The Sherborne Bradford Abbas Shield is a friendly competition between five camera clubs: Gillingham, South Petherton, Wincanton, Yeovil and Sherborne Bradford Abbas. Each club submits five prints and five slides and points out of 20 are awarded to each photo. The club with the most points wins the shield, which it then keeps for the year.

This year our judge was Malcolm Kitto who many of us know and admire for his prolific photography and acute judgment of a good image.

Malcolm was his usual witty self, beginning the proceedings by warning us that he had a new pair of glasses and we shouldn’t be surprised if some of his decisions were questionable!

Throughout the competition, Malcolm’s comments on each image were very thorough. He pointed out the good points and the not-so-good, he said what he thought might improve the composition, he said what he liked about the image and how he might have approached the subject, and he even gave some of the film photographers advice about how they could have improved their images with PhotoShop(!)

The winner of the competition was South Petherton with141 points. Second, only one point behind, was Yeovil and third was Wincanton. Here Liz Randall and members of the South Petherton club admire their trophy:

Congratulations to South Petherton for a well-deserved win.

Thanks also to all the clubs who took part. We had a very enjoyable evening and it was a pleasure to meet members from the visiting clubs, view their photos and slides, and share with them our enthusiasm for photography.