Ashford Photographic Society News

On Friday May 17th we held our Annual Exhibition Competition, and passing judgment on this occasion was Dave Mason, of Mirage and Arena Photographic Groups. Dave is a long-time visitor to APS, sometimes giving talks on his own style of photography, sometimes judging the photography of others, and we look upon him as a friend. He is an experienced judge, an excellent photographer and storyteller, and we were all delighted to welcome him to APS for this our final competition of the year.

‘Please yourself first, not the judge’ he said, but, of course, we were all hoping to please the judge with our entries.  This is an end-of-season competition and some of the images were familiar from previous competitions but many were new, saved for this particular competition. It was clear that the overall quality was extremely high and Dave apologised for not holding some pictures back even though they were technically perfect. Each image was treated with the same respect and carefully examined - …

Report by Marjorie Burge.

It was an evening of friendship and fun on Friday 10th May when Chris Palmer FRPS EFIAP DPAGB APAGB judged the Battle between Ashford, Canterbury, Gateway and Folkestone. We were delighted to be hosting the evening and it was lovely to see so many familiar faces among our visitors – many who normally stood up front to judge and speak, now sitting in the audience. There was a definite buzz of anticipation as Chris began his judging. This was an open competition and each club had entered a mix of genres – landscape, portrait, street, natural history, architecture – black and white and colour. I know our entries came from all three divisions within APS.

Chris was an excellent judge for the evening and gave us a lot of feed-back on the entries. He did mention he was looking for ideas for places to go for his own photography, but it was clear from his comments that our photographers were walking in his footsteps. Chris gave a brilliant commentary, keeping us all…

Report by Marjorie Burge

Ted Sturgeon LRPS of Hailsham Photographic Society and Arena Photographers was the perfect judge for the Driftwood Trophy Print Panel Competition on Friday 3rd May. Ted judged the entries as panels, taking into account the cohesive nature not only of the images but also the colour harmony, tonal consistency, mounting (mounts, he said, support the images and are part of the panel) and even the titles. Everything counted towards the success of the images as a panel. The importance of balance was paramount, and quite often he would change the order of the images, or merely exclude one particular image, to strengthen the panel. He stressed that this was just his personal preference and made no criticism of the photographers. Sixteen panels had been entered and our judge commended all members of APS who had taken the time to put them together to such a high standard. There was a lot to learn about panels, but also much to be proud of – putting a panel together is n…

Report by Marjorie Burge

Our 4th League Print Competition took place on Friday 12th April with Steve Carroll ARPS of Maidstone Camera Club judging.  This was our final print competition of the season and the variety and quality of the entries was breathtaking. Seventy-four entries overall – fourteen in Division 3, twenty-seven in Division 2, thirty-three in Division 1.   Steve is quite detailed in his observations when judging an image. He called upon the wisdom of Jo Cornish when judging landscapes, ‘depth, balance, flow and energy’ – but had his own clear likes and dislikes, wanting involvement between photographer and subject in street photography, more impact from some monochrome images, looked for balance in composition, and sharpness. Judges seem able to detect even the smallest deviation from sharpness, and he recommended looking at our prints under a strong light – something to remember. Steve’s allocation of points covered a fairly wide range but with such high quality it wa…

Report by Marjorie Burge

On Friday 29th March, Zoe Garnham-Archer of Invicta Camera Club was at APS to judge our 6th and final PDI league competition. It was a busy evening, with 62 entries in three divisions. Zoe gave a full commentary, becoming personally involved in each image, loving almost everything our photographers had included in their images.  But, she doesn’t like soft – even a title ‘Yes, its meant to be soft’ didn’t deter her – wanted sharpness in everything, wanted dark areas lifted, not keen on vignetting, and preferred a close-up with no wasted space. Zoe struggled bravely through when faced with an image bringing deeply rooted fears to the surface – a lesson to all of us in how real these emotions can be to those affected by phobias – and was able to judge the image fairly and professionally. Judging images against each other in an open competition is always difficult, and even though many of our photographers had saved their best for this final round, Zoe was quite …

Due to illness, Rachael Talibart has had to cancel her talk scheduled for this evening.

Sue Chapman ARPS has kindly offered to stand-in and give her talk titled 'Before and After'.