This was the third round of the Print Trophy Competition at Farnborough Camera Club. This was an open round and two images were permitted.
And Chips
I watched this couple for a time eating their fish and chips and having to constantly wave away the very aggressive seagulls. The man is still keeping a wary eye on the gulls to his right.
I tried to get images of the gulls and the couple but out of the sequence this was the best image.
Judge’s comments
[45 seconds deleted]I love the way the words interact with the lady to be blunt [20 seconds deleted]
It is extraordinarily well seen and I think that it is great that you had the wit to put it in
The print is better in good light because her top is almost completely black especially in this light that I am in now, if you were to take it to a window in full light you can see that there is quite a bit of detail in there and that the darker areas of the print has detail – so that’s good. But in poor lighting or let’s say if you were in the hall and the lighting is not that brilliant for your prints then you’d have a judge complaining about the darkness in here
But what I think you’ve done is really very good, the sharpness is good, natural OK, I like the background you can see that it is the seaside etc . . .
I think the mono is good because it is kinda showing us the distressed nature of some of these kind [seaside places], of maybe in the Winter the apparent desolation of these seaside resorts, windswept seaside vista …
I’d like to hold this one back
Stretching on the bars
My only studio workshop after the first lockdown was with Kate Byrne in a dance studio. The studio had lots of plugs and the like on the walls as well as dirty mirrors. This image was from one of my last 1-2-1 sessions with Kate. I had asked her to relax and to be pensive (see the judge’s comments below!).
This is probably an image when a different title might (!) have helped.
Judge’s comments
Good to get into so close, looks like you have spent time with her trying different things.Sharpness is fine. However, [the image itself is – ] the print is itself a bit small, it would have been great if the print could have been bigger, more impactful
But I am judging what is in front of me, she does either look either a little weary or a little bored, there is no kind of excitement in her eyes or her expression. Or maybe, just the fact that she is just a little, you know, really tired after doing a big workout.
There doesn’t look to be that much empathy in there not much attachment between the author and the model
But yep, it is a different representation of these sort of images that we see on the judging scene.
The scores
There were 26 images in this round in the Advanced Division.
‘And Chips’ scored 9.5 and ‘Stretching on the bars’ scored 8.
The original images
‘And Chips’:
ISO 100 105mm f/5.6 at 1/40 sec
Converted to black and white, after cropping I used the bench to have a horizontal perspective rather then the angle of the original.
On reflection retaining the gull might have been a better image . . .
‘Stretching on the bars ‘:
ISO 100 60 mm f/11 at 1/200 sec
Light balance was set for the flash setup after that simple adjustment I had to loose the thermometer on the wall as well as boost the saturation amongst other adjustments.