Blog

The summer break has now ended so that signals the start of the autumn/winter programme at Llanelli Photographic Society. It’s been a busy summer for the group so look out for some images from the Wednesday Walkabouts soon but for now it’s time to look forward.

The new session officially kicked off on the 2nd September with the judging of our Summer Challenge competition. A handful of brave souls took to the streets of Llanelli to take a series of seven images in just over an hour. Victory was sort of shared between Dave Rees and Tony Collis who earn the pleasure of setting the challenge in 2016.

That’s some way off, so what’s on offer over the coming weeks at LPS?

On the 9th September we welcome David Alexander to the club for a presentation on “Travel Photography for Real People”. This is followed a week later by the fourth digital image competition of the year. “From The Hip” is possibly the hardest theme on the calendar so it’ll be interesting to see the variety of images submitted. The last couple of weeks in September are more practical based. A night photography evening is planned for the 23rd whilst on the 30th is another of our group discussion critique nights.

We start October with an Open Print competition and welcome Brian Coleman back to the club as guest judge. On the 14th October we’ll be heading over to Kidwelly for a three way battle competition whilst on the 21st we have another speaker. This time we’ve been lucky enough to book Paul Richards for a talk about his wildlife photography. The annual Our Carmarthenshire print competition concludes the month on the 28th.

One thing not mentioned for October is the club’s annual exhibition. This is scheduled for the 9th and 10th October at St Elli Centre in Llanelli. We hope to be putting on a display of work from current members of the club plus possibly some images from past members. The reason for the latter is that in 2016 LPS is celebrating it’s 125 year anniversary and it’s a nod to our heritage.

November and December are made up of more presentations (Andy Freem and David Rowley will be our guests), competitions (5 panel print, Boxed In DPI and final Open Print of 2015), and social events.

At the end of June, Llanelli Photographic Society held it’s annual six way battle. This special competition pits LPS against camera clubs from Tenby, Carmarthen, Trostre, Amman Valley and Pembrey. This year the judge was Mikaela Tocziki who is a lecturer of Arts and Photography at Coleg Sir Gar.

Mikaela was a tough but fair judge and dished out a wide range of scores. It was a close run thing in the end, but Tenby managed to retain their title by just one point.

The scores were as follows;

Tenby – 88
Llanelli – 87
Trostre – 77
Carmarthen – 74
Amman Valley – 69
Pembrey – 65

A big thank you to all the clubs for entering and attending. Congratulations to Tenby for winning and thanks to Mikaela for judging. Finally a special thanks to our visitors from Carmarthenshire Council and The Rural Council.

Temby incidentally get to keep the Sosban Trophy for two years as next year there’s a special one off version of the event to celebrate the 125th Anniversary of LPS.

At the start of the year it was the newer members of LPS who were taking the top honours in print and DPI competitions, but the more established members aren’t taking that lying down. After a good showing in “Old Things” they’re doing it again with Open Print competition 3.

This competition was held in June and our judge for the evening was Andy Leslie who kindly stepped in as a late replacement. Andy chose Pete’s Ghost Car, Ghost Town image as his number one for the evening. Well done Peter!

The full top six was as follows:

1. Pete Francis – Ghost Car, Ghost Town
2. Steve Milton – Self Portrait
3. Arthur Mallett – No Vacancies
4. Jennifer Williams – Dreaming
5. Jason Dale – Swan Lake
6. Jason Dale – Three Cliffs Sunset

Well done to all and our thanks to Andy Leslie for judging on the night.

Back in May LPS held it’s third DPI competition of the year with the theme being “Old Things”. This brought forward a number of entries ranging from old people, old cars, old boats, old trains and even old members of the club. Images from Cuba dominated the top six with three images taken from a recent holiday featuring, however none of those managed to take the top spot.

First place went to Netley Davies with the simple, but very powerful, image of his Mum’s hands.

The full top six were as follows

1. Netley Davies – Mother
2. Alun Lewis -The Things I Have Seen
3. Tony Collis – The Old Car
4. Tony Collis – The Old Hats
5. Arthur Mallett – My Radio Joy
6. Ed – Ageism

The next DPI competition will take place after the summer break and has the tough theme of “From The Hip”.

June is a busy month for external competitions and LPS have been involved in three – The Swansea Battle, Amman Valley Battle and Barrian Cup. Prints from members of LPS were pitched up against those from other clubs but how did we get on?

The Swansea Battle took place on the 1st June where we tied in 4th place alongside Rhonnda Camera Club. Not too bad a placing after a shaky start. Gareth Martin was the judge and did a fabulous job. Tenby came out as clear winners ahead of Swansea and Merthyr who snuck into 3rd at the end with a cheeky 20 points.

LPS Scores – Swansea Battle

Jason – Poppy Memorial – 15
Arthur – Content – 19
Graham – Once A Busy Place – 16
Joyce – Rabari Tribal Woman – 18
Phil – Nordschiefe 911 – 19

The Amman Valley battle took place on the 3rd June and involved a number of clubs including Pembrey, Amman Valley, Carmarthen and Neath. LPS won this one with 107 points – putting us just ahead of Neath. Well done to all and especially Joyce for collecting a 20 point score.

LPS Scores – Amman Valley Battle

Graham – The Festival – 18
Ed – Fall – 16
Alun – Room With A View – 17
Joyce – Village Elder – 20
Netley – Sunset Beach – 17
Jay – Trafalgar Square – 19

Completing a hat-trick of external competitions was The Barrian Cup. This took place on the 6th June and involved entries from 27 different camera clubs. John Tilsley ARPS,DPAGB,APAGB was the judge. The winners were Brigend with 95 points, followed by Gwynfa on 93 and Inn Focus with 92. LPS were 11th equal with Swansea with a score of 78.

LPS Scores – Barrian Cup

Graham – Life on Hold – 14
Jamie – Sunset – 15
Peter – Pre Dawn Lift – 17
Jennifer – Feeding the Idea – 16
Jason – Sun Soaked Clams – 16

Well done to all LPS members who had work selected for these battles – and a big thank you to Barry CC, Swansea CC and Amman Valley CC for hosting the events so well.

The Ken Jones Trophy is one of the highlights of the Llanelli Photographic Society. The reason being that it has one of the most stylish prizes and the winner also gets to keep a small replicate of the trophy, all thanks to Mark Mathias – nephew of Ken Jones and sponsor of the competition. This year there were 40 prints battling out in this monochrome themed competition.

Gareth Martin made a quick return to LPS to deliver a critique and judge the competition. Gareth selected eight prints from the 40 as his favourites including a handful of portraits and landscapes. However, he chose as his overall winner “We Walked This Pier” by Jason Dale.

Well done to Jason for winning and a big thank you to Gareth for his informative and entertaining critique.

LPS would also like to thank Mark Mathias for visiting us again and for his support of the club.

Mark announced that he has commissioned a further 10 years worth of miniature trophies for this competition – a very kind gesture and LPS would like to express sincere thanks for this support. Thank you Mark!!

Our next competition is on 20th May and it’s a Digital one. The theme is “Old Things”.

The Ken Jones Trophy is one of the most hotly contested competitions during the LPS season. It’s our only mono competition and it’s also the one where the winner gets to keep an amazing glass trophy – provided by club patron Mark Mathias. Sadly Mark was unable to join us for the competition this year.

However Ed Cloutman, fresh for judging the WPF Salon, did join us as the judge for the evening. Ed gave us a good critique and plenty of advice about printing mono images. He also had the difficult task of picking a winner from a large number of entries but in the end it was good news for Joyce Mollet who became the sixth different member to collect the coveted trophy.

Joyce won with her image titled ‘The Tilemaker’

Although this competition doesn’t have a top six, Ed did have a selection of images that he’d singled out – and these are listed below.

Dave Rees with ‘Roof Shadow’
Roy Watkins with ‘South Dock London’
Graham Harris with ‘City Stroll’
Ed Shum with ‘Storm Gazing’

Big congratulations to Joyce for a well deserved win.

Back in March, LPS held it’s annual Dave Roberts Memorial Trophy competition. This competition is in memory of Dave and is always on the ‘nautical’ theme. For 2016 we welcomed Mike Clatworthy to LPS as our guest judge. The competition attracted a number of entries including images of Burry Port, San Francisco and even a toy boat.

However there could only be one winner – and Mike chose ‘Golden Gate Bridge’ by Alun Lewis as the best image.

Alun also won the competition back in 2015 – so the trophy has returned back to his mantelpiece for another 12 months.

Congratulations to Alun and a big thank you to Mike for judging the competition.

Our second DPI competition of 2016 was held back in April on the theme ‘Under The Weather’. The competition attracted numerous entries featuring weather but there were also one or two on who chose to utilise the illness meaning of the phrase. As with all our digital competitions, the top six is chosen based on scores given by fellow members.

The winner was Ed Shum with his image called ‘Storm Gazing’. This amazing shot was taken in 2015 during a club trip to Iceland.

The top six for the competition was as follows:

1. Storm Gazing – Ed Shum
2. Hold On – Jason Dale
3. In From The Rain – Yvonne Pace
4=. Double Luck – Graham Harries
4=. Don’t Look Down – Arthur Mallett
6. Take Two With Water – Jason Dale

Congratulations to Ed and well done to all those who’s images finished in the top six. The next DPI competition is in June and the theme is ‘Camouflage’.

Llanelli Photographic Society’s second print competition of 2016 was held on the 27th April. Brian Coleman was the invited judge for this particular competition. As usual Brian gave a thorough and entertaining critique but there could only be one winner – and Arthur came out on top with his image ‘Caribbean Beauty’.

The full top six was as follows:

1st: Carribean Beauty – Arthur Mallett
2nd: Computer Chess – Steve Milton
2nd: Gesture – Dave Rees
4th: Tile maker – Joyce Mollet
4th: TBC – Dave Rees

Well done to Arthur – and to all those who finished in the top six.