Competitions
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RIGHT The judges selecting the winners for the SRGB Members’ Award. BELOW Man in the Mirror, Brian Beaney – Gold Award Winner, Step Out The Box
be enough prints to continue the judging process. We worked hard to get it to run smoothly and the most rewarding comment after the judging was from the judges expressing that the day was well run. Then the hard work began, the scanning for the catalogue, organising the exhibition and sorting the returns for postage and other things. The exhibition is the next stage; thanks to Dobbies for the use of their room and South Liverpool PS for the stands: we couldn’t do the exhibition without the cooperation of friends, other camera clubs and organisations. To receive nearly 800 entries in the first year is very impressive… We were very pleased with the response to the first exhibition and it exceeded the number expected. This year we received over 1000 prints. We aimed to make it a more personal exhibition, trying to cater for people’s needs. A new exhibition creates new goals for people and new awards to strive for. What’s the general standard of entries been like? There is a range of work, dependent on the entrant’s level of photography. Many of the images have been accepted in BPE exhibitions before, therefore collecting points for the entrant. The standard of photography has been very high in all the sections, no matter what their size. The categories are different fromtheusual colour andmonochrome, etc, why is that? The themes were chosen to reflect everyone’s
photography, to compete with a subject rather than a general type of photography. Many subjects are pigeonholed by rules. We wanted to give people more freedom to try new things and follow their genre of photography and stretch the imagination. We wanted to give everyone a chance to enter. All the sections can be edited, to a greater or lesser degree; it’s a fact of the digital world. We all take thousands of photographs every year but often they don’t fit in with conventional subjects. Here you can have a chance at exhibiting those images. We thought that we’d covered every type of photography in the themes but occasionally there’s one that still doesn’t fit, and we are working on those. The Step Out The Box category allows people to have fun with their photography. We wanted people to make some choices, allowing them to enter their prints in any section; allowing pay per print after the first four images. The SRGB Photo Group is a small group, determined by the size of the room we meet in. Allowing each member to give an individual award to their favourite image, the SRGB key ring, gives a personal touch from the members themselves. We give so much time and effort to make the exhibition work, we all see our favourite prints along the way and this is a way to celebrate those prints from the non-awarded images. It’s a little individual thank you for entering a great image. Having a members’ award is a great idea to get the whole club involved…
Which categories are most popular and what would you like to seemore of? Humanity and the Environment. These two subjects cover the greater photographic interest: wherewe live and who we are. As a creative worker I’d personally love to see more people have a go at the Step Out The Box theme. Setting up the group and having the personal goal of helping people to move forward with their photography though the exhibition process. Seeing everyone work together to achieve the first exhibition and learning so much more about the people while we worked towards a common goal. The exhibition is a great achievement for everyone involved. Seeing people support the exhibition and support us by coming to the Open Day from Scotland, London and various other locations in the UK was a highlight too. I think that seeing people enjoying the exhibition and chatting about the world of photography is always interesting. This year’s exhibition entries have blown us away; we have a big increase in prints on last year’s and the overall quality is excellent. What are your ambitions for the exhibition? Simply to celebrate prints and develop the exhibition to encourage and to explore photography in all its forms, and to help each entrant achieve their personal goals. What have been some of your personal highlights of the exhibition?
Seeing people enjoying the exhibition and chatting about photography is always interesting
© Brian Beaney
π To find out more about the exhibition, go to www.srgbphotogroup.co.uk.
See theexhibition
With entries in and already judged for the Second Print Celebration 2014, you can see the final exhibition at Dobbies Garden Centre in Southport from Saturday 6 until Saturday 20 September 2014. An awards ceremony will also take place on the exhibition’s first day to celebrate those who were successful. Keep an eye on the SRGB Photo Group’s website if you’re interested in entering next year’s competition; all details will be available there.
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Issue 11 | Photography News
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