Welcome to the second season of my Photography Club adventures.
Dive into another interesting chapter of my photo adventures. Before we get rolling with the tales of ups and downs, why not take a peek at my gallery from the second season? These images capture the moments and the magic, setting the scene for the stories I’m about to share.
Check out my Photography Club 23-24 Images Here
I’m a realist.
At the beginning of my second season at my photography club, I expected a mixture of highs and lows. What I didn’t expect was to find myself in the middle of a horror story!
The Early Season: A Bumpy Start
In the competitive arena, my new season kicked off on a so-so note. Newly promoted to the Advanced Group in our club competitions, I found myself near the bottom of the advanced print league table when the visiting judge didn’t share my enthusiasm for the quality of my print entries.
The words of one of my club colleagues rang in my ears as I collected my prints at the end of the evening. “Judging is harsher in the Advanced Group,” he intoned. Never a truer word, I thought to myself, quickly followed by, “Well, you wanted a challenge, Elaine. You’ve certainly got one now.”
But at least it was nice to be back to our weekly meetings, which I’d missed over the summer break. With the new season came a fresh round of competitions, visiting presenters, photo walks, and the camaraderie of fellow photography enthusiasts.
A Glimmer of Hope: First PDI Competition
With my confidence dented a little I uploaded my images for the 1st PDI (Projected Digital Image) Advanced section. I was delighted when this particular judge “got” my images, awarding a top score of 20 points for my shot of Golden Hour on Dalmore Beach and a respectable 16 points for my shot of Loch Maree. Maybe I could hold my own in the Advanced Group after all, I wondered.
And so the mixture of highs and lows continued for my competition scores. The highs I accepted gratefully, careful not to become over-confident. One thing I’d learned since entering these competitions is that just around the corner, there’s always another judge who declares that your shot isn’t sharp to justify his low mark.
It’s not the done thing to contradict a judge during the judging process, so you’re not allowed to barrack them with “You should have gone to Specsavers mate!!” At these times, I gracefully kept my mouth shut and took another of my club colleagues’ advice on board when she advised, “Don’t get too disheartened, it’s only one judge’s opinion.”
This is one of the wonderful things about my photography club: each and every one of us has been at the mercy of harsh judging decisions at some time or other, and an empathetic word can lift the spirits and remind you that it’s all good fun at the end of the day.
In the interest of fairness though I’ll give a shout out to the judges. A good judge can help you to improve your photography by providing constructive critique and a fair mark, whether that’s high or low. I personally have learned so much over the last two seasons watching the judging process.
Two of my images which received top marks of 20 points in the 23-24 season
The Horror Story: A Photographer’s Nightmare
And then it happened!
Suddenly disaster struck and a horror story so devastating for me unfolded that plunged my photographic world into chaos!
Midway through the season things were ticking along nicely. I was holding my own in competitions, had attended workshops to learn new genres of photography, and had built up a nice little stash of new images with competitive potential.
I was working on editing a Film Noir image. I clicked on the gangsters face to lighten the shadows, and that’s when it happened.
A message exploded onto my screen. It seemed to pulse back and forth in front of my eyes, and I swear I could hear those eerie, shrieking strains of music from that infamous shower scene in the film Psycho!
My one and only hard drive containing twenty years of images had crashed.
Surely this had to be just a little gremlin in the system. But no! Logging off and on again repeatedly only resulted in producing the same message time after time.
All manner of recovery options were attempted without success. Bitter regret that I’d been so lackadaisical with my backup procedures made no difference to the outcome whatsoever. Not having a second hard drive as backup meant that I had potentially lost decades of images.
Recovery and Lessons Learned
Fortunately, a relative with forensic recovery software managed to salvage most of my images. After nearly two months, I regained access to my collection. In truth, this episode was a huge setback and impacted my ability to enter club competitions with my latest and best work.
Fast forward to today. I now have two new hard drives. I back up my work regularly to both. Whilst it’s more time-consuming, I’ve learned from my mistakes!
So I’m telling you this tale, dear reader and fellow photographer, in the hope that if you rely on a single disk, please don’t make my mistake. Don’t take that chance. It happens more than you think. Upgrade your backup systems… and do it now!
Highs of the Season: Triumphs and New Beginnings
But there have been plenty of highs this season. A wonderful few days at the Photography Show and the acquisition of a new Nikon ZF mirrorless camera. I also enjoyed a few photo walks including Oxford and Manchester and attended interesting presentations.
My most important highlight was launching my passion project – my website Lens Lady Diaries – and creating the Lens Lady Diaries Group Facebook Page, Instagram page, and YouTube Channel.
Additionally I retired in May, giving me more time to try my hand at vlogging. Check out Lens Lady DiariesTV for my first tentative steps at creating videos.
Check out my new You Tube channel, Lens Lady Diaries TV, here
I was invited to present a selection of my landscape and seascape images as a PowerPoint Presentation to club members. I hadn’t done this before, but keen to try new things, I said yes. I enjoyed the experience and was gratified by the supportive and appreciative response from our club members.
I’ve converted my Powerpoint presentation into a You Tube video – if you’d like to check it out click the link below.
Season’s End: A Rewarding Finish
What began as a lukewarm start to my competition efforts ended on a high when I was awarded six commended images and one 3rd place in our Annual Photoshow Exhibition competition. An improvement over last years performance.
So our new season begins again in September, and I look forward to continuing my journey and further honing my photography skills.
I consider myself fortunate to be part of this vibrant community, supported by an exceptionally dedicated team of Council Members and talented photographers at every skill level.
The high caliber of work from photographers at all levels—beginners, intermediates, and advanced—promises to make our Annual Exhibition in August a spectacular showcase.
If you live in or are visiting the area, why not pop in and see the talent on show?
Click this link to learn more about Lytham St. Annes Photographic Society
Here are my awarded images from our Annual Photoshow Exhibition Competition
Connect With Me Online
I’d love to keep the conversation going and share more of my photography adventures with you. Please follow me on my social media platforms, and let’s stay connected. I look forward to following you back and seeing your own creative journeys!
Here are links to my social media accounts:
- Facebook: Lens Lady Diaries Community
- Instagram: @Lens Lady Diaries
- YouTube: Lens Lady DiariesTV
Key Takeaways for Fellow Photographers
- Backup, Backup, Backup: Always have multiple backups of your work. Hard drive failures are more common than you think.
- Embrace Criticism: Every judge’s opinion is subjective. Learn from the feedback, but don’t let it discourage you.
- Stay Engaged: Participate in club activities, attend workshops, and engage with the community. It’s a great way to learn and grow.
- Keep Experimenting: Try new genres and techniques. You never know what might resonate with you.
This season has been a rollercoaster of emotions, but the journey is what makes it all worthwhile.
Here’s to more highs, fewer lows, and no more horror stories!
***Coming soon – new blog – Update on my Rajasthan Trip Preparations***
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4 comments
Hi Elaine, Had an identical issue a few months ago, my external SSD drive with all my images from 2000 onwards refused to boot up.
As always a trip to YouTube was required. I found and bought some recommended recovery software, it was able to see the contents on the drive after a good 24 hours or more scanning, and, after another few fraught days I was able to restore everything, including some short videos. I could even bring back the folder structure, I was quite amazed at how lucky I’d been.
Even better, I was then able to delete the contents, and the drive reformatted successfully.
I now have my images going to a new SSD, and that is immediately backed up to a local NAS. I also have some images backed up at full resolution by Lightroom, and might even start an off site backup too.
Quite an expensive few days, that was.
Enjoy your future trips !
Bill
Oh Bill, I’m so glad you were successful in restoring your images. I think we’re the lucky ones – there must be a lot of photographers out there who have lost images for ever in this way. It happens so often. I hope that by putting my experience out there, it might just prevent this from happening to someone else! I was lucky too that a family member had the forensic software to recover the images, I read that Seagate charge at least £600, and recovery isn’t guaranteed! I still beat myself up that I was so lackadaisakal about my backing up…..as they say, no use crying over spilt milk, but…..lessons have been learned LOL. Thanks for sharing your story too 🙂
Always great to read what you have to say Elaine and to see your photographs. I think you are very brave to express your views and share your images as you do and to develop your own website and actually create blogs is very impressive. Well done, keep up the good work!
Thank you so much for your kind words, Peter! It means a lot to me that you enjoy reading my posts and viewing my photographs. Sharing my thoughts and images is something I’m passionate about, and it’s incredibly rewarding to know that it resonates with others and that my authenticity is appreciated. Developing this website and creating content has been a journey, and comments like yours truly motivate me to keep going. Thanks again for your support and encouragement!
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