As you know our season, including our competitions, was cut short by the pandemic.  Only one competition, the President’s theme could not be completed and at that stage it was mathematically impossible for the three leaders in the Photographer of the Year challenge to be overtaken by any other members. Our annual awards will be given based on the scores for the six competitions completed.

As you will see, although our lady members number less than 20% of our membership, five of them have between them taken almost 80% of the trophies !  Congratulations therefore to Jan Wilding, Sue Champion, Patricia Keegan, Debbie Hesketh and Vicky Naudi.  
Particular congratulations of course go to Jan for being our “Photographer of the Year” in addition to winning two other trophies.  (Jan has also won two of the three “on-line lockdown” competitions we have had so far over the close season !).  Sue took three further trophies on her way to second place in the Photographer of the Year competition with Patricia also taking an additional trophy on her way to third place. 
Debbie took three first places and three seconds in the six competitions on her way to winning B group Photographer of the Year and Vicky took an additional first place and two seconds in the DPI competitions as well as winning the People DPI trophy.
Congratulations also of course to our three gents who took trophies, Ian Atkinson and John Wild in the Nature competition, prints and DPI respectively, and Ben Gorman with the winning image in the Monochrome prints.
For obvious reasons it will be some time before we can actually present the trophies but I’m sure you will join me in congratulating all of them on their many splendid images.
You will hear more over the next few weeks about our plan for the coming season but we are aiming to include DPI competitions with external judging so I do hope many of you will enter next season’s competitions.
Stay safe,

Cheers
Keith
Keith Fitzpatrick – CPS Secretary

Congratulations to Ron Sutton for an emphatic win with Wet, Wet, Wet!. Full results are available on the competition page.

C

Congratulations to Jan Wilding for winning our second Online Competition, her second win on the trot. Full results are available on the competition web page.

Online Competition 2 is now open for entries. Full details on the competition page.

We regret that effective 15 March we have cancelled all remaining events for our 2019-20 season. This is as a result of the Coronavirus/ Covid-19 threat.

We hope to restart as planned in September for the 2020-21 season. The Committee wishes you all a safe and healthy few months.

Chester PS took part in last weekend’s Lancashire & Cheshire Photographic Union Annual Club Competition which was held at Culcheth near Warrington. The Digital entries were judged on the Saturday with Prints on the Sunday. Three judges each scored out of 5, and on average it took 5 seconds for marks to be given in the Digital classes, with about 10 seconds per Print on the second day.

37 Clubs from across the region took part on the Saturday, with a slightly different combination of 22 clubs entering Prints. On both days it was the Nature section that was our weak point, but overall CPS finished a respectable half way down the tables.

Open Digital – 18th / 37 Nature Digital 25th / 37 OVERALL DIGITAL 23rd / 37

Colour Print – 11th /22 Mono Print 11th / 22 Nature Print 18th / 22 OVERALL PRINT 11th / 22

It is well worth looking at the slideshows for each section which can be found on the L&CPU website under the Information Portal Tab. There are some top class Nature images, and you will be able to see DPI’s and Prints which scored 12 and over. There were some very good images which scored under 12 too, so it was well worth going along to witness the marking. The full set of Club Ranking Lists is also available on the Portal:

http://lcpu-portal.org/current/Galleries.php

The top scoring Chester image was Speedo Girl by Malcolm Peacock with 14 points , and Bad Hair Day was given 13.

We noticed that the scores in the Mono section seemed generally quite low, but despite this, Ray Groom’s Vestrahorn & Shoreline and Malcolm’s Praying Nun both scored 13.

Thank you to all the authors for contributing your images to the CPS entry.

There will be an opportunity for CPS Members to enter their own images/prints into the L&CPU Annual Individual’s Competition in May.

Sue Champion & Jan Wilding

Chester PS has significantly improved its performance in the GB Cup for Small Clubs by finishing 3rd in the Open Digital Section.

Congratulations go to Richard Barrett for collecting a Silver Medal for Wild Wales in August, which was the Simon Allen Judge’s Choice; and to Malcolm Peacock whose Praying Nun gained a Bronze Medal for the Best Portrait. Chester did well to scoop two of the eleven medals awarded.

Forty clubs from across Great Britain entered this section which was topped by Tamworth PS with 125 points. Chester scored 117 points with the ten images above and six of them will be exhibited in a digital gallery. http://www.thepagb.org.uk/competitions/great-british-cup/

The entries must be from at least 4 different photographers and each is marked out of five by three judges. This year’s judges were Andrea Hargreaves, Joan Blease and Simon Allen. Natural History images are NOT permitted in the Open section – but perhaps we will be encouraged to enter this section in the future.

Thanks go to the authors of the images used and to Keith Fitzpatrick for submitting our entry.