This was the third round of the PDI Trophy Competition at Farnborough Camera Club in the 2023-2024 season on the 11th January 2024.
Cafe table view
This image was shot while sitting outside at a café in Montmartre during my 1-2-1 day with Valerie Jardin in January 2023. I have cropped to a square to remove some of the table decoration.
Summary of judge’s comments
…this is in monochrome because that is what we are used to seeing in newspapers
… this does have that sort of Cartier-Bresson feel about it , you know if you had said that this was taken in the 1940s or 50s I would not be up for disputing that with you
… I am just not sure what the photographer wants us to look at; what did the photographer se in this image that they want us to see; I mean if it is the figure walking along the street then why is the figure so blurred and out of focus? If it is this vase of dried flowers? why can’t we see all of them? Or, at least enough to have this cut off at the corner and , and you think I wonder what that is and I keep going back to look at it and I wish I could see a bit more of this bit of dried flower. When you down to here at the edge of the vase it is just too close to the edge of the image. I mean they might have got away with it if they had cropped it down there […]
… you keep think you it have been cropped in or cropped out, not where it is [cropped ]
… I do like the timeless sort of feel of it but I just feel it has just not quite worked
Walking the trail
As we walked around the Christmas lights in Kew Gardens in December 2023, I was fascinated by this lit archway and the silhouettes of the people in front of us.
Summary of judge’s comments
… is this Windsor illuminations? it is not this year’s but it might have been last years; you can take dogs too you can’t take them to […] but you can to Windsor
… I think the silhouetting of the figures works well
… you have had to had this much of it because if you don’t you loose by cropping in some of the side
… I think it works very well with the backlit people in the silhouette , the people are quite sharp so I presume it it is not a long exposure or they would have blown out and I don’t know if there was motion on these LEDs
… technically well taken but I’m afraid {compared to ]other images tonight it doesn’t hold my attention for terribly long
The scores
There were 30 images in this round in the Advanced Division. “Café table view” scored 7 and “Walking the trail” scored 7.5.
The original images
Café table view
Paris in January 2023
Walking the trail
