This week at Irvine Camera Club we welcomed our friend Stuart Strachan, from Kilmaurs Photographic Club, to judge our final Projected Digital Image competition of the season. Once again, our members stepped up to provide a good selection of images, of a wide range of subjects, for Stuart to assess.
This competition was especially important as it would decide the winner of the Annick Quaich for best Project Digital Image photographer this season. Michele Campbell once again put in three exceptionally good studio photographs, all of which were rated highly by Stuart. It was her wonderfully quirky “Knit One, Purl One” that was placed highest in 3rd place, impressing the judge with her attention to detail, use of light and the finesse of her post production work.
Our club chair, Kevin Thorne’s stunning monochrome fine art image of the Radisson Blu in Glasgow, achieved 2nd place with Stuart commenting on Kevin’s use of line, shape and form to produce an eye-catching and dynamic architectural composition.
Ultimately it was one of the club’s beginners, Tracy Ross, who stole the show with her abstract monochrome photograph “Contrasting Shades”. The image shows a display of lamp shades presented upside down. Stuart commented that the individual shades reminded him of parasol mushrooms in their various stages of development and that the overall image was cleverly balanced and composed.
Several other photographs were commended by Stuart and some of them are shown here along with the top 3. Stuart provided thoughtful, informative and kind constructive criticism to every image he was asked to judge on the evening and his efforts were warmly appreciated by everyone.
Once the scores for the evening were tallied up it was clear that the winner of the Annick Quaich for this season was Michele Campbell. Ian Mortimer finished only a few points behind in second place, with Tracy’s win on the evening propelling her up the table into a closely contested 3rd place.
If you are inspired by the club members’ work to take your photography further then please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are continuing to operate online during the lockdown period and you’ll be made very welcome at our weekly Zoom meetings. Details can be found at our website www.irvinecc.co.uk or on the clubs’s various social media platforms.
