Two Club members won awards at the recent SCPF Championshios. Peter LeCointe (l) received a Highly Commended for The Crypt, Winchester Cathedral and Dennis Gilman (r) won a Gold medal for John. Huge congratulations to both of them.
In an occasional series, we’ll highlight the work of a Club member and what they are up to. Cazarella Tavs has only been a member for two seasons now but her powerful street photography is winning fans both at Lymington Camera Club and internationally.
Pure Street Photography, founded in 2020 by photographer Dimpy Bhalotia and her creative partner Kamal Kumaar Rao, is one of the leading platforms dedicated to celebrating authentic street photography.
This year’s competition received nearly 1,200 entries from photographers across 34 countries, and it has been judged by David Campany, the Creative Director at the International Center of Photography in New York.
The first-place winner, Cazerella Tavs of the United Kingdom, describes her award-winning shot, Meeting in the Middle, as a pleasant surprise.
‘Meeting in the Middle’ by Cazarella Tavs, First-Place Winner | Pure Street Photography Awards 2025
“There is always an element of surprise to photography and a thrill in capturing a candid moment that can never be replicated. This was one of those moments. An unexpected standoff in the middle of a quiet rural road, where two cows pause as if negotiating the right of way. It emphasizes form, symmetry, and contrast what might otherwise be a fleeting roadside encounter transforms into a playful reflection on standstills, stubbornness, and the gentle comedy of rural life — a reminder that even traffic jams can be charming when left to cows!” Tavs says.
Cazerella summarises her approach to Street Photography as follows
“Don’t overthink, the more you shoot the more you will discover.
Technique and Tools
Navigating the Modern World
Advice for Aspiring Photographers
You can see more of her work at https://www.instagram.com/insta_cazerella_pics/
We had our annual AGM and prize giving on 22nd May 2015. We reviewed the finances and activities for the season and awarded the trophies to the winners of the Intermediate Class, Advanced class as well as the winners of the Best of Year Print and Best of Year PDI.
At the AGM, Mark Lanigan our former Chairman handed over the Chairmanship to Alan Harris. Various committee members changed with Denise Phillips becoming Membership Secretary, Pete Gregory becoming Programme Secretary and Mark Lanigan taking on Publicity.
Pete Gregory receiving the award for Print of the Year
Mark Janicki won the Intermediate Group
Mark Lanigan won the Advanced group
Stewart Lacey, President, Southern Counties Photographic Federation was also present to present Mark Lanigan with a SCPF Roll of Honour for his contribution to the Club over his years of membership. Stewart also previewed a new AV presentation on the SCPF.
Updated: Sep 24, 2022
Club member, Denise Phillips has been short-listed in this years Close Up Photographer of the Year competition in the Plants and Fungi category. She said “I feel very fortunate to have my image Order and Chaos shortlisted in the plant and fungi section of CUPOTY. This is the third year of this international competition and nearly 10,000 images were submitted.”
The website is worth a look for anyone interested in close up images.
This is becoming a regular occurrence for the Club as Jacky Parker was a FINALIST in 2 sections in 2020.
Congratulations Denise both for the recognition and a stunning image
International Garden Photographer of the Year continues to be one of the world’s most respected photography competitions and exhibitions, particularly within the genres of the garden, plant, flower, and botanical photography.
It is run in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London. The main exhibition is usually held annually at Kew, with a rolling programme of touring exhibitions in the UK and all over the world.
There are regular main competition categories each year including favourites such as; ‘The Beauty of Plants’, ‘Beautiful Gardens’ and ‘Abstract Views’ plus there are 4 photo projects and numerous seasonal special awards – for example – ‘Captured at Kew’.
Jackie did very well this year achieving Commended, Highly Commended and Finalist awards in this year’s competition. Huge congratulations to her. I have added some commentary from her to the images.
Anemone image – Highly commended in ‘Beauty of plants’, this was simply a shop brought flower placed in front of a white
wall of my house using a Nikon D850 and Nikkor 105 f/2.8. I shot manually at f/8 1/25 sec ISO 200.
Coneflowers image – Finalist in ‘Beauty of plants’ these coneflowers were taken at RHS Wisley behind the glasshouse in their South African meadow. it was shot at 1/1250 F2.8 ISO200, always difficult to think outside the box with flowers so I added
a couple of textures to give it a more dreamlike effect.
Seaweed – Commended in ‘Abstract views’ first time entering this category, seaweed shot on the rocks in Cornwall shot at f/8.0 ISO320 1/250 in post-processing I inverted the colour, then adjusted the Hue and sat in PS.
We started the new season on 15th September with a visit from Anne Eckersley, President of SCPF, who presented two awards. A highly commended award to Ginney Campbell for her entry in the SCPF Championships and to Ioline Stanley who was inducted into the SCPF Roll of Honour for all her work over the years as Competition Secretary and our SCPF Rep.
Huge congratulations to them both on their achievements
After a few happy years at MacDonalds Elmers Court hotel, it is time for the Club to move to a new venue and we have decided on Brockenhurst Village Hall in time for our first meeting of 2023 on 12th January.
Brockenhurst Village Hall offers us greatly improved car parking, better catering facilities, and a more predictable booking environment. We’ll continue to meet on the 2nd and fourth Thursday of the month (see meetings page for details)
The Southern Counties Photographic Federation (SCPF) held its annual Championships on March 26, 2023. The championships were organised and hosted by Lymington Camera Club at Brockenhurst Village Hall.
Over 300 prints and more than 600 digital images were entered and the three international judges awarded scores.
Mark Lanigan, Chairman Lymington Camera Club, said “Most of the Club was involved putting this event together from the print handling team who checked over 300 prints in an half an hour to a catering team who provided refreshment for over 100 people during the day from a sit-down lunch for the officials to endless teas and coffees for visitors”
In the final placements, Lymington Camera Club did very well and came 3rd out of 38 clubs in projected images (PDIs) and 7th in Prints beating many far larger clubs like Southampton and Salisbury. Ioline Stanley Competition Secretary said “ it was good to see the quality of the Club’s work recognised at this important regional event”
Club member Paul Raynor has achieved his LRPS distinction from the Royal Photographic Society. He achieved this in the extra difficult PDI category, so huge congratulations to him on his success. He shared some thoughts below.
“I previously submitted a panel last year, but at that time there were three images with which the assessors found ‘fault’. One was an HDR image, which they considered had too high a level of colour noise. The other two images had what they considered to be ‘processing artifacts’, but in fact both these were features evident in the original RAW files (a cloud reflection in one and OOF gravel texture in the other).
In my latest submission, I replaced these three images, but comments were then raised on other images that previously they had considered quite acceptable! My two composite images both feature statues and the age-old comment that ‘this is someone else’s art’ was repeated. Strangely no such comments were raised for any architectural submissions during the day, nor were there any concerns that flowers were just as nature had created …!
Notwithstanding their concerns, their overall view of my panel was that they considered it to be well-structured and balanced, with a good demonstration of various camera skills.
This last point is vital to note for any potential L panel submissions, as the submission that followed mine had 10 superb images, but had no coherent panel structure; including random different formats throughout. For this reason alone they were very dismissive and rejected that submission outright.”
So well done Paul, and if any club member wants to try for a distinction talk to Paul or a Committee Member.
