16th February: 3rd Round Rosebowl Inter-club Competition – judged by Martin Patten DPAGB, LRPS, BPE4*

In our third round match against  Kidlington, Stokenchurch and XRR, Martin Patten kept us on the edge of our seats as he led us to a nail-biting finish.

The competition was fierce with some stunning macro, wildlife and imaginative images.    Commiserations to our competitors as, when the final scores were added up, we were victorious by just one point ahead of XRR;  Kidlington were in third place and Stokenchurch fourth.

Many thanks to Martin for his commentary and careful judging and to everyone who came along to support their club and the event.

We await to hear whether or not we will progress to the Final which will be held on 18th April.

Next week we look forward to a talk on Smartphone Photography by Jeanette Lendon.

In the meantime, stay safe, warm and dry!

9th February: Open Online Competition, judged by Darren Brown

One of the upsides of lockdown  and zoom is meeting judges from different parts of the UK and tonight our competition was judged sympathetically by Darren Brown from Bangor, County Down.  Darren gave informative and helpful commentary on each of the images.

Congratulations go to Ian Roberts for winning the competition with “Red Fox Stare V2” and his second placed “Jay Sitting on Perch V2” – something about his V2s hit the mark tonight! Julia Wainwright’s “Flamboyant Flamingos” was third;  her “Modern Day Monks” and “Red Grouse Perched Above the Heather” were highly commended.  Also highly commended was “Anna’s Hummingbird Turning Away” by Avril Candler.   Four images were commended and these were “Forty Winks” by Judith Gimber, “Red Deer Stag at Bushy Park” by Paul Martin, “Rough Sleeper” by John Draper and Marc Ormstein’s “Who Needs a Lion When You Have a Mane Like Mine”.

Thanks to everyone who supported tonight’s meeting and special thanks to Darren for a very entertaining evening.

Winning Image by Ian Roberts

All tonight’s images may be seen on our Facebook Page – just click the logo at the top of the page.

Next week we host the third round of the Rosebowl.  We look forward to seeing members from the competing clubs from XRR, Kidlington and Stokenchurch.

In the meantime, stay safe, warm and well.

2nd February: Show and Tell – Low Light Projects

Last night we had four excellent members’ presentations detailing progress with their low light projects;  these follow on from our low light workshop back in December.    Very many thanks to Sanjay Mistry, Peter Polkinghorne, Ian Roberts and Trevor Alexander for their detailed, informative and entertaining presentations that covered for example, enhancing a monitor to ensure consistent lighting ambience, camera equipment, setup, props, successful images and the other kind!

We were also treated to Julia Wainwright and Ian Roberts’  ‘Lockdown with the Starlings’ Project which included some behind the scenes information on the setups and of course some great starling images.

The evening was rounded off with a fun critique session we called ‘judging the judges’……..

Thanks to everyone for a thoroughly entertaining, enjoyable and inspirational evening.  Special thanks to our presenters, we really appreciate the hard work and time that goes into our members’ evenings.

We look forward to next week’s online open competition which will be judged by Darren Brown from Bangor, County Down.