The Annual Three-Way Battle Norwich | Ipswich | Lowestoft

Last night saw the return of this well-loved 'battle' between three of East Anglia’s oldest photography clubs. The Coronavirus pandemic had kept us apart since 2019, but Ipswich were this season's hosts and representatives of all three clubs met in their meeting room in Ipswich for the judging by Sarah Kelman ARPS, DPAGB from Cambridge with the meeting being Zoomed live to those members of the three clubs who did not attend in person.

 And what an evening of excitement it turned out to be!

 We arrived in Ipswich fresh from the outstanding performance by our members just four days before in a new style photo-competition with Sheffield Photographic Society and the London club, Old Coulsdon Camera Club, but far from being battle weary we were prepared for a tough engagement. Throughout the evening as first monochrome and then colour prints were displayed and marked the top score swayed from one club to the other until, at half time, amazingly, all three clubs were separately by just half a point. There were murmurs of surprise from the Competition Secretaries, a lot of ad hoc checking of points and the judge said she could not recall a similar situation.

 In the final part, everything was left to play for. Another 21 digital images were displayed, and careful notes were made of the scores. Finally with every picture displayed and the scores recorded on the software and the notepads of the Competition Secretaries the winner was declared. Norwich and District Photographic Society!  The final scores were NDPS 181.5, LCC 180.5 and IDPS 177.5

 The NDPS selection from 14 different Society members showed our strength in depth with more than 76% of our entries being awarded at least 81/2 out of a maximum score of 10.  Congratulations to  Adrian, Alan, Dave B, David J, David T, Des, Gary, Jayne, Justin, Malcolm, Maurice, Pat, Patricia and Tom, whose excellent images across a broad selection of photographic genres all contributed to our success.

 The image below shows NDPS Chairman alongside a representative from Ipswich being awarded the winner’s trophy by Sarah Kelman.

“An amazing result for us, it's a long time since we last won this battle. But we were worthy winners, and our thanks go to our Competition Secretary, his team of advisers and to those members whose images were selected to represent the Society. An excellent result in the face of some very stiff competition”.

Tom Watson – NDPS Chairman