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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: