Cats and Thistles

I don’t usually post to complain about something (well, not often), but on Monday night at the 5th Print Competiton at CCC, something really got me annoyed…

Imagine a normal tabby cat, sitting on a rock, taken on an overcast day. Blurry background, nothing special about the cat, the pose or the overall image or scene. Just a regular shot of a cat, in portrait orientation, as if taken for an encyclopedia entry. Straight record shot. Now, imagine a pretty scruffy thistle close up, most of it out of focus (small f-stop) but with a busy background that makes it hard to see the (unspectacular) thistle. Now, imagine you have been taken to a parallel universe in which photographic merit is bestowed upon these types of image. This disruption in the time-space fabric happened last night, localized on the Cambridge Camera Club.

The Cat on A Rock won a “Second Place” grading. The Thistle won (I think) a “Highly Commended” (or perhaps better – I was too stunned to take it all in).

Incredible, unbelieveable, rubbish.

Even one of the “First Places” I had an issue with, although it was quite good. As usual, the best ones did generally get the top slots. I can only imagine that the older demographic of the entrants and the judge bias towards this kind of thing, but – to quote Austin Powers – it’s not my bag, baby.

Disgruntled from Cambridge.

Note: I did not have an entry on this evening, so my “beef” is not for those reasons.