A Little Healthy Competition

I mentioned in the last post that a few of the members of the camera club had entered some images into the Lancashire and Cheshire Photographic Union Individual Competition. This is an annual event and one of the two main competitions held by this body each year. As well as this one there is the club competition where the club selects and enters images from among its membership. 

The individual contest is different in that each and every member of an affiliated club is allowed to enter up to 24 of their own images, under the banner of their club, but not as a representative of it directly. Best of all there’s no entry fee additional to your membership of your respective club. So often these days, photography competitions come with a price tag just to put your pictures in, sometimes per picture.

There are three categories in each of two classes. Open colour can be anything in colour, whether photoshopped or not and in fact whether even obviously a photograph or not. Open mono is the same in… well… monochrome, which can include toned images as long as they’re single tone and not a toned black and white. Nature gets its own category and images must be very minimally processed - no major cloning etc. Within each of those categories, entrants can put up to four prints and up to four digital projected images. As this was my first time I dipped my toes into only the areas in which I felt comfortable. Three images in Open Colour, two in Open Mono and one in Nature, all as digital images. I don’t think that most of them will do particularly well, so all I’m hoping for is to not get bottom marks (6 points) for any of them, and to do better than adequate (10 or more) for at least one. 

I’ve put all my entries onto the bottom of this post. It’s being judged on Saturday 10th May and we should hear back as soon as our competitions secretary takes a break from the Eurovision build-up to check it.

The World is Waiting was taken when we went to the Paralympics in 2012. It was early in the morning and the park was fairly quiet compared to how it would get later. There was a little viewpoint to the side of the main walkway that provided this beautiful angle over the main stadium. Sadly we didn't get to go into the stadium itself, but we did see a couple of the other venues.

At the Start Line was taken at a motocross event somewhere in Lancashire - either Garstang, Whalley or just possibly Charnock Richard. Bike 464 is a former colleague (One Matthew Turner) who I'd gone along to support / shoot. This was the scene as the 20 or so bikes left the line simultaneously on full revs. Motocross at a well chosen track is a brilliant route to low cost close up motorsport photography, and being very much an amateur sport there are no subsequent restrictions on what you do with the shots you take.

Timing is Everything was taken at Southport Air Show 2013. The Red Arrows are pretty much one of my favourite things, and I reckon being a pilot with them has to be the best job in the world.

Black Country Afternoon was taken a few years back when visiting a friend in Birmingham. I grabbed this shot on a compact as we were about to leave the Black Country Museum. I have it on my wall at home in sepia tone. I like it because at a glance you can't tell whether it was taken in 2009 or 1949.

Komodo Dragon is my sole foray into the Nature category. This shot was taken at Chester Zoo. I like it because the animal looks friendly to me, like he's posing for the camera. I think the judges will dislike it for the same reason. There's no movement, no action, and this is probably my leading contender for bottom marks in this very competitive category.

Barren was taken during the sail away from Helsinki during a cruise of Northern Europe. I had no idea until I went there that Helsinki Harbour is guarded by a complex archipelago of small islands, some of them with buildings and structures on like this one, some bland and featureless, and some with small complexes and people clearly living or working on them. It was a slow departure and I took dozens of shots, of which this is one of my favourites.

The World is Waiting

At The Start Line

Timing is Everything

Black Country Afternoon

Komodo Dragon

Barren

Clubbing, or Camera-derie...

I've always thought it would be good to join a camera club or photography society as some of them are known, but like many people I've been put off by talk of obsession with distinctions (LRPS etc) and competitions, snobbery, and most of all by the times of the meetings. I work reasonably long hours and I'm not always able to commit to getting out of work on time to get to an early evening start, so I've never got around to joining or even visiting one and my photography was largely a solitary pursuit or something done with the indulgence of my lovely wife on days out and holidays etc.

Around six months ago I heard about a local camera club from a fellow member in the woodcraft club I also frequent. This one was different by the sound of it, as it was quite a young club so no long history to live up to, most of the members were relatively inexperienced in photography as a medium or as an art, it was just around the corner from me, and best of all, meetings started at 7:30 or 8:00 pm so I could get to them easily. So it was that before long I found myself a member of Roby Mill Community Camera Club.

The club meets in The Star at Roby Mill every other week. They're unlike most other clubs I've heard about due to their active programme during the summer months - they like to be out and about taking photos whenever possible. It's very much about going out together and taking shots, and much less about homework and critique, though there is still obviously a level of critique, as you would expect. In winter they are more confined by the conditions but there's still a lot of actual camera activity. 

One of the nights earlier this year was a fifteen minute challenge where we all piled into cars, went to a less than obvious location and took the best picture we could in fifteen minutes, then returned to the pub to look at each other's best pictures. We've also spent time in a cemetery car park taking photos of a man dressed as a Jedi and waving a lightsaber, had a presentation on using Lightroom and Photoshop for post production, had a talk from an L&CPU judge (Lancashire and Cheshire Photographic Union) about what it takes to enter competitions, and as a result a few of us have entered some pics into the annual LCPU Individual competition, entry for which requires you to be a member of an affiliated club.

Overall impact of the club has been huge on my photography. I've taken lots of pictures that I wouldn't have had the chance to capture, used my tripod more times in the last three months than the whole preceding three years, talked to more people about photography technique and compared images with more interested parties than for a long time. And I like to think I've helped a few people to learn something as well, just as they have for me.