August 2023 PDI Competition

August sees the Outlaws completing their fourth Projected Digital Image (PDI) competition of the year and things have started to warm up. Following this month’s competition, the DPI leader board is now as follows, Malcolm Nabarro leads the way with 285 points, followed by Chris Holdsworth on 276 and Nigel Stewart also on 276 points. Lester Woodward and Ray Andrews both have 274 points, let battle commence. The evenings judge was Gary Langley, a NEMPF competition judge who some of the Outlaws had met on previous occasions. Gary offered constructive comments and liked to “tell it as it is” and score images in his own unique manner.

There were two categories for Gary to judge on the evening, the Open category and the Themed, which this month was “High Key/Low Key”. There were approximately thirty entries in the Open category and twenty-eight in the themed.

At last Thursdays club night the Outlaws refreshed their lighting techniques, model compositions as well as offering encouragement and direction to the all female sitters. There were three models on the night Maddie a professional model, Marion a firm friend of the club that has supported us in this role for the past three years and club member Christine who couldn’t resist the opportunity to strike a pose in front of the cameras.

The members installing the lighting equipment arrived in good time as setting up the equipment & creating scenes for the models takes some time and it all had to be in place ready for the eager Outlaws when the club night officially started.

July 2024 Third Print Competition 

It is late July and the third NOPS print competition of the year was about to take place. Going into this round Lester Woodward currently holds the top slot on 217 points with Lois Webb with a very close 215 points, so there is still all to play for & there are several other Outlaws that are challenging for the POOTY (print outlaw of the year title) tittle.

The judge for the evening was David Kissman who had visited at a similar time the previous year and on that occasion had really constructive comments/critique to offer the entrants.

There were two categories for David to judge, the Open category (a mix of various genres) and the Themed which was “Nature”. In total there were 23 entries in the open and 18 in the themed.

The Open competition again attracted a wide variety of genres of photography and the themed competition had many stunning images from the natural world. The prints were all worthy of hanging in any gallery. 

June 2024 3^rd PDI Competition

June is already upon us and we have recently experienced a mini heat wave after some un-seasonally cold weather and things are starting to warm up for the Outlaws as they are now midway in their digital competition year.  Malcolm Nabarro currently leads with 213 points, which is 6 points clear of second place Andy Gibbons, then the pack follows with only 1 or 2 points separating the next eight contenders, a very close competition and a further two DPI’s to follow in August & October.

This month as per usual had two categories one being an “Open” where members can submit images of their choice across a whole gambit of photographic genres, the other being the “Theme”, which was “Motion Blur”. There were thirty-three entries in the Open category and thirty-one in the themed competition.

The judge for the evening was Robert Falconer from Chesterfield someone who has visited the club recently on a number of occasions both as a judge and guest presenter.

The following themes have been chosen and allocated to the NOPS competition calendar year for 2025

February (PDI) Steps

March (Print). Black & White

April (PDI). Wheels

May (Print) Framing

June (PDI) Abandoned Buildings

July (Print) Repetition

August (PDI) Metal

September (Print) Urban

October (PDI) Alley Ways

November (Print) Shape & Form

We were heading towards the end of May and the weather had been somewhat disappointing for late spring, but moods and expectations were about to be lifted as the excitement of the second print competition was about to get under way this Thursday evening.

The judge for the evening was Dave Hollingsworth (Arnold & District Camera Club) who the Outlaws had met on previous competition evenings. Dave started off the evening by introducing himself and saying a few words about his style of judging. He mentioned that judging photographic images was very subjective and his opinion was not to be taken as the be all and end all, but he would offer detailed critique in a positive manner. Dave also mentioned size and scale, sharpness and detail as points he would look for and he often commented on the proportion of skies appropriate in an image.