Happy faces all around for the members of South Kildare Photography Club. Having entered the Midlands Photographic Group (MPG) Challenge Shield photography competition for several years and coming close to winning several times, we had some reason to hope we could do well this year.

Seven photography clubs from across the midlands took part in the competition which was held in the Tullamore Court Hotel on Sunday 10th Nov. with a total of 14 panels made up of 112 individual images being judged.

In preparation for our entry, SKPC established a sub-committee early in 2019 who took it upon themselves to look after the collection and selection of images as well as the assembly of the two final panels, black & white and colour. Sheila Kavanagh, Kenneth Kelleher, Kevin Lumsden and Kieran Commins got to work in spring to look for suitable images to build our panels. A few club-internal competitions and image challenges on our Facebook group were held throughout the year to increase the pool of suitable images even further. Some of the pictures selected were gathered from the member galleries on our website.

SKPC Colour Panel

Credits

Top row left to right:

“Cuban Lady”: John Leahy

“I’m Freezing”: Billy Nicholls (Panel Winner and POTY)

“Pair of Gannets”: Kevin Lumsden

“Girl holding flower petals”: Pamela Donoghue

Bottom row left to right:

“Curragh in the Morning” David J. Ennis

“Moravian Landscape” Kieran Commins

“Glendalough in the Morning” Hilda C. Smith

“Misty Morning” Sean Dunne

SKPC Black & White Panel

Credits

Top row (Left to right)

“Dancers”: Karin Weinzierl

“Girl Portrait”: Aidan Molyneux

“Woman with Wings”: Simon Martin

“Singer”: Steve Butler

Bottom Row (Left to right)

“Gentleman Portrait”: Stephen Dingley

“Men Walking in Mist”: Vincent Brady (Panel Winner)

“Portrait of a Lady”: Kenneth Kelleher

“Lady with the Hat”: Sheila Kavanagh

The scoring was carried out by two judges who could assign a maximum of 180 points to each image (i.e. 60 points each, for “Impact”, “Technical ability” and “Composition”), totaling a maximum of 2880 points across the two panels. In addition, they could allocate up to 200 points for panel layout & presentation (i.e.100 points for each panel). SKPC scored 2473 collective points across the 16 images (154.56 average) and a further 189 points for panel layout, totaling 2662 points out of a possible 3080.

SKPC won the overall title of Midlands Photography Group (MPG) Club of the Year.

SKPC member Billy Nicholls was awarded “Best Color – image” and Vincent Brady was awarded “Best B/W – image” in the SKPC panels. Billy’s image “I’m Freezing” scored an outstanding 172 points out of a possible 180 – winning him the overall title of:

“Photographer of the Year 2019” As well as “Best Colour - Image” on the SKPC colour panel.

“I’m Freezing”

by Billy Nicholls, Winner of MPG Colour Panel and MPG Photographer of the Year 2019

Probably the best comments made about this image by one of the judges during their CC were:

“You cannot look at this image and not smile.” & “How could you resist the expression on the models face”

Even though not all club members were in Tullamore last weekend, there were quite a few happy faces…

Standing left to right: Terry Dignan, Kenneth Kelleher, Sheila Kavanagh, John Leahy, Erik Schidlack, Karin Weinzierl, Kevin Lumsden, David J. Ennis Sitting left to right: Allan Nielsen, Billy Nicholls, Tom Fox, Kieran Commins, Aidan Molyneux

Photo credits: Peadar Doogue