On Monday evening, several members of the club travelled to Ripon to engage in a digital image battle with Ripon’s Photographic Society. David Ireland of Kirby Moorside Camera Club was the judge for the evening’s event. He had already spent considerable time scrutinising - in great detail – every one of the twenty images entered by each of the clubs. The forty images were randomly ordered. He would not know until Monday evening, after he had described his thoughts on each image and awarded a score out of twenty, to which club any particular image belonged. Impartiality ensured. It soon became apparent that David was a stickler for sharp focus and detail in all aspects of an image.

The photographs provided covered a wide range of interesting subjects from the Sage at Newcastle to a Lake District landscape, from a frost covered churchyard effigy to a digitally composed image complete with bats providing a sense of Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley. There were striking monotone portraits and the momentarily stationary red shoe of a flamenco dancer’s foot contrasting with the swirl of her crimson dress.

Scores were wide ranging for both teams but in the end Forest of Galtres Camera Club were declared the winners with a total of 329 points. Ripon were not far behind with 317. Allan Green’s image called Sermon for Dummies scored twenty, a humorous image of just the right hand of a bishop resting on a lectern and the title of the book he was relying on was as the title of the image. David Warner also scored twenty for a brilliant coastal image. David Ireland liked the balance of early morning light on the buildings, the right amount of mist to add atmosphere but not conceal detail, the reflections in the wet sands and the pin sharp nature of the whole view.

Many thanks to Ripon Photographic Society for hosting this enjoyable event and to David Ireland for his thorough response to each image.

Next week will be the judging of the print competitions: the Basil Sheard Portrait competition and the Towler Trophy for monochrome prints. The judge will be Guy Davies ARPS EFIAP EPSA.