2018 Chairman’s Report

Chairman’s Report

Welcome to the 40th Solihull Open Exhibition catalogue. This is the second year of the digital-only version which exists solely on DVD and on-line. It joins the 2016 and 2017 catalogues and these and subsequent catalogues will remain available on this site. There is a useful search function too.

Grateful thanks again to our hosts Solihull School, this is our fourth year at the school and their facilities and assistance have been invaluable in enabling us to hold the exhibition in Solihull town centre.

I am pleased to note that the total entry increased this year and particularly pleased that the print entry was larger by over 12%. I would like to thank all the entrants who submitted prints, we intend to remain a print exhibition for the foreseeable future but this ambition is only possible with the support of these print workers.

I am indebted to the team of hard working members from Solihull Photographic Society without whom this exhibition would not happen. The full team are credited elsewhere in this catalogue together with their specific roles/jobs as appropriate.

Our selectors this year were Pete McCloskey FRPS APAGB; Don Byatt ARPS MPAGB EFIAP; Christine Widdall MPAGB EFIAP FBPE and we are very grateful for their time and efforts in choosing the lucky award winners.

One final comment from me; due to an issue with one Nature image in the 2017 exhibition which ultimately resulted in that image being disqualified, I imposed a significant tightening of the rules specifically applying to entries in the Nature category. Essentially this change required award-winning images to be supported by the original camera raw file. Unfortunately, five images had to be disqualified as their authors were unable to comply with this requirement. I want to state here that none of these images are accused of infringing the PAGB definition for nature images. The sole reason for their removal was the inability of the photographers to supply the raw files; all of them understood the reason for the action taken and although understandably dismayed all have accepted the ruling. They, the selectors and I know that their images were originally given the awards and they should be proud of that; no other mention is made in this catalogue.

Jim Hiscox,
Chairman of the Exhibition
February 2018

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