So a huge thank you to all of the excellent entries this year, I have to say it was a tough decision picking a winner.
With shots from up and down the country it's excellent to see student caving clubs having so much fun underground, some serious and some playful.
It made sense this year to split the main award into two categories:
- Best Technical Photo ("overall winner")
- Best Fun Photo ("runner up")
Along with the usual:
For photographs taken during the training session on the Saturday.
Congratulations to Ben Richards from Imperial CCC for your excellent capture of Gaping Gill, the competition brief was "Water" and what a fantastic representation of the drama and beauty of water in an underground space.
The depth and layering in the water is superb, resembling white horses breaking on large ocean waves. A deserving winner.
The best fun shot for me was from my own student club (controversial perhaps, but I was nowhere near when it was taken!).
Conor McGurk/Dave Cattell from SUSS portray a fin(e) parody of the "sharking" that occurs during freshers' season at the start of the academic year, and what better place to do it than one of Castleton's finest open water swimming venues.
Enjoy the drybags guys, I hope you make good use of them for caving trips and more photography, remember to share it on the forum!
The training session on Saturday was split into two groups, one led by myself and one by Brendan Hall, so we each put one photo forward.
Finlay McKinnon's (Plymouth) reflection photograph (the first of the series of three) was chosen be me for the creative insight and passion with which it was taken; I've never seen someone so enthusiastic about a muddy puddle! The layered composition is highly effective, with the blurred pebbles framing everything with context.
Finlay received a copy of Chris Howes' book "Images Below" to study.
Brendan put forward a fantastically well lit photograph of Carlswark, taken by Izzy Martin (also Plymouth! They've got some future talent.). The rear flash brings out the contrast in the cockle bed in the passage roof clearly, and the position and posture of the subject in balance with the higher section of roof provides a great compositional foundation. We were short of a second prize so I donated my old small Pelicase - hopefully it will see more use now it's out of my cupboard
. This photo is included below as it wasn't uploaded to the forum over the weekend.
Well done again to everyone who entered photographs; a very strong field, thanks to UKC of course for supporting CHECC so strongly, and Aquapac for contributing prizes!
As a reminder, if any CHECC members would like a 20% discount on Aquapac equipment, ask myself or the CHECC committee for your very own student cavers' discount code.
Tommy