The meeting on the 20th of February took the form of a “fun” competition between ourselves, Carlisle and Penrith & District Camera Clubs; our annual “Three Way Battle”. Each club provides 15 digital images from 15 different photographers and is an excellent showcase of the breadth of talent in each club. Scoring our images was Richard Speirs, an extremely experienced and well-respected judge, both locally and nationally.
Richard started by congratulating us on the quality of the images saying that he had found no poor images with every one having photographic merit. He then proceeded to comment on each of the forty-five images generously pointing out all that he found good about each one but also giving advice about how some of the images could be improved, whether by different cropping or adjustment of the light in bright or shadowy areas and colour balance.
Scores on the night ranged between 14 and 20 and Keswick did very well with three of the four 20 scores, featuring work by Alan Walker an exciting close up of a Grizzly Bear with a Salmon in its mouth and water cascading all around it:
David Woodthorpe with a sparkling photograph of an all-white Scottish Mountain Hare grooming itself with its impressively furry back feet :
and Ronnie Gilbert with a colourful Aracari, ( a small Toucan) leaning along a wonderfully twisty branch or vine, the tip of its beak a few inches away from an airborne fly, all perfectly in focus:
Ronnie’s photograph was judged to be the best of the competition and Keswick also topped the final score tally, especially pleasing as fifteen members contributed to our success.
A few days later a rather more serious competition between the fifty member clubs of the Northern Counties Photographic Federation which covers the North East of England as well as Cumbria, was held with separate sections for projected images and prints. Keswick was first in both of these categories with an image “Forest Ballerinas” by Julie Walker being crowned “best projected image in show”:
and Ronnie Gilbert being only one of two to score full marks with a print of his aforementioned Acari and Fly. This is a significant achievement, not least because this is the third time in as many years that Keswick has come top in both sections.
Tony Marsh