Club Meeting, A4 Print Assessment Evening - Tuesday 28th January 2020.

                        

On Tuesday 27th January Morpeth Camera Club held its Annual A4 Print Competition and Assessment evening.
For this informal competition members had been invited to bring along up to four prints so that they could be
assessed by fellow members and commented upon by photographic judge and club member Steve McDonald.

With nearly sixty prints displayed, everyone had an opportunity to look at the images closely, appraise them
and then act as judges, individually selecting their top five images in order of preference. This task was not
easy with the large number of high quality images on display, covering a wide range of subject matter and
styles. This opportunity also helped members appreciate the difficulties that competition judges face when
assessing work and trying to decide objectively which is the best, while suppressing any personal preferences.

While the scores for each image were being counted Steve led discussions on pictures selected by those that
had entered images, as well as a handful photographs chosen by himself and other club members.

The images commented upon featured a wide range of subject matter from a Pelton type water wheel, to a
landscape image of Brimham Rocks, birds, trees, tallships, buildings, flowers, street scenes and some abstract
images, including a very creative image featuring food cans and their labels. These discussions provided the
opportunity for members to find out more about where some of the images had been captured, gain an insight
into how some of them had been created or manipulated and learn about how some of the images could be
improved.

Towards the end of the evening the results of competition were announced. In 5th place with 18 points was
an image entitled ‘Contemplation’, a well-lit monochromatic image of a silhouetted person and their reflection,
standing by the edge of an area of open water. In Joint 3rd place with 19 points there were two Images. One
of these was a delightful image of Stalker Castle by Alan Harle. This landscape picture, captured under good
lighting conditions featured this picturesque castle surrounded by water in Loch Linnhe (about 25 mile north
of Oban in Scotland). The other 3rd place photograph was a well exposed image of a predominately white
orchid captured by Pat Wood LRPS.

In second place with 21 points was another image by Brian Morris entitled ‘Minimal’. As implied from its title,
this simple black and white image featured few details apart from a fence and a tree in snow covered fields
against a pale grey sky. First place with 23 points went to Trevor Langhorne with a peaceful image entitled
‘Cragside Tranquility’. This simple image, consisted of a small group of leaves and stalks poking through the
still water in a lake at Cragside giving a sense of tranquillity, which was enhanced by the reflections of the
vegetation and the muted colours of the reflected sky.

   

Vice Chairman, Sue Dawson, then thanked Steve for his constructive comments and leading the discussions
before tea and coffee were enjoyed by those present. Thanks also to everyone who supplied prints and to
Peter Downs who had taken on the task of adding up the marks awarded to the images.

Glyn