Monthly Competitions
The club's First monthly competiton saw a good number of entries in all catergories, giving our judge P Norris plenty to do!. In this digital age, it is very pleasing to see there was still a strong entry for the slides. A good sprinkling of 9 and 10 points across the sections. See Sept 07 page for highest marked pictures. For our 2nd monthly there were 18 mono, 34 colour and 20 slides - another full evening and a high number of top marks. See October 07 for pictures etc. Slightly less prints for the November 2007 competition, but certainly enough to keep a captive audience. A wide range of subjects shown included sport, still lifes, flower studies and formal portratiture, with a good range of marking. January's competition had the usual high entry of photographs with a good sprinkling of top marks in both prints and slides and much subject diversity .February's competition was marginally down on the monochrome prints but it is heartening to know that there are still keen slide workers within the club. Let us hope that photographers will begin to realise that slide is a very worthwhile medium to take and to keep it in production. A couple of humourous titles this month; literally " Man sitting on bench in the sun" a monochrome print by J Weedon, and also "Mug Shot" by J Weedon of a lady surrounded by well....mugs.The penultimate monthly(March) judged by D Weedon, in contrast to previous months a low number of high scores. Amongst these were P Slights ' Fallen Angel', ' A Pay's 'St Edmonsbury at Southwold' and G Adams 'People in the fog'. April's competition had many high scores, leading to a close contest at the end of the year for the winners.
Summer Theme
The subject for this year was water with print and slide entries. A first choice was picked from both prints and slides with one being the ultimate winner. There were many good photographs showing water in a location, but the judge felt that water needed to be the dominant subject. The winner of the competition was P Slight with a colour print showing a close up of differing wave movements.
Six on a theme, six snappers, five photographs
Members submit six small prints(monochrome or colour) on a theme and a winner to be decided by club members. There were about 8 entries this year and members voted for (to confirm).................. The 'snappers' were given 35mm film camera with a standard 50mm lens and had to take five pictures. The group winner was P Luke showing different aspects of trees and individual success went to R Adams with his shot of a bridge overlooking a park.
External Competitions
Our first external competition is the Baddow Print Battle on 30th October 2007. Although the club was unsuccesful at winning the cup, B Martin achieved the best print of the evening with 'Corrider' (See Sept 07 results).
On 22nd November the (Arlesford slide competition run by Halstead & District PS this year, who won in 2006) attracted a high standard of work, and the Colchester Photographic Society scored 56 points with their six entries. Joint second were Halstead and Maldon with 49 points, with two tens awarded to Maldon, for B Martin's 'Corridor' and D Martin's 'Break in clouds ' slides.
Maldon Challenge Trophy-
This was the competition's 50th Anniversary and audience numbers appeared to be up this year. It must have been the promise of cakes instead of biscuits!. Thirteen clubs entered the competition and there were many excellent images gaining merits and high marks. The winners of the individual cups in the prints and slides were Chelmsford and they scored the highest number of points with 121. Colchester were second and Maldon third.
Lectures
Our first lecture of the season was a thought provoking talk by M Fuller on Orangutangs, man's effect on its environment, both good and bad, their future and sadly how other countries benefit from the destruction of its habitats, presently through growing of palm oil plantations. As he pointed out, it is easy to criticise but for many people in these rainforest areas it is one of the few employments available for them to earn a living.
The second lecture of the season provided by M Pardoe was on the subject of picture postcards. This not only gave the opportunity to view photographic techniques of the past, but also the social history behind these pictures. His other talks are on pub signs(! )and Underground stations -both entertaining and interesting.
Practical Evenings/Misc
Members brought up a selection of items for the 'Table Top'/Still Life evening. These included crystals, items of clothing, mechanical item . An interesting evening in terms of composing and lighting inanimate objects. Hopefully this will encourage even more still life photography.
At the 2 x 2 (medium format) presentation, slides shown by three members included the Norfolk Broads, plant studies and close-ups. One of the cameras used was a point and shoot rangefinder and the evening demonstrated how bold the images can be when using the bigger slide size.
The club held what seems to becoming an annual event once again; the bring and buy. In the past, it was photographic items that were sold, but the trend this year was food, including jams, (a fierce battle for the marmalade) luxury mince pies and those posh shortbread tins that always appear at Christmas. The Christmas dinner, held at the Rose and Crown, was once again a popular event with tasty food.
