Mike Barnard ABPA LRPS returned on Monday evening as judge of the remaining two digital image competitions, Village Life and Film Title. He gave his considered opinions on each entry for Village Life first. He anticipated several quintessential English village scenes, which there were, but as several members have travelled much further afield, village life in other countries was also featured.

Equal third place was given to Ken Proudley’s Fishing and Pam Pope’s Tibetan Villager. Allan Green’s image called Mattins was placed second and first place was awarded to David Higgins’ The Bowls Match. Mike considered that conveyed village life really well.

Judging the images entered for Film Title is always a difficult category to judge according to Mike. There are two factors to consider. First does the image support/suggest the film title it is referring to and secondly, does the quality of the image merit first place.

Three entries scored 19 points and were equal second, Allan Green with Dangerous Moonlight and Tim Firth’s Castaway. David Warner’s Skyfall was in contention with the eventually winner for first place. However, David’s image just lost out to Ken Proudley’s Lethal Weapon. It was the technical photographic skill that Mike liked here. Instead of the current convention of having depth of field such that from front to back of an image was pin sharp, Ken chose to have just the tip of the subject in sharp focus and contrasting with the rest of the image. Mike liked the use of a very small depth of field to emphasis the muzzle of the rifle.

Next week, Carole Smith, Jill Dobson and Lizzie Stewart will be presenting the evening’s images.