Results of POTY Round Five are announced...
Due to the restrictions imposed by the UK Government regarding social distancing and gatherings during the current Covid-19 pandemic the original plans for the concluding round of this season’s Photographer of the Year competition had to be changed.
To create a level playing field and eliminate any risks to members the theme –‘the emotion of being alone’ was replaced with an open competition in which each member was allowed to enter two digital images of their own choice. Also, for the first time at NDPS a competition was judged remotely by our judge Andy Wilson with members of the Society listening as each image was projected and Andy provided his constructive feedback on Skype.
In anticipation that the projected image using Skype would not be to the usual standard obtained using a PC/projector at a normal meeting Andy Wilson was sent high resolution copies of all the images a few days before. This enabled him to look through the images and formulate this scores and eliminated the risk of inconsistent projected images on the night. Although generally image quality was not too bad this nevertheless proved to be a good idea as it led to Andy providing great feedback on each of the images which all the members appreciated. Many thanks Andy and we all look forward to greeting you back in Norwich under more normal circumstances in the not too distant future.
A great evening of photography resulted in Adrian Richmond winning a POTY round for the first time with his excellent monochrome image Silent Reflections in the Rain. In second place was Dennis Hales’ image Time on my Hands with Brendan McCarney’s image Great View being placed third.
Another four images were held back by Andy in the first round of the competition and these are all shown below.
Before the start of the last round five members were still in with a great chance of winning the overall competition and the results from the final round are still too close to call as just one point is thought to be separating the top four members. Currently, all the scores from earlier rounds are being double-checked to validate each member’s overall POTY score. However, it is also clear that if the provisional scores are confirmed then the ‘playback’ rules will be needed to separate the top four this season…!