Photography News 05

Competitions

9

WiganwinsWorldCup Wigan 10 stands atop the world having won the FIAP Club’sWorld Cup for the third time. Not only that but British clubs occupied the top three positions INTERVIEW

Wigan 10 must be totally delighted with its success in the 8th FIAP Club’s World Cup. That’s two years running and your thirdwin in total, plus you have never been out of the first six. What do you attribute this amazing success rate to? That’s a hard one! We are hard taskmasters. Attention to detail is crucial. With our pictures we aim for immediate impact. Most competitions and salons, the World Cup included, are judged by a panel of judges. They only have a few seconds to respond to an image so it’s vital for us to choose images that will leap off the screen. Please can you outline how the club chose the images that were put forward? Is there an internal judging beforehand and lots of arguing or is it pretty calm and straightforward? The strength of Wigan 10 is that we all choose the pictures we use for competitions. We start with a bank of perhaps 60 top images from everyone. By a series of votes we whittle this down round by round until we arrive at the right number. The first few images are easy to pick and track records of pictures are taken into consideration. At the end we look at what we have chosen and hopefully the cream has risen to the top. This year, British clubs occupied the first three places, the first time one country has so dominated the World Cup. UK club photography is clearly in a good place right now. Is that an accurate reflection of the UK’s skill level? When you look at many of the international salons that are run throughout the year, UK photographers

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Sparrows by Roy Rimmer; Lost by KT Allen; You don’t say by Kathryn Scorah; Osprey with fish by Austin Thomas; Four-spotted chaser by Chris Hague; The three graces by Joan Blease; Dancing in the street by Christine Widdall. RIGHT FROM TOP Peter Fox by Maurice Jones; Willet dispute by Geoff Walsh.

Interview by Will Cheung

Many people will have heard about Wigan 10 but for those readers who haven’t can you briefly tell us what Wigan 10 is all about? Wigan 10 is not like other clubs. Our numbers, currently around the 14 mark, reflect the limited space we have available. We don’t have lecturers nor do we compete against each other. The principal aim of the club is to encourage members in their photography and to enter national and international salons. We each bring pictures along to be appraised by others. There is no limit to the number of times a picture can be brought back having been improved by the author. Nor is there any pressure from the club to constantly produce ‘top drawer’ images. The strength of the group lies in its diversity. Most photographic genres are covered but having said that there is a good deal of overlap. Our members are always eager to improve their skills in other areas. We all help each other. Anyone who wishes to join us can contact us via our website. Many readers will not be familiar with the competition. Can you give us some idea of how the FIAP Club’s World Cup is organised and how many clubs you beat? The FIAP World Cup is open to all photographic clubs in the world. This year we beat 136 other clubs to become world champions. Twenty images from each club are submitted on CD together with the entry fee. The judging days are closed sessions.

are well represented amongst the award winners. That must be reflected in competitions like theWorld Cup. However, you never know what the judges will be looking for so it’s never a foregone conclusion. Who were the judges in this year’s FIAP World Club Cup? This year’s judges were Emile Wanderscheid, EFIAP, HonEFIAP, Luxembourg; Branislav Brkic, MFIAP, EFIAP/s, ESFIAP, Serbia: and Dave Coates, EFIAP/G, Great Britain. What’s the aim for next year? A hat-trick of victories, I suppose. Do you think that’s possible? Wigan 10 has entered the World Cup every year since its inception. Each year we have to find a fresh set of images. Clubs who maybe haven’t been in it before have many more images from which to choose. So any one of them could win it.

FIAP

FIAP is the Federation Internationale de L’Art Photographique. π To find out more about its work and the World Cup, go to www.fiap.net.

π To find out more, go to wigan10.com.

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Issue 5 | Photography News

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