Thursday 10th May

Last night saw our annual visit from the Southampton International Exhibition – one of the foremost world-wide photographic competitions – with our friends Sue Dunham and Ian Hutchinson. This year is the 105th Southampton salon, and attracted entries from 55 countries  across the world.  With such a high number of submissions and an acceptance rate of about 20 – 25%, success is a real achievement and it was good to have a good local showing at SIE this year, with success for Chichester members in both print and PDIs.  

Sue and Ian brought along the PDI selection with nature, travel and open sections.  These included images from John Howes,  Sheila Tester and from Ann McDonald who did particularly well this year with merit awards and a FIAP Gold Medal for Best Environmental Portrait in the travel section.

As Ann stressed in her vote  of thanks, entering the national and international salons can be really rewarding – that moment when you get your first acceptance is a real high – and as the travel sections in these only accept images which are more or less straight from the camera (no cloning, additions or subtractions – just cropping, colour correction and dodge and burning), they are a good way to start, and don’t have to feature exotic locations. As Ann said, our PAGB Group supports members interested in salons as well as the PAGB accreditations, so do come along to find out more.

We always enjoy having Sue and Ian and their road show with us, and we noted that Sue was awarded her APAGB last year for ‘meritorious service’, service that includes 26 years with SIE – and well deserved too!

Ann McDonald’s Man in a Turquoise Turban won the FIAP Gold Medal for Best Environmental Portrait in this year’s Southampton International Exhibition