Breaking Dawn and Four Others

Breaking Dawn and Four Others

Last night was the annual ADAPS "Joe Jackson Straight Out of Camera Landscape Competition" which we held via Zoom this year. First of all let me introduce you to the late Joe Jackson, seen here with his wife Margaret during a photo shoot in a local church. It just so happened that Joe and Margaret had been married there, so it was a precious moment for them


Joe was wishing for the days when all the skill in photography went into the making of the image in the camera, at least in the case of the colour slide where WYSIWYG. So he and I sat down and devised a competition that followed this principle and it was not easy. There is so much goes on with a digital image that trying to mimic using a film in a camera could rapidly become bogged down with rules. So, JPEG capture only. We can choose what picture style is used, so Bold, Natural, landscape, whatever, simply echoing the ability to choose what sort of film we put in our cameras. Everything else, such as traditional filters, could be put in front of the lens, but nothing after that shutter button is pressed. That's the spirit of the competition and we always get a fantastic aray of images entered and even in lockdown this was no exception.

What it achieves is that it makes us think about composition, exposure, etc., at the point we shoot the image. Get it right in camera is the objective, and as an exercise it makes a lot of sense as well as being a challenging competition. My entry follows, along with the marks (out of 20) that were awarded.

Autumn, 16 points



Breaking Dawn, 17 points



Elgol, 19 points



Sky Solitude, 19 points



Winter Ice, 17 points



All the entries will be in a gallery on the ADAPS website in a few days time, so anyone interested can see all 55 images there. Meanwhile, perhaps the form of the competiton might be worth a try in other clubs?