Last evening I spent a pleasant couple of hours judging a three-way camera club battle between Great Yarmouth, Caister and Lowestoft.  These friendly competitions are held throughout our county and beyond, with each club entering 5 monochrome prints, 5 colour prints and 5 digitally projected images.  All entries are mixed together so the judge doesn’t know which image belongs to which club, and the club with the most points at the end of the competition recieves a shield. 

The evening was hosted by Great Yarmouth who made me feel very welcome and plied me with coffee and biscuits (although I did manage with great effort to avoid the biscuits).  We started with the colour prints, of which there was some superb Natural History examples, luminous landscapes and expert portraits.  After a short break we continued with monochrome prints, my favourite – there’s something about monochrome that focuses one’s attention on subject matter and emotion!

After another short break we continued with the projected images… I must admit to seeing some of the best pdi’s in a long while… I don’t usually award many 10s (the top mark), but ended up with, if I remember rightly, around 4 or 5.  Particular favourites in this category were… a superbly rendered image of 4 airplanes and associated smoke trails, this shot had a filmic quality that jumped off the screen, another was of a female who had apparently missed a train – the choice of sepia gave a timeless feel, along with great technique in portraiting the movement of the train.

Thank you Great Yarmouth for inviting me along and for your kindness and hospitality.  And well done Caister, worthy winners.

For further information on the clubs:

Great Yarmouth and District Photographic Society  Caister Camera Club  Lowestoft Photographic Club