Although a reduced entry due to Pyle and Porthcawl withdrawing at he last minute , new (to us) judge Leigh Woolford still had some good images to pass judgement on.
First round of images saw us take an early lead of 1 point thanks to a good Aberdare Park action shot;second round saw a change in fortunes as Aberdare and Bridgend both scored a 20 , Aberdare with a beautiful low light shot of the craters on Maui island Hawaii and Bridgend with a well taken beach shot capturing the joys of parenthood as a father drenched his daughter with a bucket of water; Our natural history image scored a respectful 17 as did Trostre’s low key portrait.
Third round , Aberdare led off with a very clever take on airial photography from ground up (highly digitised of course) 17 , Bridgend had a card game in Sorrento featuring 4 Italians , with another onlooker no doubt giving advice to his friend ? 18 , our Corus Sunrise was given a new title (perhaps ) by Leigh with a terrible pun …Dawn C(h)orus !, only 18 for this normally high scoring shot, 19 for Trostre’s surreal image called “Knife Man”, not sure of that one myself but i was not judge !
Half way scores were very well conceived with no one able to take offence ,Aberdare 53 Bridgend 54,Neath 52 and Trostre 51
Final sector was nail biting, we took early lead with a 20 for Jenna in the forest (well done Haydn),Trostre fired back with a 20 as well for their “Red Brolly”, Aberdare fought back with a unusual style of image again heavily digitalised almost chalk like effect on a “Mr Bass Man” 20 points, oh dear , looks as if they have it in the bag especially as we only pick up 15 for a “perfect pair”. All was not lost though as Aberdare’s “This is not a Pair”, 3 PEARS on a branch , failed to impress our judge , slightly soft focus gave them only 14, the lowest score of the night; we needed at least a 16 to draw, have no fear, “that look” by Julien made it easy with a 18 , time for me to breathe a sigh of relief, Trostre needed 18 to tie, again a low score of 15 for their “pointed” meant we were home and dry ,
a well deserved win for ourselves and a good start to the season .