The Western Area Battle is an annual competition between 8 Photographic Societies.
Carlisle, Copeland, Dumfries, Keswick, Morton, Penrith, West Cumbria and Workington. Each Photographic Society has to present 6 prints and 6 PDI’s.
The competition is marked by an external judge and on this occasion it was Leo Palmer FRPS, APAGB, FPSA, GMPSA from Hexham Camera Club.
Leo started the afternoon with a talk about his travels, projects, concepts and themes. He tends to concentrate on producing six images for each project and showed some interesting examples on landscapes from Yellowstone National Park, India, Nepal and Spain. Others were of Street Life, Candid (inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson), Surrealism, Mannequins and Bromoils.
The second half of his presentation was a series of A-V’s lasting 2 to 5 minutes each and collectively lasted for 45 minutes. The material was mainly of his travel photography.
Thanks to Penrith CC, our hosts for the day, for organising the event, providing an excellent buffet and venue at the Penrith Players Theatre.
After the buffet each image was presented and Leo gave comments of varying lengths. Scores were given, added accumulatively, resulting in a very close outcome.
Prints
Carl Cope Dumf Kesw Mort Penr W.Cum Work
73 86 98 98 88 83 71 83
PDI’s
Carl Cope Dumf Kesw Mort Penr W.Cum Work
97 87 103 103 97 96 92 97
Totals
170 173 201 201 185 179 163 180
Position
7th 6th 1st= 1st= 3rd 5th 8th 4th
Best print was given to Penrith for “Soft Light on Ullswater” by John Williams
Best PDI was given to Carlisle for “Evening Storm”
I am sure most of the attendees think their images could have scored better but that will always be the case and once again Dumfries and Keswick are top of the pile which is a pretty consistent performance year on year.