Judge John Smith APAGB CPAGB Hon LCPU travelled all the way from Rhyl to judge our interclub competition against Nantwich. He had a difficult task separating the high quality entries. The competition was split into a print and PDI sections with 30 images in each. The Print competition was run first and on completion, it was even with both clubs scoring 243 marks. So, it was left to the PDI competition to decide the winner. Crewe edged it with 259 to 252 marks, so Crewe won by a mere 7 marks with a total of 502 to Nantwich’s 495.
In the print competition, our top two scoring prints were Kath Hill’s ‘Eagle Owl’ which scored 19 and Wallace Baxter’s ‘A focused Robert Holdway’ which was awarded 18. John liked the strong eye contact in Kath’s print and told us the detailed owl stood out from the background. For Wallace’s strong mono print of a canoeist, John liked the tight crop and diagonal composition, but the expression cemented the high mark.
In the PDI section, our strong nature images gained us some valuable points. Ian Whiston’s ‘Cheetah with Thompsons Gazelle’ was awarded 20 marks John told us it was wild nature at it’s best. We had four PDIs which scored 19 marks. They are Paul Hill’s ‘Eurasian Marsh Harrier’, again John like the plain background and detail of the bird in flight. Paul also scored 19 for another flying bird with his ‘Common Gull with Cockle’. Stephen Coyne also scored two 19s for his monochrome ‘Popping up’ print of a polar bear’s head emerging from the icy sea and for his ‘Long Eared Owl Landing’. John liked the beauty and simplicity of ‘Popping Up’ and thought Stephen’s owl print was well caught and had strong eyes’.
All of those images can be seen in the slideshow above. All the results can be seen in our Results page