This represented a different style of members’ evening that included a competition and an opportunity to discuss those photos that were most highly rated by fellow members. Members could enter up to three monochrome PDIs which went through a two-stage voting system that Chris had devised. The first, online, before the meeting, whittled the number down from the 37 entered to 16 finalists – those receiving 5 or more votes. Then, at St Patrick’s, these 16 were projected a couple of times so that those present could vote for their favourite images to determine the winners.
After handing in voting slips, the images were shown again and discussed, the authors saying why and how they took them and other members saying what they felt. This took up most of the meeting. Finally, the results of the competition were announced.
These were our 16 finalists starting with the overall Gold Award winner. So congratulations Kevin for Do Not Disturb – a very dozy tiger… or is he watching you? Kevin successfully removed three cage bars using Content Aware Fill. You wouldn’t know.
Congratulations too to Rosh for Supermoon and The Shard, our Silver Award winner taken from the Millennium Bridge. The moon moves unnervingly quickly through a long focus lens and Rosh spent 2 hours trying to keep it in the right position for this graphic and eye-catching composition.
Our Bronze award was shared. So congratulations to Vince for Pottery Shed. Everyone agreed what a great mono image this made, perfect composition evoking the atmosphere of this sweatshop of a workplace, even a nice movement blur on the fan blades.
Our other Bronze award went to Brian for Up the Steps, so congrats again to him. This was taken in Frome in Somerset on his mobile phone in the pouring rain and post-processed in Snapseed, carefully balancing the tones with the tools available. Looking at this makes you wonder why anyone bothers with dedicated cameras, Photoshop and Lightroom these days. Brian thought he should have made the figure more prominent but I quite like the way you discover it unexpectedly.
I think you will enjoy seeing all our finalists again so they will follow, without commentary. Make up your own minds…
Great pictures, and great that so many members put their work in to be judged by their peers.
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