Once more we donned our smart casual clothes and gathered for the club’s gala awards night, again at Fernhill House Hotel in Clonakilty. A fine evening was had by all, some had it finer than others.
The hotel put on a tasty meal, the staff looked after us well. Thankyou.
To the crux of the evening. The awards. In addition to our Photographer of the Year (POTY) award the club also presents awards for other achievements, both photographic and personal.
This year we were delighted to award Simon with The Club Person of the Year award. Simon’s contribution throughout the year has been most welcome. His wilingness to share his expertise and his encouragement of all members to extend and challenge themselves was and is exceptional. Thanks Simon.
The Most Enthusiastic member was an easy choice. If you go back over the posts on this website for the past year you will see John’s photos appearing frequently. John represented the club at many functions and participated in nearly all the optional activities and excursions. Fantastic. John could not attend so will be given this award at a club meeting.
Our Most Improved photographer was also unable to attend but Kit was a deserving winner. From quiet beginnings, Kit is developing into a fine photographer and is even selling her work at our exhibition! Congratulations.
The last award outside of POTY was the Liz Doyle Memorial Trophy which was presented to the club by Liz’s husband, Andrew, in her memory. The award is presented to the member who has shown an innovative approach to photography or the club’s development. Ciara, the recipient of the award this year was responsible for setting up and running our Twitter account @cloncameraclub which is a great resource and a source of contact with the outside world. Ciara has also shown a great willingness to try different techniques in her photography be it multiple exposure or long exposure portraits and microscope photography. Or objects in or under the water, her marine bioogy background coming to the fore there!
So to POTY. This year members were asked to submit 3 photos based on the first sentence of a book of their choice. We had a diverse range of entries and alternative approaches. Some members chose to take photographs that were a literal interpretation of the sentence, others took a narrative approach and then some members took photos that were representative of the sentence’s mood or overall meaning.
Thanks to our 3 judges, Anne, Charlie and the staff at Clonakilty library for their considered efforts and the feedback to each entrant.
The results were as follows, in joint second place were Simon, John and Noreen B. John and Noreen also sharing the Grade 2 winner’s trophy. Congratulations to the three of you. The winner of POTY 2017 by a significant margin was Patricia! Fantastic and a terrific achievement.
Patricia’s photos can be seen below. The book Patricia chose was Indulgence in Death by J.D.Robb and the sentence…
The road was a killer, hardly wider than a decent stream of spit and snaking like a cobra between giant bushes loaded with flowers that resembled drops of blood.
