In October 2019, I moved back to Leeds, England from Pattaya, Thailand for a period of 6 months, mainly to prepare for my wedding and visit Dad. After I was here for a few weeks I started feeling a little restless and decided to start joining my Dad on his regular Thursday evening visit to Pudsey Camera Camera Club meetings. My Dad has been a member for about 3 years – he started joining shortly after my Mum passed away as something to occupy his himself with.
Although, I have been a photography must of my life I have never been one for Camera Clubs as such, preferring to work on my own, part of my quiet nature, that I talk about in the right up for my 100 Strangers Project. LIving as an expat pished me to join a couple of photography group while in Hong Kong to grow my social circle and I did join the Cathay Camera Club in Hong Kong for a few years, although as they are the only English speaking Camera Club in Hong Kong it doesn’t expose you to photography outside of the membership save for a few visiting professional photographer who come to judge the monthly competitions.
Dragging my wife to be along with me for moral support, off we went not know what to expect from a UK Camera club. The group are friendly with a genuine love for photography and very different from other group I have been in before in a good way.
I the run up to Christmas I found my appetite had been wetted sufficiently and i was wishing I had started attending earlier as I would have liked to have entered the competition. I spoke to the secretary and found that for 50% membership fees join for the 2nd half of the year and enter the remaining rounds. Unfortunately, there were only 1 round of each remaining. Nevertheless, entering these would give me an idea of what judges are looking for.
late last monthI entered 5 images for my first competition night ( they are in the galley above) 3 monochrome and 2 colour (i had intended to enter 3 but one I wasn’t happy with one colour print and i did have time to re do it). I was very pleasantly surprised by my scores on the evening scoring maximum 20 /20 for 2 images (Yuk Lo & With Brazil Beach Babes) and the others The Light of the Night, Looking In and Metres from the line Scoring 17, 19 & 19 respectively.
Good start looking forward to the next competition evening.
