L&CPU Photographer of the Year 2015

A relatively recent addition to the Lancashire and Cheshire Photographic Union’s (L&CPU) annual events is the Individuals Competition. Entry is open to members of photographic clubs which are members of the L&CPU, just under 100 organisations at present, representing about 4000 photographers across the region.

The competition is split into three print sections (colour, monochrome and nature) and a corresponding three projected image sections, with four works entered in each section. The “Photographer of the Year” is simply the person with the highest aggregate score for entrants who have entered all sections. It isn’t necessary to win any sections outright, but it is a test of consistency across a number of different disciplines. My submission this year included traditional portrait, fantasy composites, birds and insects and can be seen on a thumbnail sheet at the end of this post.

The images are judged over two days by a team of three judges, who were, this year, Peter Gennard and Roger Parry from Smethwick and Richard Spiers from Carlisle. Thanks to them for their hard work and to the L&CPU team who run the event.

By the end of the second day, when the scores were totaled, I was declared “Overall Photographer of the Year”, which, in my wildest dreams, I had not expected. It is especially thrilling to have my name up in lights alongside some of the top photographers in the North West and I feel that this particular honour is very special. Even more significant to me were the messages of congratulations and goodwill that I have received from my fellow photographers, who have been enormously generous to the point of embarrassing me, but that really made my day. Thank you all so much.

The full set of images are below. All can be seen at larger size on my Prosite galleries…please see the link at the top of the side bar on this page.