Tenby held its first competition of the season, the 1st Open, and what a standard!
There were 19 prints and 32 digital entries from 16 photographers at the Open on October 4. Mike Clatworthy, from Swansea, was the judge for the evening . Mike was very impressed and complimented the club on the high standard of work entered. A super range of genres and styles with wildlife, portraits, street, travel, mono and sport were viewed and critiqued.
The Print Gold award was won by Dave Bolton with “Wild Adder”, Silver went to Jan Sullivan for ”Heading for Shelter” and Bronze to Neil Thomas with “Osprey”. Images by Neil Thomas “Hoopoe Courtship” and Charlie Kidd “Fishing” were both Highly Commended.
The Digital Gold award went to Gill Mackay with “At the Barbican”, Silver went to Alan Brown for “Christine” and Bronze to Neil Thomas with “Puffin with nesting Material”. Rob Cox was given a Highly Commended for “Canary Shouldered Thorn Moth”.
The Open followed a busy month of activities.
On September 14, Tenby and District Camera Club welcomed Allen Lloyd, an exceptionally talented photographer, to present a very interesting talk. Allen started the evening by explaining the techniques he uses to get stunning images of night skies, showing his photographs of the Milky Way, taken over many locations over the years, outlining the requirements needed to achieve brilliant night photographs and then went on to explain the stacking system needed to produce the final image. In the second half, Allen showed his video on New Mexico using Route 66, featuring the amazing wildlife he encountered. He ended showing a stunning collection of his deep space images taken with his own telescopes in his garden.
On September 21, The camera club held it’s annual battle with six clubs joining them to fight a seven-way competition. Afan Nedd, Cardigan, Carmarthen, Kidwelly, Llanelli, and Trostre all entered 10 digital images. Judge was Roy Thomas who did an excellent job. Tenby maintained their unbeaten run with a score of 183/200. The Best image, chosen by Roy, was “Drip” submitted by Trostre. Club member Alan Brown scored a maximum score with his image “Wasp”.
On Thursday, September 29, Ian Ledgard was speaker for the evening. Ian, who had travelled from Llandeilo, is a member of Towy Valley Camera Club. He is an experienced speaker and judge . He is distinguished in the competitive world including many awards in the International salons and has the distinctions EFIAP/p GMPSA GPU-Cr4 AWPF BPE1. His talk was his photographic journey covering over 30 years of Mono work. His father, who was also a keen photographer, encouraged his hobby, with Ian starting with a Box Brownie. Nowadays Ian uses a range of Panasonic Lumix cameras, the G90 and the TZ70, and a TZ7 converted to take just mono infrared photos. Ian proceeded to show members a wide range of mono prints from 1962 onwards up to the present day.
At tea break, members were able to view the work close up. There were some beautiful textured papers complimenting the subjects. The presentation covered many genres, from landscapes, portraits and architecture. A section on steam train photography bought back memories for some ! His technique on infra red was illustrated with landscapes and trees . Images from around the world and very close to home filled the evening, showing there is always a photo to be captured!
There was a lovely style to the work, with simplicity, almost at times as if the images had been drawn in pencil or ink . Hopefully, members will be inspired to use mono in more of their work.