RPS Advisory Day

The large hall at Foxton was filled with photographers yesterday, all (well, many..) agog to find out what the advisors would make of their panels of images for LRPS and ARPS submissions.  Each panel gets complimented, criticised and sometimes adulated by a panel of three wise men, all Fellows of the RPS.  This was only an advisory day, so rather more relaxed than a judgement day, but nevertheless an arduous task to organise, admirably handled by the Eastern Regional organiser for the RPS, Ian Wilson, with the principal assistance of Ann Miles,  but helped on the day by a crew of up to 20 individuals, each with an allocated task.  My task was to operate the sound system and to take photos for use later by the Eastern regional branch of the RPS

The vultures gather….

Pre-flight checks from Ian with his usual demonstration of Wandering Hands!

Richard Walton waiting to hear what he's posted onto Facebook..

Print handlers all ready with their white gloves

An introduction to LRPS and ARPS using a sample panel from Richard and Roger Force

It was this long….

We're off...

Ian records a supplicants panel after the Advisors have shuffled the order

Richard scrutinising some images...

Mike Harris listens intently as his panel is examined and declared to be ready to go

Roger giving reindeer impressions..

And now for some A panels - one of the first came from Barry Badcock and was declared to be excellent

Ian discussing his daughter's panel with Richard..

One of the applicants reads his Statement of intent for his panel...

Ann Miles called upon to help with this ARPS panel...

Will Cheung in full flow...

Another Statement of Intent../

The last panel of the day for Richard..

And Ian winds up (the day that is)

Thatchers at work

There is a barn conversion going on four doors away from my home which is being thatched with Norfolk reed - at last the local planning officers have seen that forcing the use of wheat straw makes no sense - this barn has taken two large articulated lorries each with a large trailer behind to deliver the reed bundles, but at least the thatch will have a good chance of lasting 70 - 80 years rather than 15-20 for wheat straw.  The barn is being converted into a luxury 5 bedroom house, but from the outside will retain many of the features of the mediaeval barn that it was.  Last week there were nine thatchers working on the roof, but today that had reduced to just five. I shall be returning with my camera to try to catch some of the work without intervening scaffold poles when the action is higher up the roof, but meanwhile here are my first shots at what I believe will be a beautiful building.

Lent Bumps

This week is Bumps week in Cambridge.  Four days of frenetic rowing on the river which is too narrow for conventional racing, so the college crews race in the idiosyncratic way which (I think) us only used in Oxford & Cambridge.  Those who achieve a bump by catching the boat in front of them pull over to the side of the river and the victors gather leafy branches from the hedgerow with which to bedeck themselves for the journey back to their boathouses.  I decided this year to try for more shots of individual rowers or subsections of crews; out of 22 pictures below, only 2 show the whole boat.  On the whole I find that shots of a complete rowing eight are not satisfactory unless one can get two side by side or one bumping another for real drama.  Sadly there were no bumps in sight whilst I was patrolling this afternoon.  Here are a selection of what I did get:

Striving for the finish

Watching the following crew making up ground

It's tough at the end

To the victors, the spoils

Going down to the start

Going hard for the line

Shooting the railway bridge

Triumph!

First Division ladies going to the start

A red hippo coxing!