Rosebowl Final: Amanda Wright Reports

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Amanda Wright and Dennis Durack were the sole representatives of EHHPS at the Rosebowl final at Amersham on Sunday 23rd April, which, as Amanda writes, was a shame, particularly as we didn’t do too badly.
Congratulations to Amanda, whose image Overboard was Highly Commended in the Starred images competition and scored our only 20 in the Rosebowl final.

Amanda’s Report

The Stars and Phone Photography Competition were judged by Jeanette Lendon, a Corporate Photographer for 14 years turned teacher of phone photography and creative techniques. It was her debut judging stint and I have to say I think she was a little out of her depth. She had seen the images previously at home but was by her own admission blown away by the standard of images she was presented with and floundered with descriptions. This resulted in the first half of the event finishing an hour earlier than planned.

In the Starred Images Competition

The winning image:

  • Scootering Through The Architectural Eye by Belinda Ewart of Field End

Highly Commended:

  • Casting The Net by Dave McKay of Oxford

  • Overboard by Amanda Wright EHHPS

In the Phone Photography Competition:

Jeanette awarded 7 Highly Commendeds and the winning image was 

  • The Power And The Glory by Katrina Cottam of Northfields CC

The Rosebowl Final was judged by Tim Morland ARPS from Kingston CC in the SPA

Tim was a very good judge giving thorough critique and making valid comments and improvement suggestions, A very hard thing to do given that all the images he was presented with were deemed the best of the best from each club amounting to a total of 88 exceptional images. I do think he scored the majority of our images a tad too harshly though.

Our top scoring image with 20 was Overboard by Amanda Wright followed by 

  • I Was trying To Sleep by Kris Mason - 18

  • Priya by Nigel Glasgow - 18

The final place results were:

  • 1st = Oxford 147

  • 1st =  Milton Keynes City 147

  • 3rd Watford 146

  • 4th Woodley 140

  • 5th EHHPS  139

Detailed scores and images can be found on the CACC website:

Detailed Scores

Amanda Wright

Intimate Landscapes 2023: Amanda Wright Reports

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Intimate Landscapes 23rd March 2023 via Zoom

This was Tring’s second year hosting and organising this great competition, designed with creativity in mind and with an emphasis on honing down a scene to focus on a smaller area of a larger scene. This often results in creating a whole new interpretation of what was actually there especially when there are no elements to give a sense of scale.

Last year we had a few teething problems when the two judges seemed to completely miss the brief but I’m pleased to say that this year our two excellent judges, chosen particularly for their love of creative styles in photography, rose to the challenge. They were Maria Leekblade LRPS AFIAP DPAGB who lives in The New Forest and Kevin Day, a Professional Family/Event Photographer and well known to EHHPS. Luckily both judges were sent all 70 images ahead of time and were able to pre-judge and score them as on the evening Kevin was too ill to attend. The competition was well attended, at one point I counted 95, 9 of which I believe were from EHHPS.

14 clubs took part, each submitting 5 images each by a different author. Here are the scores from Ealing’s images

  • Cairngorms Giants by Sally Mason 16

  • Silver Forest by Jenny Fenton 15

  • Icescape by Jacquie Sinnatt 16

  • Overboard by Amanda Wright 20

  • Rockface by Dennis Durack 15

The Final Results were

  • First Place - Line In The Sand by Stuart Feurtado from Princess Risborough

  • Second Place - Life Begins by Susi Dillon from Woodley

  • Third Place - Overboard by Amanda Wright from Ealing

9 further images were awarded with Highly Commended

The overall winning club was Maidenhead

All the images entered in the competition can now be viewed on the Intimate Landscapes Website 

EHHPS vs Northfields - 21st March: Amanda Wright Reports

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This year Rick very kindly devised a super spreadsheet with all the information we need which I have added below (click on the table for a larger pdf version).

Our judge was from Oxford and was able to Zoom judge for us on this hybrid event. Judging was once again questionable and raised many eyebrows with 15 images held back, 10 from Ealing and 5 from Northfields.

I’m glad to say we won 356 to 340

Click the image Above for a .pdf version

CACC Championships Day: Amanda Wright Reports

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Championship Day Sunday March 12th 2023

Three judges judge all three events each scoring between 1-5 so a top score is 15

Chilterns 100 - one PDI image submitted per author and author’s choice

Printed Championship - Clubs submit 15 Prints, selected by the external Comp sec and no more than 3 per author

Projected Championship - Clubs submit 15 Projected images, selected by the external Comp sec and no more than 3 per author

Judges

  • Caroline Colegate ARPS APAGB (SCPF)

  • Rosemary Wilman Hon FRPS AFIAP ABPE APAGB (SPA)

  • Roy Essay MPAGB (EAF)

Sadly I missed the very beginning of this the largest annual photographic competition in the CACC calendar which then spiralled into me not being able to get all our scores down accurately for the Chilterns 100, the first event. I wasn’t too worried though as Mark Buckley-Sharp is always on top of this whole event and sends out the scores soon after. Unfortunately he was in hospital this year, his normal procedure wasn’t followed and the scores for the Chilterns 100 were forever lost.

I can, however, tell you that our very own Dennis Durack won this event being awarded the only 15 for Eastern Eyes. Dennis was therefore awarded a PAGB Gold Medal

  • Ali Asplin from Harpenden came second with Church of St Thomas Slovenia - Silver PAGB Medal

  • Alison Jenkins from Watford came 3rd with Icelandic Arctic Fox - Bronze PAGB Medal


Projected Championship

The Top Scoring images from EHHPS were

  • Holly In Green by Shaun Hodge 12

  • Say Whaaat by Emmanuel 12

  • I Was Trying To Sleep by Kristin Mason 12

Results:

  • Oxford came 1st

  • Watford 2nd

  • New City 3rd

The Top scoring images, including Oxford's winning panel, can be found on the CACC website under Galleries

Print Championship

The results from the Print Championship are still under discussion as there was concern over some images from Amersham having been used in a previous year. Discussions followed and on the day the CACC committee decided that Amersham (the winning club) should be disqualified. This result is still in dispute I understand.

Rosebowl Round 3: Amanda Wright Reports

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On Monday 6th Feb Pinner hosted our 3rd and final round of the Rosebowl Competition where EHHPS were up against Field End, Kidlington and obviously Pinner. 

It was somewhat poorly represented by EHHPS with only Paul and Kris, Emmanuel and myself in attendance (when I last looked). Personally I find this quite distressing as it was on Zoom so dead easy to attend and gives all members a chance to see good work from other members from the CACC with a total of 60 PDI’s to be judged.

Our judge for the evening was Cat Humphries who, as she said, struggled to get into her stride owing to a myriad of technical difficulties had by Pinner, however these seemed to be mostly ironed out after the break.

The scores were well spaced out with Cat going down to 13 and 14 on several occasions. She held back 13 images with 5 of them being from EHHPS; all was looking good.

Scoring 19 was:

  • Janna by Paul Mason

Our top scorers with 20 were

  • Homage To McCurry by Paul Mason

  • Keeping Warm by Shaun Hodge

  • Overboard by Amanda Wright which was also awarded one of the two allocated stars

  • Tiff by Nigel Glasgow which was awarded the remaining star


Final Scores were

  • 1st Place Field End CC 263

  • 2nd Place EHHPS 258

  • 3rd Place Pinner CC 253

  • 4th Place Kidlington CCPG 227

We shall have to wait and see if we make the final top 12 and compete in the Final on 23rd April. We have managed to accrue 4 stars though across the competition so will have a healthy entry in the Final Starred Comp.

(Amanda Wright)

Jenny Fenton published in Outdoor Photography Magazine

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Congratulations to Jenny Fenton on being published in Outdoor Photography Magazine.

Author: Jenny Fenton

"What caught my eye was the combination of soft colours, which are quite unusual in the autumn. I purposely backlit the leaves on this sunny day to bring out the grey, brown and green pastel tones."


Olympus E-MI MkII with 75-300mm lens at 300mm, ISO 3200, 1/250sec at f/6.7

Rosebowl Round 2: Amanda Wright Reports

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Last week (8 December) was our turn to host a round of the Rosebowl competition as we welcomed visitors Croxley CC and Milton Keynes City PS  This year's Rosebowl is a Hybrid event, with a combination of on-site and Zoom participation  - our thanks to Rick and Burgess for making the technology a success - one PC each!

Martin Patten - judging via Zoom - made it clear that he was applying a higher level of critique than for normal Club competitions - and certainly put that into practice.

Amanda Wright reports:

The three clubs each enter 15 PDI images
Martin held back 6 images out of the 45 

4 from Milton Keynes City
1 from Croxley and 1 from EHHPS


Only 2 20’s were awarded, both to Milton Keynes City so they were automatically given the stars too.

EHHPS had no 20’s but top scorers were 


Keeping Warm by Shaun Hodge 19

Scoring 18’s were:

Homage To McCurry by Paul Mason
Boules by Dennis Durack
Overboard by Amanda Wright
Takamine by Paul Mason
Holly by Shaun Hodge


Final scores were


Croxley 248 - 3rd Place
EHHPS 256 - 2nd Place
Milton Keynes City 256 - 1st Place

Federation of North-West London Photographic Societies: Amanda Wright Reports

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On Tuesday 15th November 3 intrepid EHHPS members plus myself attended the second and (this year’s) final round against Imagez Camera Club all the way out in deepest Buckinghamshire at Weston Turville.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening with many friendly and familiar faces including Micki Aston our judge for the evening and homemade cake!

The evening started with the print section and we knew we may well be in for a tough ride when the very first two prints (both from Imagez) were held back and our first print, one of my favourite hopefuls, scored 18. By the end of scoring there were 6 held back but only one of them was ours.

  • Mike Lloyd did us proud achieving a 20 and gaining one of the 3 allocated stars for Going Up, very well done Mike

  • Paul Mason achieved a 19 for Sceptical.

The final print score:

  • EHHPS 140

  • IMAGEZ 146

In the second round Micki held back 7 PDI’s with two of them being ours; this sealed our fate.

Our top scorers were:

  • Shaun Hodge’s Keeping Warm which scored a 20 and was allocated one of the 3 stars

  • Paul Mason scored 19 for Window Box

well done both.

Final PDI scores were much the same as in the prints

  • EHHPS 141

  • IMAGEZ 149

Adding these two scores to our first round we end up with a Grand Total of:

  • EHHPS 566

  • IMAGEZ 582

So a very well deserved win to Imagez who were very gracious in triumph and I received a lovely email from Dave Gibbs the new Imagez Competition Sec saying how completely surprised and shocked they were at the outcome - what a gentleman. They will go through to a Semi-Final, we wish them every success.

As I seem to be saying all too often, there’s always next year.

(Amanda Wright)

Intimate Landscapes Competition 2023 - Update

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The Intimate Landscapes inter-Club Competition will take place on Thursday 23rd March 2023 at 8pm

It will be on Zoom with ample audience numbers.

Entries (5 per Club) to Amanda Wright by 2nd March please.

Judges:

  • Maria Leekblade – a highly respected photographer and judge from South of England who is known for her understanding of creative photography – Maria had great feedback on her judging on CACC Championship day this year

  • Kevin Day – A CACC judge with great interest in the genre and well known for the quality of his feedback and analysis.

Amanda Wright has recently received an update from Peter Cox for November 2022. Peter writes:

  • The website http://www.intimate-landscape.com/

  • has had over 1,000 unique visitors in the first year – with a very high period of browsing of over 5 minutes

  • Is top of google search for either ‘Intimate Landscapes’ or ‘Intimate Scapes’ – I am working on other keywords…

  • Has a new featured photographer – Ken Scott - some lovely images and very interesting perspective (more photographers are in the pipeline!)

  • Has been updated with EVERYTHING you need to know about the 2023 competition, including a page about our judges for 2023 – so please review

Please share the website with your members and encourage them to use it, to help with preparing their images

Arrangements 2023 – are largely as 2022 but note some minor changes:

  • It is a digital competition on Zoom – there will be space available for all members of all participating clubs – a link will be sent nearer the time.

  • Only 5 images please – all from different members of your club. We do not need a tie break image

  • Image format – Aspect 16:9 / JPEG / sRGB / 1600 pixels long edge / no more that 5MB image size

  • Full details are given on the website.

North West Fed Round 1: Amanda Wright Reports

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On 27th October, just two days after the first round of the Rosebowl, EHHPS hosted the first round of the NWFed with visitors Imagez. The competition was confidently judged by Paul Burwood.

Usually there would be three clubs in our group but sadly XRR who had been allocated to our group, made a last minute decision not to compete in external competitions, indeed the club are no longer meeting. This means instead of the usual 3 rounds with fewer images submitted per club in each round we now only have two rounds but are submitting 8 prints and 8 PDI’s each in each round.

Print Section:

As for the Rosebowl, the scoring was incredibly close, with scores ranging from 16-20 in the print section.

Three 20’s were awarded

  • Takamine by Paul Mason EHH

  • Elegance by Kathy Chantler IMG

  • Apple in a Frozen Birdbath by John Timbrell IMG

Both Imagez’ prints took the stars.

Final Print Score

  • EHHPS 144

  • IMAGEZ 143

PDI section

Two 20’s were awarded

  • Shattering by Chenxi Ni IMG

  • Overboard by Amanda Wright EHH

Both these images received the two stars allocated.

Final PDI Scores

  • EHHPS 141

  • IMG 144

FINAL OVERALL SCORES

  • IMG 287

  • EHH 285

So it’s all to play for in our second and final round on 15th November held at Imagez.

NB It has come to my attention that we should have awarded 3 stars in both the Print and PDI competition and I’m awaiting procedure from Terri Adcock.

(Amanda Wright)

Rosebowl Round 1: Amanda Wright Reports

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The external Competition Season is now well and truly underway.

On 25th Oct EHHPS had our first round of the Rosebowl alongside Imagez, Stoke Poges and hosted on Zoom by Maidenhead.
Five EHHPS members watched the evening which was ably judged by the very gentlemanly Colin Southgate.
Each club submits 15 PDI images so 60 entries in total and the scores ranged from 14-20 with 3 images scoring 20. The final results were incredibly close being just one point apart.

  • 1st Place Stoke Poges 255

  • = 2nd Place Imagez 254

  • = 2nd Place EHHPS 254

  • 4th Place Maidenhead 253

EHHPS Scored two of the three 20’s

  • Takamine by Paul Mason

  • Overboard by Amanda Wright

Both images were also awarded the two allocated stars. Yay!

Our second round is on 8th December when we will be hosting via Zoom.

(Amanda Wright)

Rick Beresford wins in Ealing Wildlife Group Awards

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Congratulations to Rick Beresford whose image of a Peregrine Falcon came first in the ‘Urban Nature’ category of the Ealing Wildlife Group’s 6th Annual Photo competition. Rick’s image, together with other winners, is currently on display in Walpole Park.

Click the image below to see Rick’s winning image in full.

Click above to see Rick’s full winning image

Ron Wake Trophy: Amanda Wright Reports

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On Tuesday evening (27th September) , Emmanuel, Dennis and I watched Kevin Day judge the Ron Wake held at Harrow Camera Club and attended by 5 clubs, Pinner, Field End, Watford, Ealing and Harrow.

Each club was invited to submit between 7 and 10 images each by a different author and unseen in external competition. Kevin had a very difficult task on his hands trying to hold back just 10 of the 46 entries and ended up holding back 13.

7 from Watford
3 from Field End
2 from Pinner
1 from EHHPS

These were then divided as follows

Commendeds

2 from Field End
1 from EHHPS - I Was Going To Sleep by Kris Mason

Highly Commendeds

6 from Watford
1 from Pinner

Placings

  • In 3rd Place - Pinner

  • 2nd Place - Field End

  • 1st Place - Watford

Disappointing for us (although Harrow didn’t have any images held) but Watford’s images were very strong so hardly surprising.

(Amanda Wright)

Brilliant BBQ wraps up the Summer Events Season

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August 20th saw the finale of the Summer Event season as Amanda Wright hosted the traditional Summer Barbecue.

Internal Competitions Secretary Emmanuel and our new President Kristin Mason oversaw the trophy presentation for last season's six monthly competitions. The photographs below are courtesy of Dennis Durack

Excellent location, excellent food and excellent company. Many thanks to Amanda, and to Paul for a great afternoon.

The full list of competition results were published in a previous news item.

The Inter-Federation Competition Results: Amanda Wright Reports

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The results are in and I’m delighted to say the CACC didn’t do too badly at all, certainly better than in previous years.

Members will find the overall results of all three categories here but I’d like to highlight our top scorers and our club scores here too.

In the Monochrome Category the CACC came 6th overall scoring five 14’s and two 15’s. One of the 15’s was awarded a PAGB Silver Medal by judge Ralph Duckett:
Congratulations to Brian Gough of Amersham for Wistful

In the Nature Category the CACC came 7th overall scoring three 14’s and one 15

In the Colour Open Category the CACC came joint 7th with WPF scoring six 14’s and three 15’s

EHHPS scores are as follows

  • Downward Curve Paul Mason 12

  • Polyhedra Paul Mason 14

  • The Hurlers Shaun Hodge 13

  • A Brush With A Cactus Paul Mason 14

  • Marine Marie Shaun Hodge 12

  • Now What? Shaun Hodge 12

  • Earth Mother Shaun Hodge 13

  • Chinatown Nigel Glasgow 10

  • Exploding Mushrooms Rick Beresford 11

  • Battersea Power Station At Night Dennis Durack 15

I believe that Polyhedra, A Brush With A Cactus and Battersea Power Station at Night have all been chosen to go in the touring National Exhibition which travels the UK for the year.

Very many congratulations to you all but especially Paul and Dennis, great news!!

Amanda Wright

Annual Awards Evening: Results 2021-2022

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Following the AGM on 16 June, Internal Competition Secretary Emmanuel, announced the results of the Monthly Aggregate Competitions, which take place over the full season. There are eight competitions in each category. An author’s 7th and 8th lowest scores are discarded, and the remaining scores (out of 20) totalled for a maximum score of 120 points.

Full results will be available to members through the weekly Newsletter.

Trophies will be presented at the Summer Barbeque event.

Print Open

Print Open

First : Jenny Fenton (118 pts)
Second: Kristin Mason (114 pts)
Third: Dennis Durack (112 pts)

Print Set Subject

Print Set Subject

First: Paul Mason (117 pts)
Second: EMMANUEL (115 pts)
Third: Kristin Mason (114 pts)

Print Portrait

Print Portrait

First : Paul Mason (117 pts)
Second: Kristin Mason (114 pts)
Third: Mike Lloyd (109 pts)

Projected Open

Projected Open

First : Jenny Fenton (120 pts)
Second Equal: John Alexander ( 114 pts)
Second equal: Rick Beresford (114 pts)

Projected Set Subject

Projected Set Subject

First : Kristin Mason (118 pts)
Second: Paul Mason (115 pts)
Third: Rick Beresford: (114 pts)

Projected Portrait

Projected Portrait

First: Paul Mason (120 pts)
Second : Martin Creedy (113 pts)
Third Equal: Mike Lloyd (111 pts)
Third Equal: Kristin Mason (111 pts)

Switch Trophy

Switch Trophy

This year’s Switch Trophy was awarded to Rick Beresford for his work in taking over the Club Projection, and overhauling the Club laptop.


Rick Beresford receives the Switch Trophy from newly elected President Kristin Mason.
Image credit: Burgess Taylor