Philip Jones rounds up the latest competition news from Potters Bar Photographic Society.
Potters Bar and District Photographic Society (The Society) runs two kinds of competitions throughout the year.
One is a sequence of up to six heats spread across the season – one competition for printed pictures and one for projected images – with the winner being the person with the highest aggregate score with the results announced each December.
The other is a series of stand-alone competitions with specific themes.
One such event is the Douglas Best Trophy that is awarded for a triptych where all the pictures are on a theme of the photographer’s choosing.
The idea is either to allow a story to be told, or to let the photographer expand on a theme by showing three related pictures.
A fourth image is submitted which should link together the three individual pictures.
This year's 2022 competition was won by Fiona Adamson with pictures of European bee-eaters.
She said: “The images for my Douglas Best entry are from a week in May spent in Bulgaria near Bratsigovo, doing wildlife and macro [that is, close-up] photography.
"A flock of beautiful European bee-eater birds were nesting in a clay bank alongside a river, (a small number of these have been reported nesting in Norfolk this year).
"I spent an early morning and afternoon/evening in a hide trying to capture these birds and their activities.
"My panel was taken in the late afternoon with the sun behind me and shows the wonderful colours in their plumage along with their constant collecting of flying insects to feed on.”
Another well received panel was submitted by Don Hart with his set being called 'Colours of Amelia'.
Don explained: “This panel of studio images is entitled ‘Colours of Amelia’ and portrays assertiveness, mystery and beauty through colour, styling and pose.
"A monochromatic setting with an assertive angular pose – based around triangles in ‘Assertive in Black’, contrasts with a softer strawberry sweet ‘Pretty in Pink’.
"While peacock lighting and masked mystery is portrayed ‘Mysterious in Teal’.
"This 60s look styled by model Amelia-Mary was inspired by cartoons created by Frank Langford, a former resident of Potters Bar and Cuffley.
"The photographs were taken during three fashion and editorial studio sessions using portraiture lighting and theatrical lighting filters for coloured accent.”
Two other panels of note were from Sam Seager, who was highly commended for his pictures of gannets and Graham Coldrick, who shot a series of pictures at Bath Abbey.
Sam said: “These were taken at the RSPB site Bempton Cliffs in Yorkshire last year.
"Gannets are Britain’s largest native seabirds and take five years to reach breeding maturity.
"About 40 per cent of the world’s gannet population live around the British Isles.
"They dive into shoals of fish and are shaped like torpedoes in order to take the shock of their high speed plunge.
"Watching them hovering at cliff-top height was a delightful experience and these are a few of the hundreds of photos I took on that visit.”
Of his pictures, Graham said: “Bath Abbey was the inspiration for my tryptic and in particular the fan vaulted ceiling built in the 1500s by the King's master masons.
"This is accompanied on either side by a hanging chandelier and a faded flag, both matching the colour detail of the ceiling decoration."
The Society is now on its summer break and will begin meeting again at Wyllyotts Centre on September 12, 2022 when there will be series of lecturettes by society members.
These regularly show the inspirational quality of work undertaken by members.
In the meantime, prospective members can find more details at pottersbarphotosoc.org.uk or on Facebook.
During the summer the Society will be arranging practical photography sessions for its members.
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