 

He makes a point of arriving early when there are fewer people about. He also attends specialist events such as the Chippenham Folk Festival and he showed a number of images of musicians.

 

He also included a photograph from the more unusual Newent Onion Fayre which hosts the world onion eating championships and showed a humorous image of one contestant who, not surprisingly, did not seem to be enjoying the taste of the raw onion! Another source of photographs are the many re-enactments, such as 1940’s events, that he attends. He finds that such events provide many opportunities for photographing people.

 

Peter is also a wildlife enthusiast and he belongs to several nature groups including the Slimbridge Wildfowl Wetland Trust. He presented a number of photographs of birds and animals taken in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries. These included images from various locations including the Seal Sanctuary in Cornwall, the Big Cat Sanctuary in Kent and the Cotswold Falconry Centre.

 

With these he demonstrated that it is possible to take interesting nature images close to home rather than travelling hundreds of miles to more exotic locations.

Throughout the evening Peter’s enthusiasm for all genres of photography shone through.

Julie Walker

The Society’s second Set Subject competition took place via Zoom on the evening of Wednesday 16^th 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:

Gallery

Three of Keswick’s own members provided the entertainment this evening.

First in the spotlight was Sue Rugg who talked about her journey from complete novice in 2013 to an accomplished sports photographer today. She described the many pitfalls encountered whilst photographing sporting events. In 2014 she went to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow but, despite having good seats, she soon discovered that she was not in the right place, quickly realising that she needed to be much closer to the action and in a position to achieve an uncluttered background. Following this she went to her granddaughter’s gym club but, although she was closer to the action, the backgrounds were still very cluttered. She then turned her camera on the Yorkshire stage of the Tour de France cycle race only to find that other spectators often obscured her view. Other obstacles at similar cycling events included support vehicles, advertising barriers, motor bikers and poor weather as well as her own over enthusiasm which sometimes resulted in her failing to press the shutter in time to capture the participants. Sue presented some excellent images and her talk demonstrated to members that setbacks and frustrations can, with perseverance, be overcome.

 

 

 

Ronnie Gilbert took the second slot and focused on his trip to the forests of the Bialowieza National Park in Poland in the winter of 2019 to photograph the European Bison. Ronnie explained that at the end of World War I there were no European bison left in the wild. They have now been reintroduced in Europe and there are about 7500 worldwide with around 800 in Bialowieza. In addition to Bison, Ronnie photographed Elk, Fallow Deer and Red Deer all against a stunning backdrop of snow-covered forest. He also photographed a variety of birds from hides including Goshawks, Buzzards, Sparrowhawks and White-Tailed Eagles. As always Ronnie’s talk and superb images were an inspiration to our members.

 

 

 

Our third speaker was Tony Marsh who talked about the wildlife he had photographed during the pandemic. All his images were taken within walking distance of Keswick. Tony explained that he always carries a camera and long lens on his walks and that these are set up ready to fire. His talk included many helpful tips on how to photograph wildlife including where to find certain species locally. His images included moths, butterflies, beetles and fungi as well as many different species of birds. Tony’s helpful and informative talk will have encouraged and enthused those of our members who are keen to develop their wildlife photography skills.

 

The Society’s second Open Competition of the 2020-21 season took place via Zoom on the evening of Wednesday 25^th November. The judge was Gerald Chamberlin DPAGB EFIAP from Morton Photographic Society. Gerald is a Northern Counties Photographic Federation judge and he has judged at Keswick on a number of occasions. Twenty-six members each entered three digital images and within the seventy-eight entries there was a wide range of photographic genres represented, including nature, macrophotography, creative, landscape, travel, portraiture, sport and astrophotography. Gerald had been sent the images a fortnight before the evening so he was able to view them and decide on his scores and critiques in advance of the meeting.

Gerald started his judging by commenting that, as he had come to expect from Keswick Photographic Society, the entries were of a high standard. Two images achieved a top score of twenty and these were ‘Scooting Along’ by Marilyn Woodthorpe and ‘Dans la Salle de Bains’ by Alan Walker.

An impressive score of nineteen was awarded to six other images and these were ‘Female Kestrel Attempting to Take Food from Male’ by Julie Walker, ‘Tuscany Early Morning Mist’ by Tom Stenhouse, ‘Long-Eared Owl Hunting at Dusk’ and ‘The Tackle’ both by Alan Walker, ‘White Tail Eagle Patrolling Forest’ by Ronnie Gilbert and ‘On the Hunt’ by Ken Rennie. A further six images received scores of eighteen and these were ‘Spanish Sparrow’ by Carol Minks, ‘Mist of Gold’ by Carmen Norman, ‘Trusting’ by Sue Rugg, ‘Winters Morning Isthmus Bay’ by Fred Bell, ‘Warming Up’ by Julie Walker and ‘Red Squirrel with Hazel Nut’ by Ronnie Gilbert.

At the end of the judging Gerald chose ‘Skipping Along’ by Marilyn Woodthorpe as his overall winning image. This simple but striking expertly-captured image showed two rows of trees leading the eye to a lady on a scooter. Marilyn had taken this lovely autumn image on a Society trip to Berlin.

 

In addition Gerald chose his top images from a number of the different photographic genres represented and these were: ‘Tuscany Early Morning Mist’ by Tom Stenhouse (Landscape),

 

‘On the Hunt’ by Ken Rennie (Nature),

 

‘ICM Smithy Beck’ by Richard Jakobson (Creative),

 

‘The Tackle’ by Alan Walker (Sport),

 

‘Dans la Salle de Bains’ by Alan Walker (Portraiture)

 

and ‘Trusting’ by Sue Rugg (Black and White).

 

All the entered images can be seen in our Gallery Pages.

Tricia Rayment

 

This week’s meeting was a talk by Alan Walker, one of our most experienced members, on “How to Maximise Your Chances of Success in Photography Competitions”. There are three sorts of competitions that members participate in: “fun” challenges on specific topics that are mostly for entertainment and learning, internal competitions that lead to a league table over the year and external competitions that the club enters using member’s pictures. It is notable that for a small club, Keswick punches well above its weight in external competitions.  Although most of us take photographs for the pleasure of creation rather than the prospect of winning something, competitions do allow us to share our pictures with other interested people and receive, usually, constructive criticism and advice from judges. Most members find that their photography improves as a consequence. Alan is well positioned to give members advice on entering competitions, he is extremely successful himself with accolades in both National and International competitions, but just as significantly, he is a well-respected and thoughtful judge, as he demonstrated in the Society’s previous meeting, when he judged our black and white pictures.

 

Alan gave a detailed description of how best to process images using the common types of software, stressing the degree of control gained with shooting RAW files as they contain far more information than the standard JPEGs, thus allowing extra manipulation to bring out their best. He then went on to ask what it is that judges are looking for as this will vary with different genres; in Nature competitions the ability to tell a story being more important than technical excellence for example. He also explained that in order to create different scores in the photographs they look at, judges look out for minor blemishes to criticize and it is important to avoid such “judge bait”  as spots caused by dust on the censor, over exposed whites, wonky horizons or bits of the main subject inadvertently protruding out of the sides of the frame.

 

He proceeded to run through a whole range of photographic genres from Landscape to Wildlife, Sport to Portraits, Infra-red to Creative Composites (which combine different images into the same picture using computer software). In each area Alan gave us detailed advice and guidance based upon his extensive experience and expertise and, perhaps best of all, everything was illustrated with his superb photographs, showing superb examples of each of these categories. This was one of those rare meetings that was both a visual delight and a significant learning experience for all of us.

Tony Marsh