The annual Highland-wide photographic competition “The Highland Challenge” was hosted recently by the Cromarty Camera Club. The competition attracted entries from eight Highland Camera Clubs and saw the top ten images from each club pitted against each other in four categories (Colour and Monochrome in both Print and Digital Projected format).
Nairn submitted ten strong images and, as the afternoon progressed, were quietly optimistic of bettering last year’s seventh position. Two monochrome images, one by Ian Maxwell and the other by Iain Sutherland plus a colour image by Seamus McArdlescored 19/20 and contributed to Nairn’s highest ever placing, third, in the competition. This was all the more pleasing when the closeness of the top three clubs was revealed – Nairn were one point behind Inverness Camera Club who themselves were one point behind the winners, Thurso Camera Club.
The announcement of the winner in each category saw Nairn’s Ian Maxwell win
top spot for his monochrome printed image “A Stitch in Time”.
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| A Stitch in time by Ian Maxwell |
As last year, when the day-long gathering was hosted in the Community Centre by Nairn Camera Club, there were about 140 photographers in attendance. The main speaker and the Judge for the competition was Ian Cameron – a highly respected professional landscape photographer who is based in Forres. He has been a big influence on Nairn members over the last few years by hosting workshops “in the field” and by giving excellent, detailed and positive feedback on the images he has judged in club competitions.
Nairn’s entries were selected from top scoring images in the Club’s regular competitions but were subjected to minor changes such as cropping before submission. Rules of the competition mean that any club member may contribute a maximum of two images to the ten submitted by their club. This has the effect of widening the number of entrants – and in this year’s competition Nairn was represented by 7 photographers.
The Camera Club has been encouraging the use of prints rather than digital images for competitions and managed to submit nine of its ten entries as prints (generally A3 size). This may have helped contribute to their general improvement on previous years.
To view full size versions of A Stitch in Time - by Ian Maxwell (Best Monochrome Print 2015, Corinthian Order - by Iain Sutherland - monochrome print and Faces in a Crowd - Seamus McArdle - colour print, click the read more tab below and then click on the individual images to expand them.
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| A Stitch in Time - by Ian Maxwell |
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| Corinthian Order - by Iain Sutherland |
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| Faces in a Crowd - Seamus McArdle |
I was taught to say cheese when someone took my photo
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