Category: Photography

Yesterday I entered two photos in GPC’s 2024/25 season, in the first competition of 2025. This was an ‘open restricted’ PDI, so these images were digitally projected, and had to come from two distinct genres. In my case, that is ‘still life’ and ‘nature’.

Taken at one of our members evenings earlier in the year, this still life was posed by another club member. I had to compose my image in the frame, and capture it. The judge wasn’t certain the kettle to the right worked (would it have been better omitted, or all in frame?). They also noted that the lace in the foreground really needed to be sharply in focus.

Taken during a trip to RSPB Arne, I spent a bit of time watching this Little Egret. It was then quite challenging to develop this image, so that the white plumage remains fully detailed, while the background has some detail in it. The judge noted that they would have preferred the background a touch darker. To fully qualify in a nature competition, this would need a more descriptive title.

Tonight’s images for the Godalming Photographic Club competition had to be taken on a phone. Manipulation off the phone was permitted. I used Lightroom on my phone, after trialling some of the effects on the desktop version.

This is a replica of what some regard as the ‘first photograph‘, and I thought it was interesting to see what a modern phone could do with the subject. I did edit this to differently expose the inside and outside areas. I don’t suppose Fox Talbot had that option for his first images!

This image was taken at a members evening at the club, where we had the opportunity to take still life images of various subjects. For the edit here, I used only Apple Photos, mostly to get just the right 1:1 crop.

For tonight’s competition, the theme was ‘People and Portraits’

A lesson in storytelling here – the judge entirely missed that the dog is a statue. I think I would need more of it in the frame to make that clearer.

Taken at the Guildford Crits, in 2022.