FOCUS March 2001 |
What's in a name? Whilst the judging was taking place for the Annual Exhibition a chance remark by a judge had your editor reeling. Although I cannot remember the actual words used they are approximated by "What a fine image - a pity about the title - it might have won otherwise". Your incredulous editor queried the remark; Was it not made in jest? But no, the judge, supported by the other judges, said that the title made a difference. A hackneyed, well used title could hold a good image back! By inference, presumably, a subtle new title could well push it forward ahead of competitors. So we are not merely judging the photographic image but also the creative use of English in our competitions. It's a good job we don't let the judges know our names, otherwise poor old John Smith wouldn't stand a chance! William of Marple Having penned the above, this reporter experienced the excellent presentations of the "Boys of Cumbria" on Tuesday 23rd January. Not only were the prints all excellent, but the comments and general sense of fun in all the presentations kept the audience bubbling with merriment. One of the many anecdotes we heard that night is pertinent to this article. John Thorpe noted that one of his prints, (entitled 22 trees) had done well in a variety of competitions; so he entered it again in an interclub battle judged by a lady from the South (ie Lancashire). The marking was out of thirty. When she got to his print she noted the title and said " Ah! -- twenty-two trees -- clearly a case for twenty-two marks, and twenty two marks was what he got! He found it hard to resist a change of name to Thirty Trees. Since I only counted eighteen trees, such a name change was not so illogical. The Focused Scribe |
Annual Exhibition Congratulations to Brian Turnbull for his award of the Prism Trophy for the Best Performance in the exhibition. Click here for the other NCPS Annual Exhibition Awards. Note: Gordon has asked the winners of these trophies if they would let him know of any discrepancies between the previous engraved winners and the historical record given on the reverse side of their certificates. Gordon would also like to thank members for their generous provision of raffle prizes and for their help in organising and running the Exhibition particularly to Peter Redford who took time off work to travel from London in order to set-up and operate the computer systems for the Interclub competitions. As a small token of their appreciation the Committee voted unanimously that the club should pay for his meal at the informal get together after the exhibition. |
The Inter-club Digital Print Competition. Twenty clubs entered the competition, judged by Mike McNamee. Mike cited Gerald Hallworth's Record print "The Ceiling, Church of St Cuthbert, Wells" as a darkroom example that couldn't be bettered by digital manipulation. But in a digital print competition, with full knowledge of the opportunities available to the digital worker, he expected the digital prints to demonstrate some extra edge over the straight darkroom print. Many of his comments, as he went through his mammoth task of judging 100 prints with only a short preview time, reflected this approach. "Would this monochrome print have been any the worse if directly produced in the darkroom" or " "No significant digital input as far as I can tell" were typical comments. Some of us newer entrants to the digital world noted that 'inappropriate perspective' let some prints down, whilst the use of 'diffuse glow' helped one portrait print to score full marks. Asked to nominate a Best Print for a prize Mike was loath to do so. Six prints had scored full marks and they all deserved to win, but given that there was only one prize (a £20 Jessops voucher) he nominated "The Four Horsemen" by Patrick Green of South Liverpool PS. Click here for the full competition results.
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The Inter-Club Slide Competition Twenty three clubs entered the Interclub Slide Competition for the North Cheshire Challenge Trophy. Brian Bower FRPS was the judge, and with so many fine images he had of necessity to be quite ruthless. Brian noted that it was inevitable that personal preference would play a part, but that he would try and be analytical in why images were "lost" at the various stages. Congratulations to Wigan 10 who eventually emerged as the winners, and to Tony Bond of Wigan 10 who won the prize of Best Competition Image with "Olive Grove" and a £20 Jessops voucher. Click here for the full competition results. |
Exhibiting to the World At the moment our web site is largely focused on information, both of historic interest as well as regularly updated news, which is of particular relevance and interest to club members. However, the World Wide Web and the NPCS Website present a much wider opportunity to members. It is a facility to exhibit your work to a worldwide audience. A quality website with the accent on pictures should attract many hundreds of visitors a month, to the potential benefit of both the exhibitor and the society. The number of visitors to the site can be reported in future editions of Focus. As a start I would ask that members contribute up to 10 of their best pictures for display on the site. There need be no rules or categories. All that matters is that the copyright is wholly owned by yourself and that the picture is one you are proud to exhibit. (The committee may need to exercise discretion on the images used). Those who have the technology to provide electronic images may e-mail them to my address below. I need a high quality jpeg with the longest side of the image set to 700 pixels. This can easily be achieved using the 'Save for Web' function in later versions of Photoshop. If you have a problem, supply them in any electronic format and I'll convert them. Anybody with slides but no scanner can pass them to Tony Redford who will do the necessary. There are three ways of creating electronic images from prints. We could: · scan the negative (if it is a reasonably straight print) I appreciate that a certain amount of effort will be required to make this happen, but I believe that if members really do exhibit their best work we will have a very special website. peter_redford@ msn.com ( your webmaster!) |
The Committee meeting Wednesday 14th February 2000 Gordon was congratulated on organising a very successful Annual Exhibition; All club members were thanked for their help, and particular thanks went to Peter Redford who came up from London with his Lap-top (and Audio skills) to ensure that the event ran smoothly. Through Peter's efforts the competition results were rapidly correlated and printed out. Gordon noted that next year's dates for the Exhibition are Wednesday 6th to Friday 8th February 2002, with the option of Saturday 9th if required. The handing-in day would be Tuesday 8th January. Judging would take place on Sunday 20th January at Hazel Grove along the same lines as this year. Barry Thomas has agreed to judge the Interclub Digital Print Competition in 2002 (which fact may attract an even greater interest in this event). The Trash & Treasure sale on the Saturday made a small profit for the club despite the terrible weather and the £82 cost of the room for the day. The Exhibition was a financial success and favourable responses have since been reported from visiting clubs on the Exhibition and the quality of members work It had seemed a good idea to invite the Exhibition judges to give feedback to the club members on their decisions. However the first event (for Prints) was to a much-reduced audience and one wondered whether members felt too exhausted after the four exhibition days to turn up. Gordon has asked if members would like to give some feedback for next year i.e. are judges` comments required, if so do we want comments on prints as well as slides, bearing in mind members have not seen the slides projected on the screen? Or, should we ask the judges for their comments at a club night prior to the Exhibition (could be arranged for the slides and would be an exciting evening when the results were announced, but would be less practical to administer for the prints due to the time factor)? It was noted that, following generally favourable responses to the last dinner, the next Christmas Dinner was booked for Thursday 20th December 2001, again at Poynton British Legion Centre. We have a room to ourselves, a bar, and the Honey Pot provided excellent food for the last event. It was noted that the Print Box needed attention and following suggestions that we might improve it by incorporating daylight balanced tubes or bulbs Brian Turnbull has agreed, over the summer, to carry out modifications. Bill Chadband |
The Print and Slide Battle with South Manchester CC On Tuesday 27th February South Manchester CC turned up in force to support the battle, preceded by the knowledge that they have been acclaimed Amateur Photographer Club of the Year. Jack Byatt from Romiley was the Judge. Jack noted that judges inevitably have their own prejudices but he would be as objective as he could. He had no particular hang-ups regarding how pictures were produced. At the end of the day it was all a bit of fun where the taking part was the important thing, not the winning or losing of points. He proposed to mark out of twenty, with the best images getting the full twenty. His excellent scheme was to go through the images commenting on each one first and then to go back over the images and mark them. Prints were taken first, after which the score stood at SMCC 162, NCPS 178. The scores for the slides section came out as SMCC 174 and NCPS 167; making the overall result 336 to South Manchester and 345 to North Cheshire. Frank thanked the Judge for his excellent work and our South Manchester visitors for their support of the event. The individual marks awarded are given below. NCPS Prints: NCPS Slides: SMCC Prints: SMCC Slides |
Photographer of the Year Table 2000/20001 |
And Finally: John Smith was kind enough (??) to publish a letter I sent him asking for a personal copy of Focal Points in return for sending him copies of our Focus. John used the letter to make the point that there he was producing this brilliant magazine (32 pages plus Covers, three times a year) to keep L&CPU members informed, and yet a member (me) out in the Styx claimed to know little about it and rarely saw it. For £4.50 we can all get our own personal copy sent directly to us. My heart went out to him! Are people bothering to read Focus? Focus now carries the names of individual club members and I note that several still have not picked up January's edition (free to members! - paid for by the club!). For members who cannot attend regularly but still support us with their subscriptions the committee agreed that I should occasionally mail them their copies. (Shall we put up the subscription again?) Bill Chadband |