And Another Gold Award in the Monthlies for Pet Portraits

I am just loving the Societies Monthly competition this year. It has got me motivated more than usual to keep producing work I think is worthy of entering.

This year so far I've received 4 Gold's and 10 Highly Commended's. And these 10 images will be re-judged at a later date and can be upgraded to Gold if the second judge deems them to be of a Gold standard.

And the most important aspect of this competition is that all Golds get a further assessment in December, this time by a judging panel where the best image in each category is selected giving the photographer the title of Photographer of the Year for that category. These awards are then presented at a black tie awards dinner in London in January at the Societies annual convention, something I look forward to every year.

I've been nominated 4 years out of the past 6 and I'm determined to make this the year where I walk away with an award. My fingers are crossed and more importantly I'm still working hard.

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Burbage Carnival 2009

For the past few years my husband and I have been attending the Burbage Carnival and remarking to ourselves at how much better it could be. The carnival seemed to be declining in recent years. Earlier this year I met someone (Harvey) who mentioned that he joined the committe. When I asked him why he said he had been remarking that the carnival could do with some improvements. The response he received was rather than complain why don't you join the committee and do something about it. Its hard to argue with that. The following week I found myself, along with my husband, at the Burbage Carnival meeting. And we've been attending (most meetings) ever since. With this being our first year we didn't want to dive in head first. We contributed where we felt we could but it was great to see that what little we were able to offer still made a difference on the day. We're now very much looking forward to seeing just how much of a difference we can make next year. I just hope it ...

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Christina Lauder Portraits

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