Over the past year the Photography Club of Beaufort has developed a close relationship with the Gosforth Camera Club from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne on the northwest coast of England.
It all began in a rather unusual manner. Photography Club of Beaufort member’s Russ and Sandy Dimke were visiting Newcastle-Upon-Tyne last fall and asked the Gosforth Camera Club for a tour of their area. Four Gosforth club members spent the day with the Dimkes and it became apparent that both clubs shared common objectives – to enhance members’ photographic knowledge and skill and to improve the overall perception of photography as art in their community. Both clubs had amazingly similar structure with critiques, competitions, field trips, programs, workshops and annual assigned subjects to photograph. Gosforth members suggested that the two groups become “sister clubs” and participate in an annual interclub competition.
For the initial competition members of both clubs were assigned the subject “water” – a perfect subject because water is what physically separates the two clubs and both clubs are in coastal communities.
The clubs digitally sent 15 images of to each other for judging. The Photography Club of Beaufort first had two independent judges chose the 15 and select top awards. The local club members critiqued Gosforth’s submissions and chose their top award winners. It was interesting to observe that Beaufort chose different winners than Gosforth and the same was true for the Beaufort images when critiqued by the British club.
The top winner chosen by the Beaufort club was Dick Eckhardt’s “Endless Ripples,” while Gosforth judges chose Richard Matheny’s “Touching Eternity.”
The top winning images from both clubs will be on exhibit in the Osher Lifelong Learning (OLLI) classroom at USCB’s Beaufort Campus through December.
Photo at top: Beaufort winning image selected by Gosforth: Rich Matheny’s “Touching Eternity”
