Subject ‘Capturing Movement’ chosen by our Competition Chief Sue Heard.
This was a team competition, all willing participants randomly allocated into 5 teams of 5 or 6 members. Each team had to submit 10 photos taken in the last 3 months. No more than 2 photos per team member. A team evening to go out to take photos together, and an evening to discuss within each team what we had taken so far. Also to suggest edits and discuss ideas to retake some shots. Then a final selection session per team, ours was done using Whatsapp. Once submitted the images went to the external judge. The judge presented his remarks on each image and a score for each varying from 14 to 20 for the best image, followed by his suggested edits for some of the images. As we had fifty entries, I’ve only selected those that scored 18 points or more, and added a few lower scoring ones that I liked. Each photo has the score given by the judge and an extract of his comments.
Aerial Ascent – Amanda Read.- 18 points. “Well caught series of shots to show the movement of the skateboarder.”
Hoola Hoop Girl – Andy Reader – 17 points. “Another great image with good shutter speed to capture the movement.”
Aerial Ascent – Amanda Reid – 18 points. “Well caught series of shots to show the movement of the skateboarder. Image is sharp and exposure good. Tells the story of the skateboard movement.”
Waiting – Graeme Youngson – 17 points. “Great idea, good composition. Interesting that the image also managed to capture the movement of the ladies dress due to the windage from the train.”
Splash of Colour – Dave Lee – 19 points. “Great capture of the canoeist’s concentration and movement of the water.”
Controlled Landing – Bob Taylor – 18 Points. “Beautiful image of the puffin coming in to land, lovely detail and colour. There is a little motion on the wings and managing to capture the bird’s body sharp, which can be quite a challenge.”
My Ball – Dave Lee – 19 Points. “Great action shot. Well exposed and sharp focus. Whilst freezing the canoeist managed to capture plenty of water movement to clear show there is a lot of movement taking place. Well captured. Like all the guys in focus intensely watching the canoeist.”
Playful Dolphins – David Drage – 17 Points. “Well caught, sharp image of the dolphins along with big splash of water to convery the motion as they exit the water.”
Caleidoscope of the Night Sky – Sue Heard – 17 points. “Well captured long exposure of the stars around the north star, I presume. The detail in the lighthouse has been well captured. I liked how through the long exposure of the stars there are various streaks. Not sure if they were airceaft or meteors, all well caught. “
Storm At Banff – Eileen Rodgers – 18 Points. “Like the idea of the horse galloping along the beach. Always want to try this myself. I wondered if thefull reflection of te horses would have made for a more powerful image. I think the idea of the three images embeded on the one image does work well, with the last image on the right being the strongest in colour and contrast. Nice space left for the horse to gallop into.”
Express Delivery – David Lynch – 17 points. “Nicely caught. Like the seperation between the bike and the background. “
The winning image:
Swallow Catching Pond Insects – Linda Di Maio – 20 points. “Superb capture of the Swallow coming of of the water, with plenty of splash around it. Well captured, especially with such a fast moving subject. Photographer must have had to take lots of shots to get this image.”
As this was a team competition, the scores for the 10 images from each team are added together. Having Linda Di Maio as team captain with two high scoring images helped to win the overall Team trophy with 170 points. This was close as the Bob Taylor team scored only two points less at 168.
All in all a great competition. Having a subject to shoot for got me out of my comfort zone of static landscape stuff. A good experience and fun! Well organised by Sue Heard.
Visions Photography Club 
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