Highcliffe May 2017

Amanda Wright Reports:

On Wednesday a small but dedicated posse of Ealing and Hampshire House members (Karen and her very entertaining male model Michael, Paul, Kris, Ania and Amanda) made our way down to The New Forest by way of The Grange in Northington, near Alresford in Hampshire. This once grand country estate, now under English Heritage, had clearly seen better days and was under construction but was a very pleasant, peaceful spot and the weather was perfect for a photo shoot with Michael. I managed to sneak into the house unseen where builders were working, grabbed a couple of pics (Urban style) and escaped just in time to not get kicked out!! Meanwhile, Paul, Kris and Karen were having to convince the owner it was not a commercial shoot, despite apparently looking professional. Soon afterwards, we headed off down the road to pretty East Stratton for an excellent lunch. Making our way down to The Hotel we stopped at Furzey Gardens in the New Forest where we came across a fabulous array of brightly coloured flowers and shrubs, a very friendly Robin and three even friendlier Donkeys, one of which seemed to want to get in the car and come with us!

That evening our competition went very well, the judge Paul Bradley from the Isle of Wight seemed a little perplexed by the amount of portraiture on offer that evening, he was clearly much more comfortable with animals and landscapes but nevertheless EHHPS won the PDI’s by 4 points and lost the prints by only half a point, making an overall win by 3.5 points!! A very close run thing.

Our top scorers were in the PDI’s Mike Lloyd with The Fighter, Burgess Taylor with The Butchers, Amanda Hodge with Savannah Elephant and Amanda Wright with Brave Face and in the prints Michael Jaworski with Night Lights and Emmanuel with Time It Is.

After a good nights sleep and hearty Full English we had a brief stop in a garden centre then headed down to the coast at Keyhaven where we took photos of boats and lighthouses for a change, the weather was mixed but stayed dry and mostly warm, another excellent pub lunch and then we headed back to Ealing just in time for our final print comp of the year, exhausted but exhilarated.

More images to follow...