Shoalhaven Photographic Club Inc

2nd AnnualScribbly Gums Photo Competition

Report by Matt Kaarma

Saturday 12th July was the second annual club event at Randall Sinnamon’s studio near Huskisson, and about 22 artists in total were present. Once again Randall and Vanessa opened their home and their hearts to club members, setting long tables and providing supplementary food and wine for the long lunch that followed the morning’s creative photographic shoot.

No part of their home or 3 acre property was ‘off limits’, and the huge Alice in Wonderland location was sensory overload even for the most hardened and seasoned photographers. As last year’s winner of the inaugural meet I had to reluctantly return the beautiful ‘Scribbly Gum’ trophy which bore a small brass plaque bearing my name so that it could be prepared for the next winner.

Randall, as always, a generous and entertaining host challenged us with a ‘name the artist’ quiz which was won by Sue Williamson who correctly named all of the artists on the sheet. She also won the lucky chair prize and found all 3 mystery subjects in her walk around the property. That’s 3 bottles of wine for Sue. Well done Sue!

Once again Michael from ‘Shoalhaven Picture Framing and Gallery’ in Huskisson has generously offered a $200 picture frame as first prize for the best picture taken on the day which would be selected at the next club meet print assessment by Randall.

All in all it was a great day out; the weather was perfect, the company congenial and the food excellent and the photography challenging. What else could a photographer ask for?

And the results?

Members eagerly awaited the judging of their images last Wednesday night. Randall brought along Richard, a friend, photographer fellow resident at the studio . There were some 35 images needing to be assessed across three categories of colour (any subject), nature (colour or mono) and monochrome (any subject).

The quality of images on display was wonderful, which is not surprising given the talent of our members. What was surprising and the thing that struck me most was the variety of images on display. No two were the same and,,what's more, no images were like any from the previous photo comp held last year. It reinforces the notion that no two photographers see the world in the same way.

There was lots of fun and laughs as youngest memberJack, complete with white gloves, handed the judges each image in turn. Expertly done, thank you Jack. Lots of chin scratching and funny anecdotes along the way before Randall and Richard selected their three winners, one in each section and one of those overall best.

In the colour section Robyn Larson-Shelton got the nod for her tree trunk with artistically and abstractly rendered colours, Lloyd Anderson for his close up shot of a pig's ear sculpture, complete with mossy growth and Joseph Horvath for his candid monochrome image of Matt, Denis and Richard all engrossed in whatever they were doing at the time. Lloyd's image was chose the overall winner.

Robyn and Joseph were each given a $50 OfficeWorks voucher as prizes and Lloyd received a $150 voucher from Michael Synott's Jervis Bay framing shop plus the coveted perpetual trophy.