Third round of the PDI Trophy competition 2024-2025

This was the third round of the season. This third round had  “open” for the first theme and “yellow” for the second. My entries were not well received by the judge and both entries scored below the average for the round.

Participants have to submit images that have a roughly defined “genre” as part of the nominated “theme” with the added condition that each submitted image must have a different “genre”.

The two PDI divisions are now combined into just one for judging.

The Canadians are coming

On our second day on the Bwlch in July the Canadian air force display CF-18 Hornet came through just once.

I selected “Travel” as the genre . . .

Summary of judge’s comments
… Mach Loop possibly or the Lake District []
… That’s a Canadian F-18 in its demonstration colours probably visiting RIAT
… You have one of the three “Holy Grails” elements of low level flying aircraft you have the “Jelly”
… In the best shots you get “fluff”, “Jelly”, and “Ribbons”; Ribbons are contrails running off the edge of the wings, Fluff can generate on the wings when there is a lot of condensation, and the Jelly is the exhaust
… so you have the Jelly and is a very dynamic shot against the trees
… the great thing about low level flying is that it completes removes it from your traditional airshow , as you get the feeling of almost air-to-air photography []
…I’m not so sure that it is as dynamic as some of the other images we have tonight

I like my version

In the  2025 Van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery, I watched everyone taking pictures. This lady’s phone seem to have decided not to take the picture with its true colours.

I selected “Street” as the genre.

Summary of judge’s comments
… the yellows that we have in here are a bit off, they are not the strongest pf yellows , but one shouldn’t criticise an artist such as Van Gogh , I’m looking at your photograph
… I like the way that you have the person down in the bottom left with the mobile phone
… so here we have a two dimensional artwork , [] , your input is the interaction with these people with [the picture] as viewers, one lady on the right and one with the mobile phone is the more interesting not that mobile phones are are wildly exciting these days but it does play a role,, it is part of the story telling, so that works , so you have made Van Gogh’s image your image in this image, so that’s been done OK
… {the image] is not super strong but you have created a story out of this situation

The scores

There were 19 images in the open round and 19 in the “yellow” round  of the PDI Trophy  “The Canadians are coming” scored 8.5 and “I like my version” scored  7.5.

The original images

The Canadians are coming

I like my version