Tenby & District Camera Club held the judging of their 2nd Open Competition, their first event of the New Year.  

Everyone congratulated Gillian Mackay on her superb achievement of being highlighted by Rui Palha in the HSP corner as a featured photographer along with many of well known international photographers and photo journalists, a brilliant achievement.

The club was grateful to David Williams, judge for the 2nd Open competition on January 4. David kindly stepped in after our original judge was ill, David had a lot to do, as there were 22 print submissions and 36 PDI’s to critique and judge.

The competition started as usual with the print section; the Gold medal was won by David Bolton with his superb print titled “Brown Hare in Ploughed Field”, the Silver medal was won by Rob Cox for his lovely print titled “Clevedon Pier” and the Bronze medal went to Cheryl Hewitt for her great print, “Fulmar on the Run”.

Highly Commended was achieved by Dave Bolton for “Tenby Tides, The Blue Hour”, Charlie Kidd for “Pine Martin with Egg in the Rain”, Rob Cox for “Heron in Autumn”, Jan Sullivan for “Sitting Pretty” and Neil Thomas for “Puffin with Eels”. Commended was achieved by Cheryl Hewitt for “Life on Peacock Tiger Lily”.

The PDI’s Gold medal was won by Jayne Crocker with her brilliant image “Fancy a Game”. Silver medal was won by Jan Sullivan for her excellent image titled “Great Catch”. Bronze medal was won by Neil Thomas for his outstanding image titled “Sparrow hawk with Prey”

Highly Commended was won by Charlie Kidd for “Red Squirrel on log” and “Woodpecker in the Woods”; Neil Thomas for “Red Squirrel”; David Bolton for “Swallows Meadow”; Rob Cox for “Fluffy in the Flowers”; Lizzie Wallis for “European Crane Dance in the Snow”; Mats Fredriksson for “Chat Noir”; John Whitehurst, “Meadow Grasshopper”; Cheryl Hewitt for “Handstand”; Ali Rees for “The Thrill of the Surf”; Francis White for “Surfer”; Alan Brown for “Harbour Lights”; Lizzie Wallis for “Impressions of an Oystercatcher”; Gary Mayhew “That’s another fine SMS”; John Whitehurst for “Mud Lark”, and Ali Rees for “knowing”.

Commended PDIs were Andy Watkin for “in Father’s Footsteps” and “Misty Mountain Morning”; Steve Howells for “57 shades of of Mud”; Gary Mayhew for “Drifting”; Sara Josey for “Squirrel eating Berries”; David Bolton for “Birds of Sker Rock”; Andrea Kynoch for “Spirit of the Ancient Woodland”; Mats Fredriksson for “Self Portrait”; Cheryl Hewitt for “Have a Banana”, and Jan Sullivan for “Taking a Paddle”. The planned talk on January 11 by Les Loosemore was cancelled due to illness . The evening was rearranged at short notice with slide shows and good discussions about a wide range of photography subject matter. 

On January 18, Tenby Camera Club welcomed one of their own, Alun Richardson. 

Alun Richardson who is a travel and adventure photographer gave a fascinating and inspiring talk to Tenby Camera Club about the varied places he had been to and projects he had been involved in the last year. The theme of the evening was ‘Chase the Light’ and ‘Dare to be Different’ and his approach was much in evidence in his awe-inspiring work.

He started with photographs taken locally of mountain climbing, surfing and landscapes and was generous with his knowledge and tips of his photography techniques, Alun also shared with us the way in which he edits his images.

Alun supports and works with varies charities, the Hafal charity based in Tenby and the FF charity which trains surgeons from third world countries. To end the first half, he showed photographs of the expedition he led to Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey. His stunning images showed just how challenging the conditions were.

After the break, club members were treated with photographs from various trips Alun had been including his cycle trip from London to Paris and an eight-day hike on the Alta Via dell’Adamello in Italy. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the evening of inspirational photography and also hearing the stories that accompanied the images.