Last November, our club won the Scottish Photographic Federation digital-image competition. And so, Kilmaurs was one of only 3 Scottish clubs at the British final in Warwick on 21st July.
38 clubs from all over the UK had qualified for the Final of the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain’s competition, shown in front of an audience of 250. The venue was Warwick School, one of England’s oldest public schools.
Seven Kilmaurs members attended the event, arriving with high hopes, delighted with our entry of images that Jim Stevenson had so carefully compiled. However, we were, in the end, going to be disappointed.
In every round of the competition, 3 judges give each image a score out of 5, giving a possible total out of 15 points. We got off to a promising start in the first round with the combined scores for our first 8 images placing us right in the middle of the pack. Unfortunately, our scores fell away in round two. Eventually, we ended up in the bottom half of the points table.
Our best scoring images were Dale Powell’s “Wren on Bullrush” and Martin Clark’s “Ziggi” both scoring 13 in the final round. Well done Dale and Martin!
Although we were disappointed, we should remember that to just reach the final was for our club members, a great achievement.
Many of the images that scored highly were composite images and tending towards “digital art” which is not something our club has been particularly interested in, as we enjoy more “conventional” but stunning wildlife and landscape images which did not achieve such high marks.
The competition was won by Chorley Photographic Society. To see a selection of their winning images, check out this link: http://thepagb.org.uk/events/inter-club-pdi/. It’s a different kind of photography, indeed.
Dumfries were the top placed Scottish club and deserve hearty congratulations for coming 8th in the final.
Once again, many thanks to Jim Stevenson for many hours of work arranging our entry.