RPS | People PDI - Street or Portrait 8th Feb 2024

Judge: Jim Bennett

Jim, because he’s nice, but also because he has taste obviously, held back all of my entries tonight, which is cool.

None of them bloody won, mind.

RPS Knockout

Came first in the Royston Photographic Society Knockout competition last night! (Pair-wise elimination, last-man-standing, with 90 images.)

I’m still totally in the dark as to how a grand-slam works with 90 images. Some don’t appear until round two. Some perhaps until round three. Some rounds have an odd number of entries. It’s all mysterious.

PAGB Cup for Nature 2024

Results for the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain Nature cup.

Hmm. The spiders was my best shot, so I’m pleased that is reflected in the scores. I’m not used to scores out of fifteen though, so nine really smarts!

PAGB Trophy 2024

Results from the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain 2024 Trophy

Three judges score each image out of five and the total is the score.

Serial PDI Round 3 | CCC

Judge: Pauline Martindale

Unexpectedly scored 19/20 for this heron.

Kitten scored 16/20, which was expected!

The scoring was properly weird. I’m surprised there’s not been more comment about it on the club forums because it genuinely appeared that the judge had brought the wrong glasses - misdescribing fundamental elements of the images. There was also a strange obsession with verticals (even for elements that were not vertical in the first place such as V-shaped architectural butressing) and leg-separation (even for face-forward animals on which separation would have looked absurd and been compositionally jarring.)

Judge was viewing them for the first time on the night and that appeared to put the pressure on her.

I’m not saying my images were worth much - I chucked them in fairly thoughtlessly - but the commentary and scoring were both baffling.

Open Print 11th January 2024

Judge: Naomi Saul. Quite technical feedback. Very little regarding composition.

Unlike Cambridge on Monday, this scored 19/20 this evening and, whereas the double mount was a negative, this time it was commended. You can’t predict what happens with these sorts of entries.

Just like Monday, this got 15/20 again. Lesson learned. My LRPS OneToOne suggested this image be colour, so maybe that’s the next try…

Hmm…

16/20. Naomi pointed out that the roof is much duller than the wall and that could be better balanced. I agree. (Nobody has noticed the artefactual verticals in the upper tenth of the image. That’s the main problem in my opinion.)

Hmmm….!

Serial Print 2023-2024 Round 2 - CCC

Judge: Chris Foster

Tried to be crafty here. Submitted this image (London Underground) because I like it, but it’s very much (I thought) not a competition image. It’s too graphical, is basically a poster, has blunt text on it, and I mounted it a) in blue, and b) with a red inlay-mount to really rub it in. I thought it would be scored 10 or less but I’d garner lots of useful feedback about why, thus informing my future submissions. That, or it would be so unusual as to go right round and come out on top.

As it was it scored 15/20, which is plenty respectable for a Cambridge score… But we learned nothing.

Mammoths was my mono submission. This too scored 15/20, which is fine, but everything he said was effusively complimentary. Nothing negative to say whatsoever, then… a brief pause… “15”.