PAGB GB Cup 2022

Each January the PAGB (Photographic Alliance of Great Britain) run their GB Cup (PDI) and GB Trophy (Print) Competitions. Any club that is a member of one of the PAGB’s Federations may enter without pre-qualification, so most years we have “had a go”.

Prior to the pandemic, there were separate competitions, one for “small clubs” and one for those clubs that could field a strong entry from a larger number of members. Historically, we entered the small clubs division of the GB Cup Open (which required 10 images in total) often coming within the top 3 and occasionally even winning. But most of the top UK Clubs didn’t play in the small clubs division. The PAGB have recently stopped this separation and all clubs now enter into the same sections. Consequently we are playing against the “Big Boys”, so we are up against some of the best clubs in the UK, some of which have even won the FIAP World Cup for Clubs in the past (note – we should enter the World Cup this year!).

How the GB Cup works

The GB Cup is divided into two categories, Nature and Open, and we can enter 4 to 24 images in each, with not more than 4 images per section per photographer. Whilst some of our members don’t consider themselves to be competitive, they usually agree that we can use their work. Mike and Christine chose our entry and we decided to enter the full 24 in each section.

Images are marked in “salon style” with three judges pushing buttons to register a score between 2 and 5 for each image. A scoring rate of 400-700 per hour is not unreasonable. The PAGB then takes our best 12 scores to give us a club placing in each section (Open and Nature). There are also some individual awards to be had, though we missed out this time.

The competition was judged by three PAGB recognised judges which, this year, included the President of the Royal Photographic Society:-

Rosemary Wilman HonFRPS APAGB AFIAP ABPE
Caroline Colegate ARPS APAGB
Chris Palmer FRPS DPAGB APAGB EFIAP

Our Results

We have come =10th in the Open Section and =4th in Nature, only 2 marks behind the joint winners in nature. It’s a very fine performance and something to spur us on in the future.

Mike has now emailed out the full results to all members, but below are galleries of all the images that we entered. If members want their images eligible for selection in future, make sure you upload them to the General Competitions Bank on the society’s Portal (you must log in)…keep this section up to date with your latest versions please.

All work scoring 12 or more (out of 15) were selected for the exhibition. The smaller two galleries show our accepted work. The two larger galleries show our remaining entries.