Round 2 of the club’s Photographer of the Year (POTY) competition took place in December 2022.
As usual, there were two images to submit, a themed image and a free choice image.
The theme this time was Powerful Black and White, and this round required mounted printed images.
Themed image submission: Scallop Splendour
For the black and white image, I submitted this image of the well known scallop sculpture in Aldeburgh Suffolk.
This shot was taken as we left Aldeburgh after a very nice long weekend in Suffolk. It was the day of our departure from Aldeburgh – for more info read blog post here.
We parked at the beach right near to the sculpture and I took some handheld shots with the Fuji.
I ran the raw image through Silver Efex Pro software, part of the Nik Collection editing suite. I choose a high structure filter and really liked the output.
I felt that this shot would produce some different tones and textures as a mono image.
The original raw image edited for colour is below.
About the Scallop Sculpture
The Scallop sits on the beach at Aldeburgh, in Suffolk. It is a 13 foot-ish (4 metre) high monument, by local-born artist Maggi Hambling, to the late Benjamin Britten, composer and past Aldeburgh resident, who used to take his afternoon walks along the beach.
The sculpture consists of two, broken, interlocking scallop shells. Cut into the rim of the upright shell are the words “I hear those voices that will not be drowned” from Britten’s opera Peter Grimes.
The Scallop was installed in 2003. It is rumoured to have cost around £75,000 and was paid for by donations, largely due to the fund-raising efforts of the Chairman of Adnams plc (who brew rather fine ales).
Scallop Splendour – Judge’s Critique
The judge liked the shot and said it has lots of detail and textures. They liked that they could read the message on the scallop.
They felt the shadow of the sculpture was distracting as they felt the tone was similar to that of the sea.
They felt the top right of the sky was noisy and that the image might be better served as a square crop, mainly due to the space to the left of the sculpture.
The image was scored at 8/10.
Scallop Splendour Revisited
I’ve gone back to re-edit and play around with the image a little more.
First off, I looked to apply all of the judge’s comments. I went for a square crop which also cut out the noisy part of the sky. I then removed the shadow of the sculpture.
While this eliminates the issue with the sky, a square crop doesn’t do it for me at all, and with no shadow the sculpture looks superimposed.
Since the sky wasn’t anything special and the judge had commented on the noise at the top, I thought I may as well try replacing the sky, and while I was there try again with the square crop.
As I had reflected after the last competition round, I’m not convinced all of the judge’s comments are to my preference.
This version is alright but I don’t personally like the half-cropped shadow which I think is more distracting than the full shadow. No doubt a different judge may have well commented that way if I had submitted this version.
Final Edit
For my final edit, and the version (alongside the original colour one) that will be on my shop, I’ve replaced the square with something very similar to the original, used a less extreme contrast enhancing filter and kept the shadow with just a slight crop to tighten in the edges of the image.
My final version will by the time this blog is published will be up on social media for the public to enjoy.
Free choice image: Scottish Shipwreck
For my free choice, I wanted to pick something I knew was unlikely to clash with fellow club members.
I picked the image below of the shipwreck at Corpach near Fort William in Scotland.
I figured this image had lots of interest, the main one being of course the ship, the leading line on the beach and the reflection on the water of the Loch.
After printing, I noticed quite late on that some elements in the background at the top of the hills looked odd.
I did a quick re-edit darkening those areas with some dehaze and reducing the distracting elements. On my wife’s advice, I also cropped in a little more.
Scottish Shipwreck – Judge’s Critique
The judge said they really liked boats and that they liked this image. They said that they could read some writing on the side of the ship.
They observed the movement in the clouds in the sky so felt this was a long exposure. They said it was a nice image.
They felt that the background part of the landscape wasn’t as sharp as the foreground, and suggested that maybe hyper-focal distance wasn’t quite right.
My concerns that the judge would complain about the ship’s distortion due to an ultra wide lens were unfounded.
The image was awarded a score of 8.5/10.
Scottish Shipwreck – not revisited (yet)…
I’ve not yet revisited this image to check the extent to which I may have lost front to back sharpness, or whether or not I have another image of the same scene where I may have refocused.
I do remember taking lots of shots that morning with various settings and refocusing often. I may take a look, or I may draw a line there and put the image up on my shop to test it in the wild so to speak.
I got a very good score here, especially as it was 0.5 away from joint top score in my league and this round.
Also, if I had spotted some shortcomings in the background of the image then I’m not surprised the judge did too. Whether or not a little softness in the far distance of an image is that big a deal is down to preference.
Having said that, it’s easy to look at the image, and enjoy what the eye catches, the ship, the reflections, the leading line and generally the overall image.
I’m not sure too many casual viewers would stare so closely at the background sharpness, and be disappointed with the scene.
Overall Position
With an round 2 score of 16.5/20 or 82.5%, it wasn’t too shabby a round at all!
Overall so far, my round 1 and 2 scores equate to 30.5/40 or 76.25%.
Next up is round 3 in the new year with the theme of ‘Abandoned’.
Onwards and upwards…