I’ve been a member of Palmerstown Camera Club since I joined in September 2017. They have a monthly photography competition split in to Novice, Intermediate and Advanced. Since I had been a member of Mullingar Camera Club for two years, I signed up as an intermediate level rather than novice.

Each month, there’s a theme. You submit a colour and a B&W print and then also a projected image which is always an open theme, though many people stick to the main theme anyway.

So far, I have won a place for one or more of my images in every competition. I started off with 3rd place for my projected image. My prints were grand but not up to scratch. They were existing prints from Mullingar.

In Round two, I also got a 3rd place position for my projected image. I didn’t expect a place for my prints as they were only “good” and again, not particularly interesting.

Round 3 had a theme of architecture and this one I took seriously. I came second in the projected and first in B&W Printed.

Round 4 was friendship but unfortunately I couldn’t enter as I had injured my knee and was on crutches. A pity but what can I do? There’s no way to hand in my prints if I’m off my feet and I had no way to get them printed either without getting someone else to do it all for me.

Round 5 was last night. The theme was Reflections and Silhouettes. I was looking forward to this one as I had a great colour reflection of Lake Matheson in New Zealand. It came 2nd and the judge said it was very close to coming 1st. I also took 2nd for my Projected Image of Hobbiton.

Overall, I’m happy with the direction my photography has taken over the last 6 months or so. I’ve also got a lot of compliments for some of my work on Instagram, in particular, the images I take with my phone. The camera on the Galaxy S8 is pretty good for a phone. In fact, the top middle image above of the train station was taken on my phone.

Feel free to follow me on Instagram and Flickr by the way.