PDI Knockout Competition – October 2020

The DI Knockout is, as the Programme puts it, “a sophisticated, utterly unfair and usually pretty chaotic competition.  Contestants submit up to 6 images each, which are anonymously and randomly selected for projection in pairs.  One of each pair is chosen by the assembled club members, via a show of hands, to go through to the next round.  Last image standing is the winner.”

Confusingly, the competition organiser actually wanted only four images.  And votes were cast using buttons in the Zoom interface.  But we are well used to mild confusion of this sort.!

As ever the competition was an entirely informal, light-hearted affair.  The evening was compered by Zoom host Paul Needham.  The electronic votes were counted by Sally and Mike Kitchingman.  And the images were displayed and voted on without too much misconduct.  This event is so much more civilised on Zoom than in the school hall!

Members entered nearly 100 images this year covering – as they always do – a wide range of photographic genres, subjects and approaches.  These encompassed landscapes, seascapes, townscapes, and gardenscapes, travel, wild and domestic animals, birds, flowers, insects, historical/re-enactment, still life, colour, monochrome, and so much more.

The standard of photography was remarkably high and choosing between equally deserving images was even harder than usual.  Eventually, however, we arrived at the semi-final stage.  The last four images – all marvellous in their very different ways – were

• “Across the Lake” by Sandra Eve
• “Frosty Morning Over My Fence” by Clive Rayment
• “Shield Bug” by Jon Cruise, and
• “Swan Wake” by John Curd.

The final was then contested by

• “Across the Lake”, and
• “Shield Bug”

And in the climactic finale, the winning image was determined, by a single vote, to be “Shield Bug” by Jon Cruise.  The second time running the winning image has been a bug!

A great end to a very entertaining evening.

“Congratulations” to Jon on his terrific victory – and his even more splendid image!  Commiserations to Sandra.

To the victor the glory.  But that’s about it as, sadly, there is still no prize for winning this fun competition.

Help Promote the Club!! Like and Share the images and post on Facebook & Flickr

NB: Members can watch the competition in full on the ‘Members Only’ section of the website.