May Day delivered a treat. John Lewis, our last speaker of the season delighted us with a presentation titled 'Seasons of the New Forest'. John explained that there are no towns, only villages within the New Forest, together with 26 miles of coastline and he portrayed all of this throughout the four seasons. We were also fascinated to learn about John's ancestors - his Great Grandfather and Great Uncle were also photographers and recorded many of the old traditions and customs of the New Forest. John gave many useful tips on how he took his pictures and more importantly, where - providing great tips for members who quizzed him during coffee break and at the end.
We held our final round of our DPI League competition on the 8th May. The subject featured was 'Landscapes' and covered seascapes, cityscapes and industrial landscapes. Zaid Meherali was the judge and he chose 'Teton Mountains' by John Livy as the winner and 'Zabriskie Point' by Neil Grimshaw as runner-up. Zaid was very complimentary of the range of images provided and kept up an interesting commentary explaining his scores throughout the evening
On the 15th May our good friends from Ealing and Hampshire House visited us for our Annual Derby competition, judged by Roy Lambeth. Roy was faced with a variety of high-class prints and digital images to critique. The results were extremely close with Highcliffe and Infinity winning the print section by 1 point and the DPI by 2 points.
The final competition of the season 'Best of Year' was held on 22nd May - this was to find the best overall individual print and DPI image from all this season's competitions. Tony Oliver, an experienced judge, enjoyed his task of selecting the winning images from an enormous range of subjects. In the print section Nicky Pascoe's monochrome image 'Erin on Pointe' was placed first, 'Luna and Buddy' by Catherine Dashwood was runner-up with Brian Adkins's 'Starters Hut Mudeford' Highly Commended. The DPI section was won by Frank Leavesley with 'Mirrored Movement', runner-up was 'Gannet in Campion' by Jules Syrett and Jim Budd's image 'Landing Gear Down' earned Highly Commended.
We rounded off the 2018/19 season with our annual dinner and prize-giving held at the Lord Bute in Highcliffe. There will be an informal summer programme of events for those who wish to continue with their photography over the summer months.