The Winner of the March Monthly Competition was Alec Stewart with his DPI entitled ‘Mother and Baby’. You can see it below.

Second was Chris Tidman with her print entitled ‘Granny Gets Distracted’ and third was Alan Stokes with a print entitled ‘Quarryman’s House’.

The judges were Sue O’Connell & Peter Brisley of Bristol.

The Winner of the February Monthly Competition was Gill Jones with her DPI entitled ‘Child of the Universe’. You can see it below.

Second was Jeff Thomas with his print entitled ‘Steamy  Relationship’ and third was Rob Greenhill with a PDI entitled ‘Thelma & the Mystery Case’.

The judge was Dennis Russ LRPS, AFIAP, AWPF, CPAGB, BPE1*.

The current Merit Table can be seen below. Please check your scores and report any inaccuracies to Alan Shepherd.

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At the annual Rhondda/Gwynfa/Barry battle, hosted this year by Gwynfa, the results were as follows:

1st – Gwynfa – 213 points
2nd – Rhondda – 204 points
3rd – Barry – 193 points

Best Print went to ‘The Historian’ by David Norton of the Rhondda and Best DPI went to ‘Onlooker’ by Barbra Archdale-Smith of Barry.

The judge was Fred Davies of Cardiff who did an excellent job of assessing the photographs.

The full scoresheet can be seen here.

After a rather remarkable evening of top quality photography and high scoring Gwynfa finished second to worthy winners, the Rhondda in the 2018 Vale 7-way battle. Gwynfa’s scores were as follows:

Colour Prints
20    Hairy Dragonfly on Horsetail by Rob Beynon
20    Mirage Fighter Jets by Steve Littlewood
20    Hard Times by Gwynfryn Jones
20    The Apple Woman by Gwynfryn Jones

Monochrome Prints
19    Last Light by Dave Lingham
20    Isolation (No. 1) by Leigh Woolford
18    Into The Light by Alan Stokes
18    Menno by Leigh Woolford

Dropping just 5 points from a possible 160 would be hard to beat you might think. But no. Rhondda dropped just three points and scored 20 a remarkable six times and also had a 19 and an 18 to pip us by two points. Scoring was high across the board too. Judge Brian Swinyard MA(Photo), ARPS, EFIAP/b, DPAGB, BPE3*, PPSA gave 24 scores of 20 from the 56 prints entered!

Final Scores were: Rhondda 157, Gwynfa 155, The Vale 153, Pyle & Porthcawl 150, Bridgend 148, Morriston 145 and Barry 137.

Best Monochrome Print went to Richard Crays of Pyle and Porthcawl for “Concrete Titanic” and Best Colour Print went to Gwynfryn Jones of Gwynfa for ‘The Apple Woman’.

As usual our hosts at the Vale did a superb job or organising the competition and welcoming (and feeding) their visitors and everyone enjoyed an evening of terrific photography.

Seven of the eight Gwynfa entries can be seen below. Sadly we don’t yet have a digital version of Into The Light by Alan Stokes.