CCC summer competition

There was a time when CCC, viz Cambridgeshire County Council, dominated my life. Not any more but another CCC, the Cambridge Camera Club, www.cambcc.org.uk , has crept in. I’ve paid my dues and I’m now a member and look forward to being challenged to improve my photography.

It runs a summer competition and members are challenged to submit five photographs taken over a weekend. The five photographs should relate to five subjects and all I can say is it’s not easy! You want the photo to be technically good of course but it’s also got to say something and not be a simple cliché driven shot. I’ve had a go but I’ve not submitted my five because I think some of my five are pretty weak and anyway I don’t know what the standard is likely to be.

The five subjects along with my five photographs are set out below.

1 Beauty in Nature: there are ‘professional’ nature photographers and I’m not one of them. I’m not in the habit of photographing birds or butterflies although I can frame a decent flower shot. I confess to adding the raindrops myself

2 Speed: this would seems to appeal to the sports photographer and I’m not one of those either. So I decided to try a little experimental photography and capture the speed of the cyclists on the Busway. It seems to work.

3 Reflection: if ever a subject seemed designed to attract hackneyed cliches it would be this one. I played around a bit with mirrors before coming across this one almost by accident. It’s a selection of the 12 international lagers I’ve just had delivered by Beerhunter (www.beerhunter.co.uk).

4 Contrasts: I struggled with this one because it’s so very easy to think black and white and to contrive a still life from objects at home. My photo here just about scrapes in because of the contrast between the size and confidence of the father along side his very careful and rather small daughter.

5 From my shopping basket: I confess to running out of ideas and then Juni came home from Tesco and I decided ‘no messing around I’ll just photograph this’. No doubt others have something more exotic.

And that’s it. The judges will score the entries out of 20 and I can’t see my set here getting into the teens. I’ll report back when the winners are announced.