The club’s POTY (Photographer of the Year) competition Round 4 took place on 22nd March 2022.
First face-to-face club meeting since pre-Covid
This round saw the club running a wholly face-to-face meeting. While it’s good to meet up in person and get the chance to mingle and chat, it was less convenient in terms of enjoying one’s home comforts and watching from my own sofa.
Having joined the meeting last year on discussing the future format of club meetings, just like work environments, hybrid seems to be the preference so folks have a choice.
I guess clubs have to not abandon in person meet ups, not just for the social element (it would be sad to not have any face-to-face meet ups) but also because money spent on venue hire period and associated costs needs to be utilised.
It will be interesting to see what emerges as the club moves forward. Certainly the special presentations will continue mostly on Zoom as we’ve had some amazing presenters from other countries so that is good.
POTY
The theme for this round was ‘You’re in Control of the Shutter’.
The Chase
For the themed image, I decided to enter a shot I took last year at the Old Buckenham Airshow.
I thought this shot matched the brief well since I not only had to pan the camera to catch the shot but do so at a shutter speed which got the planes in focus but held some movement in the propeller blades.
I revisited the shot and did a new edit from scratch. My wife suggested I add a little more colour into the sky as she felt the grey coloured planes looked a bit bland against a very light blue sky.
I duly added the colour to the sky, and tried to boost the colours on the union jacks on the tails and the yellow on the front. I also tried to bring out some texture in the body of the plane.
Judge’s feedback
I very quickly thought this would be a tough challenge to get a good mark when the judge announced he took aviation shots professionally!
He said it was difficult in shots like this to show speed and movement. He said the sky doesn’t help in that respect. He thought the planes could’ve been tipped to show a downward path to help convey the feeling of speed.
He didn’t mention anything else and gave the shot 7.5/10.
Edit: Image now re-edited
I’ve subsequently revisited this shot and applied the judge’s feedback by adjusting the angle so the scene shows the planes moving downwards to give that sense of speed.
I’ve also cropped in more closely so the planes dominate the picture. And I’ve renamed the picture ‘The Race’ rather than ‘The Chase’.
The Path to Derwent
My free choice image was from the Lake District in Borrowdale, near Castle Crag. This scene looks into the distance towards Derwent Water and Skiddaw.
Judge’s feedback
The judge said that landscapes don’t have to be printed big anymore as they did years ago. I took this as a strong hint that my A3 was possibly too large for his taste. Noted.
He felt there was a lot of sky which took his eye away from the rest of the scene. He said he thought the shot was later in the day (correct). He felt the highlights and shadows could be improved.
The image was scored 7.5/10.
Reflections
My scores:
Round 1: 15/20 ~ 75%
Round 2: 15.5/20 ~ 77.5%
Round 3: 19/20 ~ 95%
Round 4: 15/20 ~ 75%
Total to date: 64.5/80 ~ 80.6%
The planes shot
I was disappointed in the airshow shot as I felt I had demonstrated some panning skills together with the right shutter speed to capture the plane in focus and some movement in the propeller blades.
I also put this shot in for something different as I’ve countless waterfall shots I could’ve thrown in as an easier option, and there were quite a few of that genre from fellow club members.
While hoping for a 10 might’ve been over ambitious, an 8 would’ve felt better especially as I got a half a mark more than a shot which the judge said didn’t meet the brief at all. Having said that, I felt quite a few of scores on this evening were harsh.
Herein lies what a lot of the chit chat amongst members is about. The opinion of a single judge, their preferences, their taste.
It can’t go unsaid that hearing criticism and on occasion a misread intent in crafting the image can all hurt the ego.
Probably worse is seeing your images against others which you passionately feel are of less worth than your own. There were quite a few under the breath gasps at some of the scores.
To play devil’s advocate, the judge is of course looking at each image individually, not comparing them side-by-side which is reserved for the final shortlist in each round.
I wonder if I should’ve cropped in more but I had already done that having taken the image full frame at 45.7MP on a 24-200mm lens. I also think that perhaps emphasising of the smoke from the back of the planes, and the Union Jack on the plane tails was manipulating too far for the judge’s taste.
I will take another look at the shot, and possibly re-edit and replace the current image on my website and shop.
The shot from The Lakes
I’m less disappointed on the shot from the Lakes. While this shot was my top liked photo of 2021 on Instagram, that doesn’t mean a jot.
The shot did need a lot of post production editing as it was quite noisy, and the judge was spot on in that it was taken late in the day. I also felt I’d lifted the shadows a little too much and the scene lost a little contrast in the final output.
I hadn’t thought much at all about the sky, and even less about the amount of it in the image and large print.
When I look again, I can see what the judge means. There is a lot of sky, which I think I deliberately cropped that way it due to wanting the viewer to see a lot of the background.
I’ve got little to grumble about with the mark really. It is what it is…
Round 5 (final round)
There’s a quick turnaround for the next round (the theme being ‘Captured in 2022’) so I need to quickly look through my images and consider what image to enter.
With the free choice entry too it’s a double-edged sword. The 2022 image has a limited range to look through so will probably be obvious or easy to choose with the free choice possibly being more difficult but lots more choice.
Onwards and upwards…