Author: LPS

Back in January, LPS held it’s annual awards dinner. As well as being a social event and celebration of the past 12 months, it’s also the time when awards are handed out. Throughout the year the club holds several DPI and print competitions. Members who participate and get in the top six collect points and those with the most points in each category are the overall winners.

For the DPI competition the winner was Alun Lewis. Alun won the ‘From The Hip’ themed competition but also finished in the top six in many of the others.

In the print competition Arthur Mallett finished with the most points. Arthur won Open Print 4 with his “Anciano Cubano” image and also collected a number of top six positions throughout the year.

The overall Photographer Of The Year prize usually ends up in the hands of either the DPI or Print winner. However this year Jason Dale took top spot with a number of top six finishes in both the DPIs and print competitions.

In addition to the above three awards, the best print and DPI images of the year were also recognised. These are chosen by a member’s vote from all the winning images. Alun Lewis’ Nautical winning shot (Port Window) was chosen as best overall print, whilst Jason Dale’s 23 Across was picked as best DPI.

A big congratulations to Alun, Arthur and Jason!

Best Print 2015 – Alun Lewis
Best DPI 2015 – Jason Dale
DPI Photographer Of The Year – Alun Lewis
Print Photographer Of The Year – Arthur Mallett
Overall Photographer Of The Year – Jason Dale

Well done to everyone who took part in our 2015 DPI and print competitions.

Back in February we welcomed Mikaela Toczek back to LPS to judge our first open print competition of 2016. Mikaela gave us useful feedback through her critique and selected a group of six images which she said represented the best of the photographic genres presented on the night.

Separating her favourite six into a top six wasn’t an easy task, but in the end Mikaela decided to award two images first place.

1st Equal: Isolation – Jay Harris
1st Equal: Up on the Roof – Dave Rees
3rd : You need a Brush Lady A – Yvonne Pace
4th : Tradition in Motion – Yvonne Pace
5th : Merlin in the Gorse – Jason Dale
6th : Home by the Sea – Graham Harris

Congratulations to Jay and Dave for winning the first Open Print of the year – and a special well done to Yvonne who took two spots in the top six.

LPS would like to thank Mikaela for her judging and we look forward to seeing her back at the club in the near future. The next Open Print competition is in April.

The first themed DPI competition of the year caused a few interesting discussions. The theme was Street Level but as usual it was up to members’ to interpret the theme and enter images they felt appropriate to the subject. The entries varied from a dog with a fish through to a commute in a suit.

Graham Harries, offered a critique and led a discussion on the various entries but the top six was determined by scores from the LPS members. This resulted in Jennifer Williams with “Tea Time Rush” pipping Jason Dale’s shot of “The Oldest Street (Wells)” to top spot by just a point.

The top six was as follows.

1. Tea Time Rush – Jennifer Williams
2. The Oldest Street – Jason Dale
3. P129924 – Arthur Mallett
4. Taking A Break – Tony Collis
5. Laying Down On The Job – Graham Harries
6. Zurich Bahnhof Strasse – Arthur Mallett

Congratulations to all who made the top six and an extra special well done to Arthur for taking two of the top spots.

The next DPI competition is in April and the theme is “Under The Weather”

On 27th January 2016, Llanelli Photographic Society held it’s Annual General Meeting. A good turn out listened to the annual reports from the committee, as well as any other matters arising, before the process of electing a new one was undertaken.

Ray Rees stepped down as Chairman after two years in the role and John Ellis was elected in his place. John’s position as Treasurer was filled by Arthur Mallett. Yvonne Pace was elected as the new Secretary, replacing Jason Dale who had held the role for two years.

Tony Collis agreed to stay on as Internal Competitions Secretary, whilst Graham Harries stepped up to take the vacant External Competition Secretary’s position. Finally Andy Johns joined the committee as Minutes Secretary, replacing Steve Milton.

As ever LPS would like to thank all those who helped on the committee during 2015.

Current LPS Committee.

The final digital image competition of 2015 took place at Llanelli Photographic Society this week. The theme of “Boxed In” proved to be a tougher than expected subject but there were still some creative and thinking out of the box entries.

Graham Harries did the critique for this competition and gave us plenty to think about. However the top six was determined by members scoring the images and below are the chosen images.

1. Who’s There – Jason Dale
2. Think We’re Boxed In – Alun Lewis
2. Surprise – Alun Lewis
2. Boxed In – Tony Collis
5. Boxed In Pieces – Ed Shum
6. At Home With Mr Box – Jason Dale

Congratulations to Jason for taking first place, whilst it’s well done to Tony, Alun and Ed who also made the top six.

Next up for LPS is a Christmas Social evening and then that’s it for 2015. We’ll be back for a new season at the start of January and our 125th Anniversary Year.

Our final Open Print competition of 2015 took place on the 25th November. Gary Shinner of Trostre CC was our guest judge for the evening and did a fantastic job critiquing and commenting on the eclectic mix of images entered into this competition. The winning image was by Steve Milton and is one of a series called ‘The Unsociable Butterfly’. Congratulations to Steve.

The full top six as chosen by Gary was

1. Anti Social Butterfly – Steve Milton
2. Briton Ferry Docks – Arthur Mallet
3. Paulo Nutini – Graham Harries
4. The Things That Keep Us Awake – Jennifer Williams
5. Bright Eyes – Jason Dale
6. Twilight – Netley Davies

Well done to all and thanks again to Gary for visiting us at LPS and judging so well.

Our final competition of the year is in December and it’s a DPI themed comp – the theme is “Boxed In”.

It’s been a good year for battles as LPS finished in first place in the recent Amman Valley Three Way Battle (18th November). The competition featured the hosts and Carmarthen Camera Club with each club submitting 8 prints and 8 DPIs for judging.

The individual LPS scores were as follows

Prints

1. Dreaming – Joyce – 19
2. Long Eared Owl – Jason -17
3. Anciano Cubano – Arthur -18
4. Self Portrait – Steve – 19
5. Sun Soaked Clams – Jason – 18
6. SW1 – Graham – 20
7. Village Elder – Joyce – 17
8. Sunset – Jamie – 18

DPIs

1. A Light Shower – Steve – 15
2. House On The Moors – Graham – 18
3. I’ll Grant You Three Wishes – Alun – 17
4. Carreg Cennan – John -18
5. Mother – Netley – 17
6. Storm Is Coming – Steve Gladdy -17
7. The Newly Deads – Jennifer – 17
8. The Way We Were – Joyce – 17

Congratulations to Graham for picking up a 20!

In total LPS scored 282 points. Carmarthen scored 273 and Amman Valley totaled 263.

However these battles are all about visiting other clubs and enjoying photography. Our thanks to Amman Valley CC for inviting us and for their wonderful hospitality. We look forward to seeing you again in 2016.

This year’s 5 Panel Print competition was held on the 11th November. With only three entries submitted it was decided to do the judging in house. Before the competition Joyce and Arthur kindly gave an insight into creating panels and showed some of their work which had resulted in awards. Pete Francis gave a critique on the three panels.

1. Arthur’s seaside panel was a wave of images from a day at the beach

2. Jason’s panel was of a Long Eared Owl

3. Yvonne entered a panel which showed a story of blacksmithery titled ‘Tradition in Motion’. Congratulations to Yvonne!

After deliberations, the members of LPS voted for their winner and Yvonne came out a worthy winner.

Yvonne’s winning panel can be seen above.

This week we welcomed Nick Jenkins back to LPS as guest judge for our annual “Our Carmarthenshire” competition. This competition is for images taken within the county and is honour of Ivor Russell, who was branch chairman of Carmarthenshire “Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales”.

Members of Ivor’s family were our special guests for the evening plus we were joined by Cllr Martin Davies and Ms Ruth Thomas from Llanelli Rural Council.

Nick had a tough job on his hands as there were a variety of excellent images in this competition. Paxton Tower, Llanelli Beach, Machynys, Carmarthen Fans, Towy Valley, Swiss Valley and Betws all featured. However Nick selected “Autumnal Dryslwyn” by Jason Dale as his winner.

A massive thank you to Nick for visiting LPS and judging, thanks to our guests from the Rural Council for their support and as ever big thanks to the Russell Family for joining us on a special evening.

Our next competition is the 5 Panel Print (10th November) and that will be followed by the final print and DPI competitions of 2015.

Over the 9th and 10th October 2015 LPS held their annual exhibition at The St Elli Shopping Centre. Over 60 images from 23 members of the club were on show. As part of the show we asked members of the public to select their favourite plus we also ask a guest judge to give their verdict. This year’s judge was Peter Owen Jones.

Peter judged the prints and the results are as follows

1. Best Colour

I Wanna Go For Walkies – Alun Lewis

Highly Commended

Powering Up – Peter Francis
Seraphina – Steve Milton
Long Eared Owl – Jason Dale
Laura Flora – Jennifer Williams

2. Best Mono

End Of Mourning – Steve Milton

Highly Commended

Mumbles Lighthouse – Steve Gladdy
Alpine Giants – John Ellis

The Public Vote

As well as the judging we asked members of the public to vote for their favourite images – and these were the top three.

1. The Whiteford Lighthouse – Netley Davies
2. Penllergaer Waterfalls – Roy Watkins
3. Three Cliffs Sunset – Jason Dale

Thank you to everyone who voted. If you’d like to get in touch with us about about any of the images on show then please do so. You can catch more images from LPS on display at The Hub and at Flanagan’s.

A big thank you to Peter for judging, everyone who came by and visited us and to St Elli – as ever – for their hospitality.