Contre Jour - 1st Set Subject PDI competition

Our first set subject competition of the season was "Contre Jour". This technique is challenging but can produce fantastic results with stunning images.

Contre-jour (French for "against daylight") is a photographic technique in which the camera is pointing directly toward a source of light

Taken from the Institute of Photography:

Photographing into the light does present us with some challenging exposure issues, it also produces interesting qualities in our subject. Contre-jour is a technique that is useful for revealing strong, powerful shapes and lines in our subject, such as we associate with silhouette images where the outline of a person, tree or building, for example, against a bright sky is pronounced and obvious. Contre-jour allows us to use the effect of strong backlighting to alter the appearance of our subject in an eye-catching way, which also uses high contrast conditions to develop mood and drama in our composition.

With no distinction between group 1 and group 2, 64 varying and interesting images were entered in to the competition and judged by our very own Dave Silk, who stepped in when our expected judge was unable to join us. Dave gave a really excellent critique of each image with his usual great sense of humour and abundance of knowledge !! It was a shame that his own images had to be removed from the competition but everyone had a chance to see the three he had put in at the end of the scoring. And they were really good too!

1st place went to Paul Ralf with his beautiful image "Sunset paddles"

Love the colours and the silhouettes of the paddlers is simply wonderful!! Well done Paul!

2nd place was awarded to Maria Gilbert with her great image titled "Peekaboo"

Love the slither of the moon and it's position in the image.

3rd place went to Terry Scales with this stylish and brilliantly processed image "Into the light (Venice)"

So typically a Terry image - great!

Highly commended was awarded to James Foad for his image "Cowslip sunset"

Beautiful and simple !

Terry Scales was awarded Commended for his image "Dreamland Ferris Wheel"

Love the silhouettes and shadows in this one!

Once again an enjoyable evening with a great display of images. Well done to everyone that entered this competition as this is certainly not an easy technique but some fabulous images were on view for everyone to admire. Next club night will be fun as we have all been challenged to edit a number of raw images that have been provided, doing whatever we want to them! Will be fascinating to see what everyone comes up with - there will no doubt be a myriad of different approaches, which will make the theme of "Altered Images" an enjoyable evening.