What a weird year it started off normally enough camera club wise. With the Monthly Print Competition. Stephen Deer Winning the Advanced with “Botany Bay”. Peter Wills with “Get Back” won the Intermediate and The Preliminary Class was won by Bob Weir with “Cereal Killer”
This was followed by the January PDI, winner of the Advanced was David Lund with “Fish Eagle About To Pounce”, Intermediate was won by Rana Chakraborty with “Puffin With Sand Eel” Peter Owen’s “Taking A View” came first in the Prelim.
This was followed by the Outings Competitions with Dave Wilcox winning the PDI, Andy Shorey winning the Colour Print and Iris Donovan The Black and White section.
We then entered into February with the dreaded virus hanging over us and not knowing what was to come.
The Monthly print Advanced section was won by Dave Wilcox with “Rag & Bone Man” Jean Gerrish came first in the Intermediate Class with “Otter” and the winner of the Preliminary Class was Avtar Matharu with “Bouquet of Roses
The PDI saw Reg Mellis come first with “Wild Bearded Vulture” in the Advanced Class, The Intermediate Class was won by Iris Donovan with “Cobbolds Point” and Malcolm Hines with “On Reflection” won the Preliminary Class.
After a talk by Chris Woodhouse B.sc M.eng ARPS on Astro Photography . We had three weeks of the Annual Print Competitions. Dave Wilcox winning the Advanced and Monochrome Print of the year with “Storm Over Cullin Ridge” and Jean Gerrish with “Ice Cream Time” and Peter Owen with “Blackbird” coming first in the Intermediate and Preliminary Classes respectfully.
The Colour Print of the year was won by Andy Laing with “Granny’s Bonnet”
Coming first in the Intermediate section Andy Shorey’s “Stourhead” and the Preliminary winner was Bob Weir with “Connie”
Then it all went horribly wrong, and we were in lock down.
The Annual PDI competition was judged by Colin Strong LRPS CPAGB. The overall winner was John Hastings with “Barn Owl on Perch” the winner of the Intermediate Class was “A Woman’s Work” by Iris Donovan” Steve Christie came first in the Preliminary Class with “Beauty”
The first issue of the magazine was published on the 24th March. George Kaim was the first “Getting to know You” There was plenty to keep us entertained and informed, with quizzes, looking back on past years, and some technical information. The WhatsApp group was formed at the same time and is still going strong.
Our first Zoom meeting was on the the 9th June at the usual club time and day.
The Bijou and Animals & Flowers competition was judged by Barbie Lindsay MPAGB EFIAF/s FBPE on Zoom. The winner of the Bijou Competition was Reg Mellis and the Animals & Flowers was won by Sylvia Williams. The Norman Bonham Trophy was won by Andy Shorey.
At the beginning of July we learnt of the passing of our good friend Gordon Bramham. Luckily we will always have his “Too big in the frame” & “Desaturate the greens” but mainly we have the magnificent trophy in his name.
With the success of the Zoom meetings the last magazine was No. 20 with a special Christmas Greetings addition.
Hopefully we can meet up again soon, if not the brilliant Sylvia has organised Zoom meetings from 5th January to 27th April.
I have had a fairly easy year as far as my Print Competition duties are concerned. Apart from some contributions to the magazine I have had much to do. I think I might take advantage of there not being any print competitions this year by declaring myself the winner of the Monochrome, Colour and Series competitions and get the trophies engraved.
Apart from everyday being a Groundhog Day, photographically I have been experimenting with my flower photography, and trying food photography, experience has taught me that I should stick to photographing the ingredients rather than the finished dish. After all, one mouthful, or spoonful eaten from a dish isn’t a problem, an empty bowl or a plateful of crumbs is not very photogenic.
I have also been tracing our family trees, it can be very interesting, one thing I have noticed when comparing Marriage Certificates to the birth certificates of the first born, is that a few of the babies are premature by two or three months. I believe something similar happened to Mandy & Stephen.
Happy Hogmany
Brandy makes you randy
Whisky makes you frisky
Beer makes you queer
A glass of wine you should be just fine.