We had a wonderful response to our lockdown photographic competition, with plenty of entries in each of the four categories. Special mention must be made of all bassoonists who entered – you outstripped your oboist colleagues by a long way! Please see below for a gallery of the winning entries.
And so to the winners…
Category (a) for the most imaginative oboe-related lockdown activity
1st prize: Stewart Green, ‘In an English Country Garden’
Commended: Helen Kallow, ‘Virtual Orchestra Recording Session’
Category (b) for the most imaginative bassoon-related lockdown activity
1st prize: Catriona McDermid, ‘Slowly Losing it…’
Commended: Kathy Humphry, ‘Rape-field Rhapsody’; Helen Kallow, ‘Practising Bouncy Notes’
Category (c) for the best photograph capturing the spirit of the BDRS
1st prize: Jonathan Kallow, ‘Double Double’
Commended: Leo Duarte, ‘A Flight of Swallows’; Liz Fyfe & Pete Harrison, ‘All reeds lead to Wells’
Category (d) for the most artistic double reed-related photograph from an entrant under the age of 18
1st prize: Sophie Bailey, ‘Mint Oboe’
Commended: Nicholas Howard, ‘Two oboes on music’; Emilia Harris, ‘Spirit of bassoon’
Geoffrey Bridge, Chair of the BDRS, writes:
“It has been an enormous pleasure to work with colleagues on the judging panel of our first ever photographic competition. These were photographer Mike Bell, editor of Double Reed News Clive Fairbairn, BDRS Webmaster & Social Media Manager Louisa Denby, and myself.
Life in Lockdown
“The essence of the competition was of course the idea that during lockdown more time could be spent on hobbies such as photography. So combining photography with a love of double reeds should make an interesting project and produce some interesting work. Also we hope of course to use some of the pictures to populate our new website and put on our social media pages.
“We had a wide range of entries with some intriguing pictorial ideas displayed. I am always drawn to extreme close-ups, especially of key work and reeds, but I had to concede that perhaps photographs of this nature were largely technical and not artistic. There were some superb examples of that genre – there you have it – one of the battles we judges had!
Debate over decisions
“The decision process was not always easy as favourites prevailed with individual judges which is inevitable. Reaching a conclusion, especially about “artistic merit”, is always problematic, as Mike Bell our photographic expert told us. In the final analysis though, some give and take between us produced a result about which we were unanimously satisfied; however, there were some striking images that didn’t quite make the final pick and some of these could be used on the website.
Thanks to all involved
“I must thank my fellow judges for their extreme patience and good humour in the judging process. Especially I must thank Louisa Denby for being the point of contact for entries and for doing most of the work in developing the judging system.
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‘In an English Country Garden’ – Stewart Green -
‘Virtual Orchestra Recording Session’ – Helen Kallow -
‘Rape-field Rhapsody’ – Kathy Humphry -
‘Flight of Swallows’ – Leo Duarte -
‘Spirit of Bassoon’ – Emilia Harris -
‘Mint oboe’ – Sophie Bailey -
‘All reeds lead to Wells’ – Pete Harrison & Liz Fyfe -
‘Slowly Losing it…’ – Catriona McDermid -
‘Double Double’ – Jonathan Kallow -
‘Two oboes on music’ – Nicholas Howard -
‘Practising bouncy notes’ – Helen Kallow