Club members met on Saturday 19th November 2022 for the annual Open Competition. This competition pits blue water against green water, macro against wide angle. The evening was hosted at Pat’s house in Wormley and was attended by 17 club members.

After a winter warming chilli and general socialising, 24 images from 8 members were projected. The winners had been pre-judged by Sandra and Ryan Stalker, members of BSOUP and very active underwater photographers from Swanage. Sandra and Ryan were unable to attend the meeting but provided a set of notes on their choices.

Thanks go to:

• Sandra and Ryan for judging the competition
• Pat for hosting the evening and providing the meal
• Ann for assisting Pat in the meal preparation
• Roger & Wendy, Keith & Jo for providing the Pavlova and Banoffee Pie
• Keith for organising  and running the competition
• All entrants who submitted images to the competition
• Roger, Martha and Joss for support in organising and running the evening

The winning images are as follows with judges comments in italics:

Firstly thanks ever so much for inviting us to judge the competition it’s been great fun and we really enjoyed it.

Overall impressions: A really strong set of submissions showcasing variety and technique with lots more that moved in and out of being placed, especially with two of us judging there were certainly some debates going on and the high standard made our job quite hard.

1st Place – Keith Lyall

This image stood out immediately due to its strong diagonals and sense of flow. It is well lit with the shrimp standing out through the nice use of directional lighting even though it is camouflaged. This one moved up and down the rankings a lot while we deliberated but is stood out as the strongest to me.

2nd Place – Nur Tucker

One of the few wide angle images submitted. Lovely composition with the strong diagonal of the cave and good use of ambient light with the pooling on the seabed nicely framing the image.  The diver would have benefited from being angled slightly more within the space which might have pushed it higher but choreographing that would probably have been really difficult so that’s just pickiness really, good colour palette with more muted tones.

3rd Place – Joss Woolf

Very well lit with a bright centre to draw the viewer in and then subtle lighting giving the sense of the translucency of the tentacles. Good use of a square composition in this instance framing the subject well containing both a luminescence and motion, sharp focus throughout.

Highly Commended – Joss Woolf

Stood out from the offset, well lit with good focus on the head and the blue suckers although it would have been nice to see the left hand tentacle with a bit more light on it which would have pushed it higher.

Highly Commended – Jo Horrocks

This image grew on me more and more over the days of looking at the entries. Initially I felt the fish was too similar in colour to the background and the bokeh but the more I looked at it the more I felt it worked. I feel the bokeh adds another layer to the image making the narrative more complex which works well in a macro shot.

Commended – Sue Guess

Nicely lit with focus on the cuttle with just a little light catching the xenia, cuttle facing the camera almost square on with good eye contact however we felt that it might have benefitted from less empty space below. It certainly sparked debate between us as to where it should sit. 

Commended – Jo Horrocks

Eye catching with a good colour palette and sharp focus. Well composed image.