All hobbies have their jargon or technical terms and photography is no exception. Most people will be familiar with the words, close-up or macro, aperture, depth of field and perhaps even ISO. But for many the term ‘Bokeh’ might be just a bit more testing. So, when the title of the latest themed photographic competition was ‘bokeh or beautiful blur’ then it might be thought club members would have a difficult time producing images.

But this was far from it. ‘Bokeh’ is fairly fancy term to describe the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light often creating some unusual and beautiful effects.

Judge George Reekie was presented with just under 40 images representing this effect. He commented on each image providing excellent feedback and advice. In this competition were flowers, insects, speedway images, wildlife and some really imaginative creative shots that showed club members had researched this technique thoroughly.

These were the results: 1st Diane Rowe for 'Narcissus Rip van Winkle' - a beautiful soft image with a dreamy quality
2nd Neil Harris for 'On the look out' - a great image of a sharp beaked heron
3rd Mike Bevan for 'Blur Ring Birmingham' - a great title for an image of distorted reality

Highly Commended went to Peter Elliston for 'Autumn Gold', Sue Howard for 'Common Darter' and Diane Rowe for 'Narcissus poeticus'.

The Open Competition results were: 1st Neil Harris for 'Coming Through' - a lovely capture of a deer emerging between two trees
2nd Mike Bevan for 'Blea Tarn - a New Day' - a very well composed landscape
3rd Derek Carpenter for 'Storm Brewing' - a shot of people braving the elements

Highly Commended went to Derek Carpenter for 'What lies beyond', Frank Colebrooke for 'Orange Wall' and Paul Carter for 'European Roller'.