NDPS club photographer of the Year competition Round 3 arrived on 21st February 2023, and as usual an RPS qualified judge was on hand to score member’s images.
The theme for this round was ‘Abandoned’ with the usual format of two images being requested, one for the theme, and one free choice.
Themed Image Submission: House in the Hebrides
For the theme, I had two or three images in mind and my wife Kathryn was quite certain that the shot below should be submitted.
It was captured by chance when travelling back from Luskentyre – blog post here.
The judge said he enjoyed looking at this shot, that the tones were nice and he liked the two rooks on the telegraph line behind the house for a bit of added detail.
He said that he felt the shot could’ve benefited from a letterbox crop, as the scene could do with a little less sky and road (top/bottom).
He shortlisted the image and I came fourth out of the four shortlisted images but with an impressive score of 9/10.
Free choice submission: Neist Point, Isle of Skye
For my free choice, I submitted the shot below from the amazing Neist Point on Isle of Skye.
The judge said that this was an interesting viewpoint. He said he thought the foghorn was interesting and wondered if a closer shot would’ve been better.
He also felt the shot could’ve benefitted from better light. It’s a fair point, but I was visiting this scene while on holiday so had to go with what I got on the day.
I probably could’ve upped the saturation or warmth a bit more but it may not have met that brief.
The image scored 7.5/10.
Reflections
I am very pleased with the abandoned house shot from the Hebrides. For a by chance shot from the roadside, it did very well.
Following the feedback last round on my shipwreck shot having some softness in the background, I did a lot of work on the mountains in the background of this abandoned house shot, trying to balance the right level of dehaze without overdoing it.
I was convinced the judge would say something about the background but he didn’t.
For the Neist Point shot, I suppose it’s not that epic and I’ve probably had some emotional attachment to the shot due to standing right on the edge of the rocks to capture it.
It really was a slightly uncomfortable position to get that angle as more than one step to my left would’ve seen me drop into the sea!
I’ve a blog post about our visit to this location here.
I agree with the judge on his feedback for both images.
I have to confess, otherwise I’ll be in trouble…! My wife Kathryn was not convinced by the Neist Point shot as she felt the lighthouse should’ve been more prominent in the scene.
Once again. I’ll have to doth my cap to her compositional eye, and take heed a little more of her good advice!
So, overall I scored 16.5/20 (82.5%) which is none too shabby!
My cumulative score is 47/60 (78.33%) which is 2.5 less than at this point last season 49.5 (82.5%) but I did get 19/20 in Round 3 then winning the themed round and getting 9/10 in the free choice round!
I have to remind myself that this is all part of learning what makes an impactful image for a judge to view.
Onwards and upwards…