On 28 October we held one of our occasional Digital Image Knockout Competitions.

These Knockout Competitions are entirely informal, light-hearted affairs!

Members were invited to submit up to three images each, which were anonymously and randomly selected to be projected in pairs.  One of each pair was then chosen by a show of hands of the assembled club members to go through to the next round.  And so on, like a tennis tournament, through successive rounds the images were whittled down until we arrived at our overall winner.

The evening was compered by chairman Tim Gould and the votes were counted by Tim, Tim Crabb and John Curd.  Unusually, the images were displayed and voted on without too much misconduct.

But there was of course plenty of heckle and banter!  And part way through, we were obliged to switch from the automated software to manual mode.  It’s always good to have a Plan B!

Members entered over 60 images covering a wide range of photographic genres, subjects and approaches.  These encompassed landscapes, seascapes and old boats, townscapes, abstracts, architecture, street/candid, travel, wild and domestic animals, birds, historical/re-enactment, still life, colour, monochrome, and so much more.

The standard of photography was remarkably high and as ever choosing between equally deserving images was extremely hard.  Nevertheless, we eventually arrived at the semi-final stage.  The last four images – all marvellous in their very different ways – were

  • “Planks” by Paul Stokes,
  • “Amongst the Colours” by John Curd,
  • “Spirals” by Carol Curd, and
  • “Overlooked” by Bob Farrer.

The final then produced a close conjugal contest between

  • John’s “Amongst the Colours”, and
  • Carol’s “Spirals”.

And, by a narrow margin, the winning image was John’s vivid “Amongst the Colours”!

A great end to a very entertaining evening.

“Congratulations” to John on his splendid victory and his vivid image (captured at Tate St Ives)!  And commiserations to Carol.  (I just hope John counted the votes correctly. 😉)

To the victor the glory.  But of course that’s about it as, sadly, there is still no prize for winning this toughest-of-all competitions.