John Phipp, an experienced club judge and a past president, was called upon once to assess and comment on the entries in the society’s second ‘small prints’ competition of the season.
Drawing on his photographic knowledge and skills, he was quickly in his stride and discussing the 47 entries, 32 in the Standard Category and 15 in the intermediate category.
His comments were perceptive but also gentle in nature with constructive tips being offered along the way.
The society has always been keen to help and encourage the less experienced to improve their photographic skills.
With this in mind, the ‘small print’ competition was introduced a few years ago as an inexpensive vehicle to incentivise the less experienced to submit their work for kindly appraisal and advice, with the usual need to have the print images mounted, which can be a bit costly, being removed.
For this reason, the more advanced workers are excluded from entering this competition.
Up to three images can be submitted for the competition and, to qualify as a ‘small print’, the maximum print size permitted, including any border, is 5 by 7.5 inches.
John offered his expert advice on how each of the entries might have been improved, though he described several as being so good he could only compliment the photographer on a job well done!
He touched on the need for a careful choice over the angle of view and such techniques as the importance of good composition, the use of different apertures for different subjects and cropping to remove distracting peripheral detail or parts of the image that added nothing to the subject matter.
In these ways, the photographer could improve the impact of the image.
He went on to explain to members that any prints entered in this competition for critical appraisal can not be entered in any of the society’s monthly competitions but are eligible for entry in a mounted format in the annual competition at the end of the season.
The small print competitions run by the society are rather different to the others in that they are more in the nature of a tutorial where the more experienced members try to offer advice designed to help those who are striving to improve.
Consequently, there are no real ‘winners or losers’.
In fact, John confirmed what others had been saying over recent months, namely that there had been a highly commendable improvement in the overall standard, especially with the standard class entries, that selecting an order of merit was becoming increasingly more difficult for judges.
However, John had been set a task to select his personal rankings for the two classes, which he gave as follows:-
Standard Class – first was ‘What U Looking At?’ by Mark Falconer (a beautifully sharp shot of an owl looking straight into the camera lens) who also bagged second place with a clever shot, called ‘Happy Snapper’, illustrating what can be done to throw a secondary image in the background out of focus; third place went to Sue Collier for ‘Beach Chums’; fourth to Norma Cowell for ‘Wakey Wakey’; fifth to Joy Brodie for ‘Fish Supper Anyone?’; and sixth to Aida Podobska for ‘Dark Green Fritillary’.
Because the overall standard was so considered to be so meritorious, the judge also awarded Very Highly Commended to Beryl Quayle for ‘Pretty as a Peacock’, to Nessie Gillen for ‘Brotherly Love’ and to Mark Thorsby for ‘Tuesday’s Child’. ‘Winter Tram’ by Mark Falconer and ‘Chinese Float-Away’ by Tim Norton were Highly Commended and ‘Sophie’ by Cat Gillam, and ‘Young Buck’ by Mark Thorsby were given a Commended classification.
Intermediate class – First place was awarded to Martyn Parnell for ‘Heron Suzuki’ (a top class image from the TT Races); Annette Slater maintained her improving natural history photography by being ranked second with her entry titled ‘Grey Heron Resting’ and, as if to prove the point, she also gained third and fourth places with ‘White Peahen’ and ‘Head Held High Wearing His Sapphire Crown’ respectively; fifth was ‘Hibiscus’ by Shirley Lotfy; and sixth ‘Winter Coat’ by Jiri Podobsky. Two further entries, ‘Gull Detail’ by Shirley Lotfy and ‘Waiting’ by Anne Bidwell were both highly commended by the judge.
After a break for refreshments, the Lancashire and Cheshire Photographic Union’s Mono Print Folio, made up of 40 digital images from the North West region, was viewed.
This is probably the smallest of the Folios that the Lancashire and Cheshire Photographic Union circulates because there tend to be fewer monochromatic entries submitted. Nevertheless, the panel of UK judges is hard to please and nothing but the best is considered acceptable.
So members were delighted to see that one image from a member of the society, Diane McCudden, had been selected for inclusion, being awarded 13 out of the maximum 15 points. This demonstrates once more the society’s ability to compete with the best.
The society is pleased to give advance confirmation that it is bringing the well known ‘Bebington Salon’ to the Isle of Man again on May 14.
The Bebington Salon is one of the national exhibitions from the UK and is a great opportunity for all those interested in photography to both see work from the adjacent island and to compete with the best, with entries being judged at a national level.
When the society invites Bob Dennis to bring the Salon over he always tries to include any Isle of Man images that were accepted by the judging panel as having achieved the required standard.
Acceptance of an image by the Salon also leads to the award of points towards the BPE* accreditations.
The closing date for entries is November 27 this year – so there is not long to complete the entry form and submit it.
On Wednesday, November 27, at 7.30 pm at Thie Ellyn, off Withington Road, Douglas, we shall have our second ‘open’ competition of the year, for projected digital images. We shall look forward to welcoming you then and would ask readers to note that there is a nominal charge at the door for non members. www.iomps.com
Antony Hamilton