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Cambridge Digital Inter-Club Competition 2023

The regional club competitions start each year with the Cambridge Digital Inter-Club Competition and it’s always a good chance to meet up with old friends and photographers from other clubs and see some of the best images from around the region. This year was the first in person meeting for a few years because of the effects of covid and those effects were still evident. Normally 35 clubs compete with a waiting list and there have been up to 190 visitors but this year numbers were down with only 27 clubs entered and only around 60 external visitors, but it was still a good meeting.

The Cambridge club are very well organised the competition runs very smoothly, and their catering team provide very good cakes. There are five rounds, Mono, People, Landscape, Nature, and Open, each image is marked out of 20 and the highest scoring club is the winner.

Ralph Duckett MPAGB EFIAP APAGB, from Staffordshire had the hard job of judging this year. He has been a member at Burton on Trent Photographic Society for over 40 years. An experienced PAGB judge, he gave concise and useful comments with good humour on each image and awarded very high scores to many of them, his opinion being that the standard was very high. Ralph awarded 37 images with full marks of 20/20 and this gave him a very difficult job to select his overall winning image. He whittled these down to a final 7 images but then threw it out to the audience to help him select the winner – not the most conventional way to pick a winner but this ended the afternoon with at least the winning photographer happy!

Five members from NDPS went along to observe the competition. Two of our 5 images scored 20 and overall, we ended with 94 points, out of 100, putting us in equal 8th place slightly down on last year but still a result we were very happy with. Top club was Photographic Imaging Co-Operative (PICO) with 99, second was Welwyn Garden (98), third North Norfolk Photographic Society (97).

Next up are the St Ives Interprint and the EAF Championships. If you get the chance to go along and watch the judging it is recommended as it gives you a good feel for the standard of work in the region and will inspire your own photography.

Review by Dave Balcombe ARPS & Joan Jordan ARPS

CompetitionMaurice YoungJanuary 24, 2023cambridge, digital, inter-club, monochrome, people, landscape, nature, open

Cambridge Camera Club Digital Inter-Club Competition

Last Saturday afternoon after the judge, David Lowe ARPS , DPAGB from Smethwick had delivered his critique for the images entered by the twenty-five competing EAF Clubs taking part in this year’s competition Norwich & District Photographic Society tied on 90 points with Ampthill & District Camera Club and Shillington & District Camera Club.

Unfortunately, David chose the reserve image from Ampthill, so they were declared the winners with NDPS, and Shillington declared ‘equal second’.

Near but so far. Nevertheless, this was outstanding achievement and confirms the recent successes by NDPS in other inter-club competitions and the continuing growth of talent and commitment to improvement amongst the Society’s members..

Competition, Cambidge Inter-ClubMaurice YoungJanuary 17, 2022photo-competition, people, scenes, nature, monochrome

Benvenuti a Venezia

This evening a well-attended presentation by our own Dave and Joan Jordan kept us all focused on the jewel of the Adriatic sea, Venice, capital of the Veneto region Italy. Built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges, one of the most romantic, most visited and most endangered cities in the world.

They have been fortunate enough to have visited Venice on three occasions and this evening we were taken on a photographic journey through their visits to this beautiful city and its immediate area.

The presentation began with an explanation of the geographical position of Venice and some of the things that prompted their interest in the city. An excellent piece of advice was to take the water taxi, hop on and hop off, to save your feet. Venice can be tiring if you only walk as a means of getting about.

Photo-talkMaurice YoungJanuary 12, 2022venice, travel, railways, long exposure, monochrome, street photography, architecture

The people of Madagasscar - Pierrot Men

On Monday 15th March through the moder day wonders of zoom invited members of the Society joined 'The Regular's Table' in Koblenz to hear a presentation by Pierrot Men entitled The People of Madagascar. This invitation came to us through our friends in Foto-Club Koblenz and in particular NDPS Honorary Member Helmut Wagner and his colleague Walter Nussbaum.

The Regular's Table is a group of about thirty photographers, all members of the Deutscher Verband fur Fotografie, who are organised into the regional association of Rhenanis - Palatinate and Hessia. The aims of the group are to exchange ideas and experiences in the field of photography with the intention of improving their skills beyond club level.

Pierot Men presented a series of photographs, all taken on the island of Madagascar, to thirty seven attendees. Many of the pictures were in black and white and many from film. Pierot spoke in French and a member of Koblenz translated into German.

The pictures proved to be an eclectic mix of reportage, street photography and social interest. All the subjects of the photographs seemed eager to have their likeness taken - when they were aware of the photographer! Often the photographs were taken without pre-planning and they showed a rare immediacy of purpose.

A very interesting and thought provoking series of images. We are indebted to The Regulars Table for the invitation and to Helmut for organising the evening. Thanks also for the English translations in the Comments Box.

Regular's TableMaurice YoungMarch 20, 2021madagascar, people photography, photo-talk, monochrome, pierott men

Dotan Saguy delivers outstanding photo-talk

Our presentation last night (10th November) by the gifted Doton Saguy held 50 members of the Society in thrall as he took us through his exciting photography career. He was born in Israel, grew up in Paris, lived in Manhattan during the 9/11 outrage and now lives in Los Angeles from where he delivered his presentation.

Not a man to let the grass grow under his feet he led us through the second part of his working life, his photography. Delivered clearly, simply and accompanied by a whole series of fantastic photos everyone listened intently and saved up a lot of questions and plaudits for the session at the end of the presentation.

Doton talked of his early learning experiences and Street Photography which moved on to Photo-Journalism, Documentary Photography and finally Travel Photography. What a journey! But we were not just entertained, there were lots of important 'take away' moments - let your pictures tell a story; the thrill of publication; the shot list; DIM and Personal Projects. DIM stands for Design (layering, colour, delight the viewer), Information (clues to the story) and Moment (emotion, action and interaction) - for a full and proper explanation find Dotun on You tube and soak up the knowledge!

Yet another first class speaker for NDPS. It's worth mentioning that Doton was presenting from California in the United States and in the audience was a member of the Kpblenz Foto-club who asked questions - America and Germany joined together for a moment by Norwich and District Photographic Society…!

Special Presentation, Street PhotographyMaurice YoungNovember 11, 2020monochrome, photo-talk

Monochrome Conversion Last Tuesday's Special Presentation by Ian Wilson

Ian's second visit to NDPS proved as well received as his first.

Here was a computer engineer, someone who has spent a lifetime working on the 'inside' of computers talking to a group of, mostly, amateur enthusiast photographers. A recipe for disaster, a geek talking to the uninitiated! But no. This was not the case at all, Ian's encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject and his ability to make difficult concepts understandable left us all sagely nodding and muttering phrases like 'Yes, of course', 'Got it', 'Ah, so that's how I do it'.

In a presentation clearly divided into two halves, the theory and the practical, Ian showed us how he converts his photos into monochrome. Everyone learned something, even those who are regular users of the software he described.

Perhaps the most telling remark was from an NDPS member who uttered 'Humbling!' at the end of the evening.

Thanks Ian for your knowledge, clarity and enthusiasm. You'll be back!

Review written by Tom Watson

Activity/Practical/TechniMaurice YoungOctober 29, 2020monochrome, image processing

Ipswich and District Photographic Society retain trophy in annual three-way battle

On Tuesday evening (12th November) Norwich hosted the annual three-way battle between Ipswich and District Photographic Society, Lowestoft Photographic Club and NDPS.

Once again Ipswich and District Photographic Society proved to be strong competitors as they deservedly defended the trophy with a magnificent aggregate score of 184 points over the three rounds of the competition.

For the first time in many years Norwich came second with 1681/2 points with Lowestoft third with 166 points.

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