July 2025 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 Lois Webb currently leads on 211 points with Malcolm Nabarro very close 210 points, so there is still all to play for & there are several other Outlaws that are challenging for the Print Outlaw of the Year (POOTY) tittle.
The judge for the evening was Dave Hollingsworth who had visited the Outlaws on a number of previous occasions. Dave is Chairman of Arnold & District Camera Club. Dave congratulated the members on the quality of their printed images on a number of occasions throughout the evening.
There were two categories for Dave to judge, the Open category (a mix of various photographic genres) and the Themed which was “Repetition”. There were twenty-two entries in both categories for Dave to cast his judge’s eye over.
The Open competition again attracted a wide variety of genres of photography and the themed competition had many interpretations of “Repetition” all containing stunning images.
The prints were of the highest quality and all worthy of hanging in any photographic art gallery.
Theme Repetition
The theme competition contained a wide variety of images some from the natural world, travel images, local sporting stadiums, transport depots through to architectural constructions.
Having viewed and commented on each individual image (offering the authors positive critique) he selected Twelve images for final viewing and David announced that the winner was Malcolm Nabarro with his image titled FRAMING.
The winning image by Malcolm Nabarro titled FRAMING
Malcolm had the following comments to make about his image;
‘FRAMING’
Last year I spent a day in central London intent on photographing the area alongside the north shore of the Thames and in particular a pedestrianised area called More London Place. It’s an area that has been re-modelled with many large modern buildings. It also gives an interesting distant angled prospective of Tower Bridge. I came across this office block with its distinct repetition of windows. The adjacent block comprised of acute angles and a distinct reflection of the block on the left. All in all, it presented an abstract image that I think takes a while to work out what the viewer is actually seeing. I printed the image on Pinnacle Baryta semi-gloss paper.
Open category
Dave offered constructive comments with focus on sharpness, artifacts and elements of the images that could be changed to achieve better visual balance, he mentioned shapes and angles including leading lines.
In the open category Dave held back nine images for final judging and the winner was Chris Holdsworth with his image titled THE DEVILS PULPIT.
The winning image by Chris Holdsworth titled THE DEVILS PULPIT
I asked Chris to share his thoughts and give us some background on his image, this is what he said.
Devil’s Pulpit (Finnich Glen)
This image was captured during the club’s KitKat trip in September 2024 to Glasgow. This location is 15 miles north of Glasgow, near Loch Lomond but is not an easy one to find as the path to the gorge is not signposted. Moreover, the route down to the bottom of the gorge is a steep and slippery scramble over wet boulders. The gorge provides some striking options as the light is filtered down from above. I took this standing in the water using a Canon EOS R with an EF 16-35mm f4 lens @ 35mm, 100 ISO, f10, 2.5 seconds. Wellies are essential! The image was merged in Lightroom from several bracketed exposures and finally edited in Photoshop.
The Outlaws would like to thank Dave for providing everyone who entered with beneficial comments and an appreciation of their works. Dave commented again on the quality of the prints that the Outlaws had presented to him saying they were top quality and to the highest standard.