Report on the 1st DPI competition
Our good friend Tony Pioli ARPS ABPE from Chapel Camera Club did us the honour of judging the first of this season's digitally projected image competitions. As you will see from the Competition Results page, he was confronted with a total of 82 images, upon all of which he delivered a carefully considered opinion as well as making every effort to suggest improvements which may have lifted their marks. His great experience of judging was further confirmed by his instinctive "pacing" as he arrived at his final conclusions at precisely 10.00pm. We could ask for no more than this of any judge.
Tony thoughtfully spent extra time discussing the pros and cons of the three "intermediate" images submitted by the single entrant in that category, Brian Adams. Once again the quality of these submissions confirmed the absence of any gap in quality between our "intermediate" and "advanced" categories.
In general, Tony's comments focussed on the balance and composition of the images in both categories. He emphasised that pictures are read from left to right, just as we would read a written page. He therefore preferred the focal point of a picture, such as the head of an animal, to lie close to the right-hand "third" rather than the left, an issue which led to a significant number of our pictures earning a comment that they would have looked better "the other way round". He wanted slopes to rise to the right and darker areas to form a "stopper" on the right also. A number of natural history subjects suffered because heads were turned slightly away from the viewer rather than looking slightly forwards. Distracting backgrounds were also an issue. However, "rules" are sometimes better broken as evidenced, perhaps, by Tony's final selection of potential winners. As we have discovered, there is usually a difference between a really nice picture and a competition winner.
I think we were all struck by the general high quality, and the great diversity, of the images projected throughout the evening, and few of us would have envied Tony in his task of sorting out the wheat from the chaff. Phil Riley's vote of thanks to the judge and his request for the audience to show their appreciation of a job well done met with an enthusiastic round of applause. It was well deserved, Mr Pioli.