Animals

Well, the new season has officially begun.

Welcome to (mostly) old faces and some new ones too

Hi Scott, Adrian, Don, David and Neil. Hope we've intrigued you enough to make you want to come back. We need fresh blood to liven the pot up a bit.

OK, tonight was also our first PDI competition of the season.

Tonight's set subject was Animals, but not the human kind.

We had that nice Gill Adams from Maldon CC over to cast her judges eye over our offerings. Welcome back Gill.

Fifty odd images for her to comment upon, and I have to say, she was very kind to my images.

We had all sorts, Elephants in the wild, a few zoo shots (though well disguised) Big cats and their domestic cousins, dogs, horses, cattle, big and little reptiles

Fifty is a nice number, it gives the judge a couple of minutes at each image where she can give her appraisal of how, in her opinion, you might make this a better shot.

mostly for us this evening it was dead space that was detrimental to the final picture.

Anyways, she held back six images

Two from Neil, two from Jose, & one each from Dave and Nick.

I never was any good at this suspense thingy they do on the telly

so you'll have to insert your own lengthy pauses for dramatic effect

but one of Jose's, Dave and Nick all scored eight ana halves

Neil's Elephant out for a stroll got a nine and third place overall

Jose's American Bald Eagle grabbed second with a nine ana half

and top of the heap was Neil again with his penguins at the waters edge which Gill liked enough to give a ten

Great Job & congrats to Neil.