The 2021 Regional Print Battle this year was a very closely fought affair. Last years’s winners – KCPS – were joint runners up.

Judged by Bruce Girdwood FPSNZ, the battle was between the hosts Hutt Camera Club, Johnsonville Camera Club, Kapiti Coast Photographic Society, Wellington Photographic Society and Kapiti Camera Club. The format of the competition is that there are ten rounds, each of a different theme. Each club enters a photo in each round, and the judge orders them from best to least favourite. Points are given based on position – 1 point for 1st, 2 for second and so on. The club with the least number of points by the end of the evening takes the glory of winning the trophy.

The themes this year were:

• Blur
• Framed
• H is for…
• In the City
• Multiple Exposure
• Symmetry
• Triptych
• The Great Outdoors
• Wet
• What we do in the Shadows

As you can see from the scoreboard, it was an incredibly tight and exciting competition – only four points between first and last. The lead changed several times as each round unfolded.

Hutt and Johnsonville camera clubs took joint first place, the two Kapiti’s were joint runners up, with Wellington just one point behind. Bruce Girdwood commented that he had not seen such a strong set of fifty images all in one place for a very long time – all his decisions were very close.

A nice touch to round off the evening was with an impromptu pop up exhibition of all the entries across the clubs, giving everyone a good chance to browse some fantastic and inspiring images.

The committee had a tough time selecting images to represent the club from a large set submitted by the KCPS photographers. Our entries are in the gallery below, listing the theme and author.

The objective of the national PSNZ Trenna Packer Salver Competition is to illustrate the diversity of the natural world in New Zealand and its off shore islands, with images that are of a very high standard. There were sets entered from twenty once camera clubs across the country, and this year the winner of the competition was – us!

 Contributors to the winning set were:

1. Anthornis melanura – Gavin Klee
2. Geum uniflora – Carol Molineux
3. Metrosideros umbellata – Carol Molineux
4. Scutellinia colensoi – Rhonda Billington
5. Stalactite Patuna Chasm – Neil Gordon
6. Female Ischnura aurora – Rhonda Billington

And special congratulations to Rhonda and Gavin who  were awarded honours for their images. A great result all round for the club.

This is what the judge, Bob McCree FPSNZ had to say about the Kapiti Coast Photogrphic Society’s entry:

“An excellent, diverse and consistent set of natural history images. This is certainly one of the best sets here with each image nicely notated with the Latin names for the species. The set is well book ended by two very strong images nicely positioned – the first looking into the set at the start, and the sixth looking back into the set at the end. There is a very pleasing tonal flow and mixture of images here. The consistent high quality of each individual image together with their placement within the set and the overall high quality of the set’s presentation, all adds up to a very pleasing set to view.“

The 2020 Wellington Regional Interclub was the victim of Covid-19 restrictions and postponed to March 2nd 2021. Hosted by Kapiti Camera Club (not to be confused with us, the Kapiti Coast Photographic Society) it very nearly became the victim of a further postponement when alert levels were raised again just a couple of days before the event. Fortunately they had a plan to limit numbers to eight per club, which allowed what is always an enjoyable, popular and competitive competition to go ahead.

The six clubs that make up the Wellington Region submitted a print in each of the ten categories chosen by the host club. The guest judge ranks them in order, with the ranking translating to points (1st equals 1 point, 2nd is 2 etc). The club with the fewest points at the end of the judging takes home the trophy.

In addition to the main trophy, a secondary competition for the best abstract image on the night was also up for grabs.

It is great to be able to report that KCPS made a clean sweep on the night, winning both the main trophy and the abstract prize with Jenny Setchell’s image Crazy Pipes for the Musical Image category wowing the judge. The scoreboard with all the placings is shown below:

The selection committee had a tough time selecting which images to choose to represent the club, but obviously did a fantastic job. The images and the categories they represent were: