On the 14th of March Banbury Camera Club held it's inaugural Alan Sargeant Trophy competition for printed images. Alan was a very active member of the Camera Club until his death in March 2020, he was also my ex-wife's uncle and I got to know him well, taking him to Camera Club meetings when he had given up driving. The theme was "Around Banbury"; Alan was the curator of the club's Images Of Banbury project which aimed to capture the evolution of the town and he produced many images of the town and surrounding villages.
Given my connection to Alan I was keen to submit the maximum number of entries (two colour, two mono) to contribute to a reasonable turnout. The date for the competition had been set at the start of the 21/22 season so there was plenty of time to get the images, which is why I did nothing about it until about three weeks before the deadline for submission of entries! Realising that time was getting tight I ventured out on the evening of the 27th of February evening with the idea of getting some night shots from around the town as this may offer "something a bit different" but on processing the images the following day it was clear that rather than getting "something a bit different" I'd got precisely nothing of useable quality.
As a result of this total failure I set out for town again the next day, fortunately it is only a five minute walk from my house. I made my way to the Cross and took some images of the most famous landmark in the town and of the statue of the Fine Lady. I loitered on the island in the middle of the road to get some images of the Cross from a different angle and then made my way past Greggs (yes, you did read that correctly) into Butchers Row and also past the Coach and Horses (well, it was closed) to an alleyway by the side of the Atic Club where I had noticed a "Banksy type" depiction of a lady sweeping the road. Having taken a few images I headed towards the Market Place but stopped and grabbed some images of a colourful nameplate on the entrance to some newly created flats which depicted the Fine Lady on a White Horse. I wandered onto Castle Quay and the canal but, with it being Monday, The Pavement Cafe was closed so I made my way home.
Having downloaded the images I came to the conclusion that there were three images which wouldn't be disgraced (I hoped) so I set about printing them. The first was a tightly cropped image of the Fine Lady from the Statue, I printed this in mono and gave it the title A very Fine Lady. The second was the "Banksy type" image of a cleaning lady which I again printed in mono and gave the title Cleaning Up In Butchers Row. The third image was the nameplate which I cropped quite tightly and printed in colour, giving it the extremely unimaginative title of Fine Lady, Butchers Row Flats. By now it was late afternoon and, as the result of me more than likely missing the next meeting due to a double tooth extraction, I knew that today would me my last chance of handing the prints in without having to get them to someone else to do it for me. I decided to mount the three images but before I could do so I had to recycle three mounts as I didn't have any new ones. Whilst searching for said mounts I came across a mounted image titled Two Crosses which had been taken in 2020 and manipulated in Snapseed using the "Morning" look. It was entitled Two Crosses as there was a refection of the Cross in a puddle on the plinth of the statue of the Fair Lady. I thought that there was a fair chance that it may get slaughtered by a judge but, in the absence of anything else, I decided to make it my fourth entry; nothing ventured.....
Having found three used mounts and having overcome a further setback when I ran out of masking tape, I had four prints ready to hand in with about half an hour to spare!
I had arranged for Eric and Sandra Knowles (Alan Sargeant's brother-in-law and sister-in-law) to attend to present the new Alan Sargeant Trophy and so, on the 14th Match I collected them and we drove over to Chenderit School, Middleton Cheney, for the meeting.
The judge for the evening was Barry Taylor, a very experienced photographer and a past member of the club and, in total, there were 29 entries. It was during the judging that the speed with which I had mounted the prints came back to "bite me in the bum". Andy Hales, who was placing the prints in the lightbox, announced that the next image was entitled Resting Stag, Chris Baldwin, who was projecting the images onto the screen from his laptop announced that he hadn't got that image. The reason for this was very simple, as I had to explain; I'd left an old title on the mount! To be fair I had also added the new title (which happened to be Fine Lady, Butchers Row Flats) on to the mount as well so Andy did have a 50:50 chance of getting it right!
To cut what is already too long a story short when the judging was complete seven images had been held back of which three were mine, the exception, quite rightly, being the Snapseed manipulated Two Crosses. In the final analysis A Very Fine Lady was awarded second place. Probably as a result of the shock of the unexpected success I can't quite remember which print was third and which one was highly commended but all three have been added to the Banbury Local Area Miscellaneous Gallery.
The worthy winner was an image of St Mary's Churchyard, I will add the author's name when I find out who it was.