Rushcliffe PDI Open Competition 18th December 2012 – “A Judges Tale”

I was fortunate (?) enough to be chosen to judge the above annual event. All club members from our federation (N&EMPF) are invited to enter, sadly only 15 individuals put work forward, quite a low number but the quantity of images is then ‘topped-up’ from Rushcliffe PS members.

A total of 96 Colour and 89 Mono PDI images were entered, this in itself is a large task, especially to judge it cold on the night.

I asked for a brief ‘taster of a dozen or so images to get a flavour for the standard and off we went.

The Colour was first and we started promptly at 7:30pm, the standard was good and I was only allowed to mark up to 17 as the top 3 marks (18, 19 & 20) were to be reserved for the top 3 images in each section. After the first run through I had a total of 26 images held back, I then ran through again and got this down to 16, more runs ensued until I was left with a top 3, very difficult to knock out some top class images with ‘just a 17’ but that’s how it had to be.

The top 3 Colour images were;

First-Stuart Crump from Beeston Camera club with ‘Post no bills’ a stunning street portrait from Cuba which really was first class

Second-Scott Wilson from our very own Outlaws with ‘Soar Point’ a lovely image of the River Soar in flood with Ratcliffe Power Station in the distance adding plenty of atmosphere, well done Scott

Third-Stuart Crump (again) with ‘Flamenco Dance Class’ a lovely image skilfully processed telling a great story

A short Tea break was taken and then onto the Mono section, once again a taster of 10 or so images were shown and it was evident that it was going to be another difficult job. After the first run through I had 16 images pulled out, slightly higher attrition than the colour, mainly due to post processing. After a couple more run through’s and rejects all scoring 17 (it’s all I could do) we were down to my top 3;

First-David White from Derby City with ‘Flat Out’ a stunningly detailed Horse/Rider picture with fantastic details and a great crop, very powerful indeed

Second-Peter Gibson from Grantham P.S. with ‘Natures Gems’, a lovely triptych type study of 3 scenes through 3 windows, great detail and very different.

Third-Scott Wilson from the Outlaws with ‘Always Searching’ a lovely image of Scott’s daughter (always a willing? Subject) running in a field full of crops, great memories and a good story teller, well done Scott….again.

Trophies and cash prizes were then awarded and off we went for a pint, to chew over the results, as usual.

I would also like to congratulate Scott on his results and, also to Chris (Newham) on his near misses, I’m sure that both Scott and Chris had all their images selected into the final few, another great result for the Outlaws, let’s see some more of our members entering next year, a great event and thanks to Rushcliffe for the organisation.

Ian Pinn

NOPS Chairman (and judge) 2012