PAGB Inter-Club Print Championship 2026
Last weekend a group of us travelled to Newport, Shropshire for the annual PAGB Inter-Club Print Championship. This was the first time the competition has taken place in this venue, having previously been in Blackburn, and we were one of three clubs representing the SCPF, the others being New Forest Camera Club and Winchester Photographic Society.
About the Competition
This is a competition in two parts – a qualifying round in the morning decides which of the two final competitions each club competes in after lunch. The top eight clubs from the qualifying round, along with any ties, would go through to the Final while the rest would compete for the Plate.
To take part in the competition, each club has to upload PDIs for up to 50 prints that could be used in the competition. They must also select twelve of those for the qualifying round and decide on the order in which the prints will be judged. This is all done online a few weeks before the event, the club then has to take all the prints with them to the venue. We only selected 37 prints as we felt that was sufficient to cover all possible outcomes – even if we managed to qualify for the Final which requires a further fifteen prints.
This year there were 44 clubs taking part in the competition, with each club submitting twelve images, so the three judges had to mark 528 prints before the lunch break.
As with all the competitions at this level there were three judges, each scoring between two and five giving each print a total mark from six to fifteen. They sit in a row about six feet from the illuminated print stand and each print is put up in turn and stays on the print stand until all three have pressed their scoring buttons. This typically takes less than ten seconds although they may choose to examine a print more closely if there is some aspect they are unsure of. There is just a score, no discussion between the judges and no critique as there is insufficient time for that.
The Qualifying Round
Our twelve prints in the qualifying round scored a total of 154 points – that’s an average score of 12.8 per print and the same as last year. We were just five points short of qualifying for the final, which is an improvement on last year when we were nine points adrift. That score put us in 16th position which meant we would be competing for the Plate in the afternoon along with 34 other clubs as three clubs had tied for seventh place.
Julia Wainwright had our best score in this round with a 15 for “Junior Short Track Duel”. We also scored 14s with Julia’s “Red Fox Listening for Prey”, Ann McDonald’s “All Work Done” and Jim Munday’s “Banjo Pier, Swanage”.
Final Selection
During the lunch break we had to decide which of our prints would be used in the afternoon’s Plate competition. We could reuse up to four prints from the qualifying round plus we had another 25 unused prints in our box from which we had to select four. The competition rules restrict us to just two nature prints, we could use no more than two prints from any photographer and there had to be at least three monochrome and three colour.
The four highest-scoring prints from the morning were definitely going to be reused in the afternoon so before we had our lunch we deliberated about which other four would do best from the remaining prints based on how various types of print had scored in the morning.
The Plate
After lunch, having handed in our final print selections, we returned to our seats in the auditorium to see what the judges thought of them. It is quite common in these competitions that a print that scores highly in the first round doesn’t score quite so well in the final round.
Our eight prints scored a total of 105 points – one point higher than last year. This is the highest score we’ve ever had in this competition – an average of over 13 per print. We were just four points behind the winning clubs (The Evolve Group and Tynemouth Photographic Society) but we were in 8th place. That’s a further improvement on last year’s 12th place, when we were also 4 points behind the winner.
Julia Wainwright had our best score with a 15 for “Junior Short Track Duel” and we also had 14s for Ann McDonald’s “All Work Done”, Ian Roberts’ “Bear Guarding Carcass” and Julia’s “Red Fox Listening for Prey”.
The Final
The Final competition is always dominated by some of the best clubs in the country such as Smethwick, Chorley and Rolls Royce Derby, and this year the winner was Arden Photo Group with 210 points from 15 prints – an average of 14 points per print.
PAGB Website Links
The full results and more details can be found on the PAGB website here, and the winning images can be found in the PAGB Galleries here. The PDF format catalogue is now available here.
With more clubs in the competition we knew it was going to be a tough contest but we have managed to improve our final placing, edging closer to qualifying for the final and we have learned a few lessons for next time. We will need a good result in the SCPF Championships in March in order to qualify for next year’s PAGB competitions.
The featured image above is “Junior Short Track Duel” by Julia Wainwright, which scored 15 in both rounds.