12th April 2022
Annual PDI Competition – Judge: Jack Taylor
We were very pleased to welcome Jack Taylor as our judge for this evening, which is his first visit to our club. Jack is a member of Hailsham Photographic Society and has a Distinction in the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain (DPAGB), and an Excellence in the Federation Indian Photography (EFIP). He has been in the photographic world for a very long time, ‘probably nearly 60 years’ in his own words, which is amazing. He started in photography using film, and a dark room, before moving forward into the digital age. He has a pretty mixed style of photography, and did teach in an art college for a number of years and likes creativity. An important aspect for him is where the photographer has put something of themselves into the picture.
The Annual PDI Competition consists of 5 categories General, Landscape, Monochrome, Nature and Portrait, and members are judged against each other equally and not as beginner, intermediate or advanced classes. Jack commenced with the General category, giving his expert review on each image first, then returning to each one to give his overall score, as well as holding back those he wished to see again. At the end of the judging session Jack held some back for further review and selected his winning images from all five categories, followed by an overall winner on the night. He commented on the high standard of images, especially those submitted in the nature category.
Throughout the evening Jack gave very positive and inspiring comments and advice, particularly with regard to cropping, positioning of the subject, lighting, lead in lines, creativity, etc. This continued throughout all the categories, which members found to be extremely useful and gave them something to broaden their photographic knowledge.
Jack concluded the evening by selecting the winning images, which were:
The Best in Competition, and winner of the Portrait category was:
‘Thinking’ by Mirza Khurrum Baig
The winner of the General category was:
‘It’s not good for you’ by Mirza Khurrum Baig
The winner of the Monochrome category was:
‘April Showers’ by Keith Harris
The winner of the Nature category was:
‘Because I’m worth it’ (with apologies to L’Oreal) by Mike Doyle
The winner of the Landscape category was:
‘Iconic’ by Mirza Khurrum Baig
Grateful thanks go to Jack Taylor for his very comprehensive and informative judging, Kathie for presenting the evening, Rob for collating and presenting the images, and Sheila for introducing and recording the scores. Many thanks also go to those members who submitted such a range of beautiful and interesting images, and of course to all our members for their ongoing support.
The Committee