TENBY & District Camera Club recently held their annual battle with eight invited Welsh clubs competing for the Battle Trophy.

It was a social and competitive evening on September 26 with a buffet and raffle generously provided by club members. 

Each club provided 10 digital images to be ably critiqued by the popular judge, Roy Thomas. It was a fine line between the top three clubs with the standard being of an exceptional quality.

Just one point separated the top three clubs, with Tenby winning with 188/200 points and Alan Nedd and Cardigan in joint second with 187/200 points. 

Three members of Tenby Camera Club, Gill Mackay, Charlie Kidd and Cheryl Hewitt, were awarded full marks for their images. 

Best Overall Image, chosen by Roy, was Charlie Kidd’s image ‘Griffon Vulture Magpie Confrontation’. 

Sincere thanks were given to Roy Thomas and to everyone who attended and helped make it a very enjoyable evening. 

On October 3, the club held its first competition of the new season with the 1st Open. Entries were encouragingly high with 18 prints and 52 digital images put forward from 26 club members. 

Judge Mike Clatworthy critiqued and scored an excellent range high standard images at the well-attended event.

In the Prints: Gold medal was won by Gary Mayhew with ‘Coming to say hello’; Silver went to Jan Sullivan with ‘Open Wide’ and Bronze to Ali Rees with ‘Sedge warbler with Food’. 

Four Highly Commended awards were given to Rob Cox, Jan Sullivan, and Charlie Kidd for two images.

In the Digitals : Gold medal was won by Liz Wallis with ‘Avocet Taking Off’; Silver medal went to Alistair Mackay with ‘Merlin 2’; Bronze medal was won by Alan Brown for ‘Double Helix’. 

Nine digital images were given a Highly Commended award and they were by Paul Richards (two images), Jo Wakeman, Ali Rees, Jayne Crocker, Charlie Kidd, Jan Sullivan and Gill Mackay (two images). 

Thanks go to everyone who entered and to Mike Clatworthy for judging so many images.

On October 10, Tenby Camera Club had the pleasure of welcoming as a speaker Alun Crockford, a Tenby-born-and-bred professional photographer. He started his career with the Tenby Observer and then went on to become a professional photographer after graduation.

One of Alun’s ambitions was to hold an exhibition in Tenby and his presentation was to show how he achieved his goal. 

Alun wanted to photograph local people who had contributed to Tenby’s rich and diversified culture. And so it began, sponsored by the Arts Council of Wales & funded by the National Lottery it was held in Tenby Museum & Art Gallery. 

He was soon photographing people in their comfort zone environment. Alun used specialist equipment which produced portraits with even light. The process took a year to complete . 

Alun demonstrated the use of his specialist camera gear and displayed stunning prints. 

Alun also showed members a selection of photographs rescued from a skip when well-known Tenby photographer Graham Hughes’ studio closed down . A trip down memory lane for many members with Alun preserving Tenby’s rich heritage for future generations. 

Warm thanks were given to Alun for such an interesting presentation.