This year I decided, for the first, to enter some of the external competitions open to members of the club, but on an individual basis. I sent one to NEMPF, the Potting Shed, which was not accepted but scored 11 that I was well pleased with. I also entered the LPA Digital competition, which was held at Nettleham village hall on Sunday 27th January commencing at 2.30. The judge for the day was Peter Jones.  This particular competition is for anyone who belongs to a camera club that is affiliated to the LPA. The competition consisted of two sections, the open, meaning images that had little manipulation, maybe cropped and a few tweaks and the Creative competition where 'anything goes'. The judge had difficulty in classifying some, saying a few entered in the open section were creative and a few in the creative should have been in the open, so it is a very fine line indeed.   BramblemBlossom

 I entered two images, (each individual is allowed to enter two open and two creative) both in the open section. One of my images was The Potting Shed, which has been in club competitions and the other Bramble Blossom, which I have not used as yet. The judge does not give points in this competition, but talks about each images giving his opinions and suggestions which people hopefully found helpful. After he spoken about the images he would pass or save it. He passed on my Bramble Blossom saying I should have made it a square image, and having tried this I have to agree that that is a better shape for this particular image. You will no doubt be seeing it at our next club comp.

He said very little about The Potting Shed, just commenting that the light was nice coming in from the doorway, and he saved it. There was a total of 72 entries in the open and he saved 16. He went through them a second time, giving commended and I was still hanging on in there thinking that I might be in with a chance of Highly Commended, but after he had awarded them we were down to two pictures and when he chose mine for first, I could not believe it I was so surprised and so happy. And although it was not a club event, it was really great that Alison came second and Janet and Alison both obtained a Highly Commended, so Scunthorpe did very well.

 I have had a lot of help from a lotThe Potting Shed of people in the club and others that we talk to when out photographing. My main problem is that the older I get the less I remember, but very slowly things are coming together and I am understanding more about the camera and more about editing. Utube has a lot of short interesting tutorial and I also find some of the CDs you get with magazines can be helpful, and you can keep replaying them until you remember what it is you are trying to learn. 

 I feel this is a fantastic hobby for us in our retirement; we go out a lot together and with friends and meet a lot of like-minded people. It gives us fresh air and friendship and keeps us motivated. I enjoy taking pictures and choose to put into competitions only the images/pictures that I like, its good to get feed back, but the judge is only one person and I have seen the same pictures receiving a difference of 3 points when judged by different judges in the Battles, so I cant get too upset if I do not get the score I would have expected, and I hope you too will enjoy photography and take pictures that you like for your own sake.