Competition Evenings

These are competitions amongst Society members and are judged by a variety of experienced judges or professional photographers. There is a mix of open and themed competitions, and images are marked out of 20. Any member can enter and judging takes place anonymously, so it's a great forum for everyone to have their images constructively critiqued.

The total scores from the print and DPI (digital projected image) competition rounds held each season decide who are our "top" photographers in each category.

To see all future scheduled competition evenings click here. Logged-in members can check the submission deadline dates here.

Detailed rules and guidance, including DPI sizing constraints, can be read here.

This Year's Competition

Round 4: "Night Cityscape and Night Landscape", March 2022

Congratulations to everyone who entered this Round, especially those who battled through the rain and tube strikes so that we could meet together in the Hall for the first time this year.  

We are very grateful to Gerald Kityakara LRPS for judging the session and for finding a way to get to us in the face of disruption to normal transport arrangements.  

Many thanks also to John Murray and Dennis Law for handling the technology side of things, and to Paul Shelley for overseeing the session.   

There is a report on the Society’s Blog at: 

Blog

and you can see all the images in the latest Galleries and slideshows below.

In the Prints section, top scores (20/20) were awarded to images submitted by new member Dan Waller and Colin Page. Lisa Christie and Kate Shortland secured 20s for their pictures in the Digital section.

Results of the 2021/22 Season:

This being the fourth and final round of the year’s competition season, we can announce the overall winners in each of the Prints and Digital competitions as follows:

In the Prints competition:

1^st place: Colin Page with an impeccable 60 points out of a possible 60

2^nd place: John Murray, 55 points

3^rd place: Natalie Robinson, 53 points

In the Digital competition:

1^st place: Keith Cavanagh with 94 points out of a possible 100

Joint 2^nd place: Lance Bennett and Natalie Robinson, with 92 points

Congratulations to them and to everyone who took part.

Disruption caused by COVID meant that each member had only three opportunities to display Prints, compared to five to submit Digital images, which explains the difference in the possible total scores across the two sections.

The full results of this round and the overall scores for the year are laid out in the PhotoEntry print-outs here: 

Round 4 2021 22 Results DPI

Round 4 2021 22 Results PRINTS

Final Scores 2021 22 Season - DPIS

Final Scores 2021 22 Season PRINTS

The “Ranked Scores” show the scores for each image for each member from highest to lowest scoring (from left to right).

The Round 4 images are displayed in slideshows below; the buttons take you to the Galleries where you can see the photographers' names.

2022-03-DPI 2022-03-PRINT

Round 3: Open theme, December 2021

Thanks to all those Members who participated in the 3rd Round of our Competition, whether as an entrant or as a spectator and whether attending in person or by Zoom.  We seem to be getting the hang of these “hybrid” meetings. We hope that everyone was able to hear the session clearly, and follow the judge’s comments.

Our judge was Tim Morland ARPS who gave us constructive advice on how to improve our photography, something that we are all interested in as members of a Photographic Society. 

You can read the full report on the Society's Blog:

Blog

Congratulations to those members who achieved “20/20” scores. These were: 

For Prints:

·    Alan Larsen, for “Tidal Pool”

·    Colin Page for “13 Seconds at The South Quay”

For Digital images:

·    Hilary Barton, for “Homage to Hockney”

·    Chris Jepson, for “Pyramide du Louvre”

·    Natalie Robinson, for “Proscenium”

Buttons below the slideshows take you to the Galleries where you can discover the photographers' names.

Round 2: "Abandonment", September 2021

For the first time in 18 months, we were able to meet together for a competition session. This meant that we could share Prints as well as Digital images. Some 17 members contributed Prints and 30 entered the Digital (DPI) category. Thanks to technology and the wizardry of our Webmaster, members unable to attend in person were able to take part by Zoom. 

Our judge was Jay Charnock who delivered a characteristically witty as well as instructive commentary.  

You can see all Round 2 images below and use the buttons below the slideshows to view the Galleries.

Round 1: Open theme, June 2021

The first round of our 2021/22 Internal Competition was held on Tuesday 1st June 2021. This Round was “Open”, meaning there was no set theme. The COVID-19 restrictions prevented us meeting at the hall, so this was a DPI-only round.

Our judge Paul Burwood praised the overall high standard and variety of the 55 images on display. For more information about the images, who made them and which secured the highest scores, press the link below to the Gallery.

Looking Ahead to the 2022-23 Season

The dates and themes have been agreed already, so that members have plenty of notice:

•  June 7th 2022: "Open" theme, Judged by Caroline Preece.
• Sept 6th 2022:  "Speed", Judged by Marilyn Steward ARPS: Images that give a sense of speed; it might be a moving object, a running child, something blurred or something “frozen” in motion.
• Dec 6th 2022: "Open" theme, Judged by Tim Morland ARPS.
• March 7th 2023: "A Different Perspective," Judged by Dr Julie Hutson ARPS.  This could include images that are taken from an unusual point of view or angle; it could also be an image of something or someone familiar which shows up some surprising characteristic.

Last Season, 2020-21

For information on last season’s Internal Competition and links to Galleries of the images click below:

Internal Competition 2020-21