Last competition of the season for camera club

Roger awarded an 18 to Derek Grieve for his lovely ‘Male Bearded Tit’ straddled between two reed stems.

Liz Barber also gained an 18 for her well printed ‘Starlight Harbour’ taken at Shoreham on a dark, cold night. Another 18 was Ray Foxlee’s ‘The Unhappy Bandmaster’, a very well captured monochrome shot. Janet Brown achieved two 18’s for ‘Misty morning, Parham’ and ‘Shy Orchids’, both of which were very soft and easy on the eye.

Another 18 was awarded to Di Walker’s beautifully lit ‘Portrait of a Young Girl’. Daisy Kane had two 18s: ‘Chained up for the Night’ showed several neatly moored rowing boats leading the eye through the image, and ‘Singled Out’ was a picture of a single flower against an out of focus background of its neighbours, which Roger said he particularly enjoyed. Finally Jean MacWhirter scored 18 for ‘Falklands Overland’, a lovely landscape study.

There were four 19s, ‘Peacock Finery’ by Daisy Kane, showing a close up peacock display, ‘The Dancer’ by Di Walker, a very creative, almost abstract image which appealed to Roger, Jane Coward’s ‘Aerial Ballet’, a picture of three seagulls in flight, integrating well with each other and standing out from an out of focus background, and Martin Tomes’s lovely landscape entitled ‘Fuschl, Austria’, with snow on the mountains and the sky reflected in the lake.

There were also four 20s on the night. Jane Coward’s ‘Flamenco Red’ captured a lovely line in the dancer’s skirt, and movement in the hands. Roger was unable to fault Jean MacWhirter’s ‘Black Crowned Night Heron at nest’ (despite, we later learned, being hand held using a long zoom setting on her bridge camera).

Anne Nagle’s ‘Harvest Mouse’ achieved another 20 and our judge said he would have been “proud for the rest of his days” to get an image like this.

The winning image of the evening was Martin Tomes’s top-scoring ‘Cwymorthin Chapel’.

Roger particularly liked the low viewpoint, and Martin explained just how long he had been waiting in the wind and rain for a brief break in the cloud to achieve the extraordinary lighting he had captured on this slate mine chapel in Wales.

Report and pictures contributed by Storrington Camera Club.