The Oldham PS AGM was held on Thursday 26th September 2024, when Gill Brett gave a report of her successful year as President, before installing Andrea Wilson as the new President, who then conducted the rest of the meeting’s business: voting in of officers, council members and dealing with motions. The Secretary, Competition Secretary and leaders of three Special Interest Groups also gave reports.
Some highlights from the year
Membership has increased from 45 to 48 over the year. Some of our new members were complete beginners and other experienced photographers and award winners…all levels of experience are welcome at OPS.The programme had featured 12 speakers, covering a wide range of subjects from Wildlife, Street Photography and CosPlay to Night Photography, Panels and Triptych, HDR, Photoshop and even the merits and use of AI. There had been four practical evenings and a trip to Manchester for Street Photography, a number of evenings for members to show their work non-competitively and 12 evenings of internal competitions and inter-club battles.
In our battles with local clubs, Oldham PS did extremely well, winning them all. We came 2nd in the multi-club Ted Colman Cup. We went on to finish 5th at the National (PAGB) Inter-Club PDI Championship at Warwick, which gives us pre-qualification to enter the event next year and came 37th in the FIAP World Cup.
Last but by no means least, we had 4 weeks of Summer School in August. This year the sessions covered post processing which included Lightroom and PhotoShop techniques. Run by some of our expert and knowledgeable members, they were well attended and enjoyed by all.
Celebration Cake
Following the AGM, refreshments were served, with the addition of a surprise celebration cake, featuring our successful final round images from the Inter-Club PDI Championship at Warwick, which had been printed as an edible picture to layer on top of the cake. This was cut jointly by our new and retiring presidents, and was greatly admired and enjoyed before the presentation of awards from the competitions took place.
Annual Competition Results and Presentation of Awards
The second part of the evening was the presentation of the awards from the year’s competitions, including the Quarterlies, the John Widdall Trophy and the Annual Competitions.
The Annual Competitions are divided into print and projected media and subdivided by category. We had an excellent entry this year, comprising 123 projected images and 52 prints. The maximum entry per member had been reduced this year to account for the growth in numbers of members in the society. The judging was done over two nights and very ably by both Martin Patten, who joined us via a zoom link from Watford, for projected images, and Steve Proctor from Clitheroe for the remaining PDIs and prints, the following week. The entry had been split in equal sized sets between the two judges.
We can’t show all the entries or even all the awarded works here, but we’ve shown below just a sample of them, with one image from each of the award winners included.
The Best Annual Competition Print was awarded to “Girl in Red”, a beautiful photograph of Brianna, by Eddie Leach.
The Best Annual Competition PDI was awarded to “The Fig Bowl” by Gary Waidson, one of his beautifully lit traditionally styled still life images.
Below is a gallery of images, showing one image each from every other entrant who received an award, be it a commended certificate or a trophy.
Other Awards
Eddie Leach won both the Clerk Maxwell Cup for the highest aggregate score in Quartlerly PDIs and the Jubilee Sovereign for the highest aggregate score in Quarterly Prints. Images from the quarterlies can be seen in other posts by going to the home page and searching for “quarterly” – there are too many to show in this post.
The John Widdall Trophy was won by Christine Widdall, and has previously been reported at this link. This was collected on the night by Mike Lawrence.
Members Receiving their Awards
Eddie Leach stepped in to take the photographs of members receiving their trophies and certificates. Mike Lawrence had made his usual slick projected AV show to accompany the presentation. Each member came up to receive their award to appropriately chosen music, some even dancing their way to the front! The show on the big screen presented the images for which the members had won their awards, which is always a treat in itself. Mike always puts in a huge amount of time and effort, not only in running the competitions but also in producing the certificates and the AV show.
Preview of the 2024 Online Exhibition.
Lastly we had a preview showing of the 2024 online exhibition, also put together by Mike, which can be seen in full at this link. This is a curated exhibition and consists of sets of images chosen by the members themselves and not connected to the competitions. Do have a look – it is well worth seeing!
Written by your roving reporter and webmaster, Christine Widdall, with additional information supplied by Gill Brett, Mike Lawrence and pictures of the presentation provided by Eddie Leach. Copyright of all images remains with the photographer.