On Wednesday 22 October, we spent an interesting evening reviewing the results of our first photographic Challenge of the 2025-26 season.

Challenge 1 was simply “something partially in frame”.

There was nothing more to the brief than that.

The whole purpose of our challenges is of course to get us creating new pictures, not merely plucking images from our back catalogues.

Creating photographs featuring something only partially in frame is a tough creative assignment.  It breaks some traditional “rules” of photography.  But rules are there to be broken and doing so requires inventiveness and creativity.  The trick is to produce an interesting result because the subject is obscured or only partially visible.

As usual, members rose to the challenge with a variety of subject matter including people, architecture, wildlife, cars, trains, and even a rather disdainful cat.

There was no “critique” as such and members were invited to mark each image on a scale from 1 to 5.  This led to much discussion about the relative merits of each image, showing there is no single perfect technique or result for everyone and there is plenty of room for experimentation and creativity in photography.

After the arithmetic, the top six images were as below.

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For details of the competition rules  CLICK HERE.

If you didn’t know, you can also post your comments at the bottom of the page. Engage with other Members and share your thoughts on the entries and judging. 

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

The Top Six

  • “Flamingo Parent” by Sandra Eve – 100 marks

  • Octo” by David Manning – 99 marks

  • “Off to Busk” by Martin Wood – 91 marks

  • “An Affront to My Dignity” by Paul Stokes – 91 marks

  • “Old Codgers” by Martin Wood – 91 marks

  • “The Frame’s Reveal” by Sandie Rawlings – 90 marks

First Place

All Entries (click image for full size)

Congratulations to the authors.  All excellent images!

Special congratulations to Sandra for her touching flamingo image.

The evening was rounded off with comments from the top scoring authors, explaining the inspiration behind their pictures and how they achieved them.

This was another fun challenge – creatively stimulating as well as producing some intriguing images.

I wonder what excitements the Programme Secretaries have in store for us in Challenge 2?!