Sunday 15th Feb Tenby CC hosted the 2015 Ace of Clubs at the Regency Hall in Saundersfoot. NDPS was well represented, with 7 members being present.
Armed with 40 images we were competing against 12 other clubs for this years trophy, a bit disappointing for the organisers as this competition normally attracts upward of 18 clubs.
Round 1 was a tester, this is where we have pre-selected 8 images and see how the judges are scoring, their likes and dislikes. At the end of round 1 we were in 3rd place.
Round 2 – we had to select 8 more images from the 32 unused ‘bank’ and try our luck with these, no more than 2/photographer or 2 Nature images, end of round 2 and we had dropped to 7th place.
Due to the small amount of clubs there was no Plate Round this year so all 13 clubs were in the final. This was the real test of our members images. We had to select 20 images, no more than 10 previously used, no more than 4/photographer and no more than 4 Nature images. The top 2 clubs would go on to represent the WPF at Warwick, against the best clubs in the UK. Fortunately (whew) at the end of the Final we finished in 3rd place. Our best finish ever in the Ace of Clubs. I have put a printable PDF file of all the members images and scores here. Obviously all the image we took couldn’t be used and adjusting our selection to suit the 3 judges is hard. Any images selected will get 3 points toward Photographer of the Year regardless of them being used in the Competition.
Final Scores were – Inn Focus 246, Gwynfa 232, Neath 229 so we were 17 points behind the winners, as you can see we have a lot of work to do with our images. At the end the Judges couldn’t understand how David Edward’s “Snow Leopard†had only scored 13, it seemed every judge had tried to score it with a 5 which should have given it 15 – that score and Neath’s total have been adjusted – still left Neath a few points short of going to Warwick mind you – but nice for David to know that it was an honest mistake and not a down mark.