Seaford Photographic Society

The annual KCPA Exhibition is a regional competition open to all members of the 50 or so clubs in the Kent County Photographic Association, and several SPS members entered this year. This is a great opportunity to see how our work compares to some of the best amateur photography in the wider region. Well done to Anna-Marie Armstrong, Colin Mitchell, Chris Dawson, Simon Watkins and Simon Rigby, all of whom had some of their images accepted for the exhibition, held at Creek Creative gallery in Faversham during the first two weeks of May. While we are on the subject of congratulations, the club is delighted to announce that our Chairman Colin Mitchell has been successful in gaining his ‘CPAGB’ Award for Photographic Merit.

April featured the final set-subject competitions of the season, starting with Street and Tabletop, which were judged by Steven Galvin via Zoom. In the Street Photography category Anna-Marie Armstrong took first place with her striking monochrome Expecting Trouble (photo left). The Tabletop competition gave everybody

the opportunity to get creative and have a go at indoor still life images, experimenting with lighting, reflections, backgrounds and textures. Colin Mitchell’s Rose (photo right) was the clear winner.

The following week we had the popular annual Landscape competition. This was judged by regular visitor to the club Cherry Larcombe EFIAP ARPS DPAGB BPE5*. Following on from his two 2nd places last week, Kevin Smoker deservedly took the win this time with his excellent monochrome Storm Dudley at Newhaven (photo above), proving yet again that you don’t need to travel to exotic locations to get stunning photos.

Last but not least this month was the competition for the Photo of the Year, judged on Zoom by Harry Kingman all the way from North Yorkshire. This is where we submit our favourite two images that have already been entered into competitions this season. Deciding on an overall winner in a competition like this is an almost impossible task and Harry made the point that all those that made the top three, or were commended or highly commended, were of such a high standard that there was little to choose between them. At the end of the day though it was Thelma Long’s portrait In Blue (photo left) that got the winner’s trophy, with Anna-Marie Armstrong’s The Painted Lady (photo below) second.

At the end of the month we welcomed back Steven Galvin to give us a talk about advanced editing techniques such as cloning, layers, motion blurring, montages, HDR, focus stacking, replacing skies etc. We also got into debates about the ethics and history of such techniques, and just how far one should go.

Our first photography exhibition since 2019 will be held this summer, in late July and early August, and full details will be in next month’s issue.

You can see all you need to know about the club on our website www.seafordps.org, including the latest news, programme of events, successful images, competition results, and how you can join us.