The Challenge

So for the last 42 years, there has been a little challenge between Brockville Area Photography Club, Kingston Photography Club, and the Napanee Photography Club. Judges are brought in to judge images from two categories - Pictorial and Nature. It occurs the first Sunday of October. This year was our turn to host. A designated area was drawn out on a map - Brockville to Johnstown and no farther north than the 3rd concession. The weather was not nice, but out we went anyways.

First Image of the day

As you can see by the clock, this image was taken at 6:47am. Myself and another club member struck out at 6:15am, in Brockville. In hindsight, we probably should have stayed in bed for at least another hour. The weather was awful. Raining like crazy. But we were hoping some nice mist or fog would present itself on the river. It didn't. So we hit the tunnel and waited for the weather to clear.

The Tunnel

I thought maybe there would be some beautiful reflections to be had in the tunnel. It had rained for two days, so I was hopeful that would leave us with some giant puddles of water in the bottom the tunnel. Back in the summer, when it was dry and hot out, there was some great pools of water that reflected the walls and ceiling beautifully. On this day, it was like the tunnel knew we were in a photography competition, and decided to challenge us. This was the only bit of water I could find for reflections, so we worked with it. No matter what the conditions, this tunnel is an incredible place to visit, and even better for photography.

Clearing

So a break in the weather provided me with a chance to get the drone up in the air. This year, I was told I could submit drone photos into the competition. Yay. I was struggling finding anything creative on the ground, so up in the air we went to see what we could come up with. I got some neat shots, but I will save them for the end of this blog.

Heading East

My compadre and I decided we would head east, towards our lunch destination - Bridgeview Restaurant. Still raining out, we toured every single back road, east west, north south. Looking, scanning, trying to find something to photograph. At one point, we came across a dead deer along the side of a road and even considered propping it up to snap a photo, Or even taking a photo of it laying down. We were scrounging for anything. A rainy stop at the Blue Church Cemetery proved prosperous. We ran into a few other photographers from our club that we hadn't seen for awhile. It was great to catch up. All of our meetings have been on Zoom for the last year and a half, so it was nice to see live photographers for once. I found a beautiful old White Pine at the back of the cemetery. And when I turned around, I discovered this beautiful pink blooming bush right beside me.

Lunch

We had a great and much needed lunch at Bridgeview Restaurant. It must have been what I needed, because I finally started seeing images to photograph. My best photographs came after 3pm. It was a long 9 hours to that point, photographically. The company and lunch guests were awesome. Lots of laughs and ideas were shared.

The Categories

So like I said before, we had two categories - Nature and Pictorial. Nature is the tougher of the two. You are not allowed to do much editing to the photos, there can be nothing man made in the photo. Pictorial is the exact opposite. This category is basically everything else. People, things, man made stuff. As a club, we have to submit 6 photos for the Nature category, and 9 photos in the Pictorial category. As members, we are allowed to submit 3 images for each category. Below are my submissions.

Challenge Complete

After 12 hours of searching and photographing, we packed it in and called it a day. Long day, filled with great stories, lots of laughs, and even a few photographs were taken. Next comes the selection process, as we delve through all of the images submitted by everyone in our club who participated. I have no idea if any of mine will be chosen, but it doesn't matter. It was a great day out, other than the rain, but it was great to be challenged the entire day. Hope you enjoy the journey and the images.,

Marc