These are exciting times at Wymondham Photographic Society! Three members have had images chosen to be in the Norfolk Wildlife Trust October exhibition at their centre in Cley. Jez Wood and myself (Gavin Bickerton-Jones) had images in the exhibition, and Lydia Taylor not only made the exhibition she also got her mushroom image in the NWT calendar!

Jez also had a squirrel image shortlisted for the Countryfile Calendar, and I have a fox image shortlisted for the British Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award. Regrettably, we cannot yet print the shortlisted images.

My Owl image was taken on the Norfolk Marshes in February. I went over at first light and was disappointed when I saw the mist, but after about 30 minutes, the owl came out to start hunting, and the mist made for an unusual background. The flat light also showed the owl’s feathers really well - worth the early start!

Jez got the dragonfly shot in his pond after a few days waiting to see if it would emerge from the nymph. He caught the moment as it came out.

Lydia was on a walk through the woods with her husband Karl (also a club member) and came across some mushrooms in a nice pool of light. With a good angle to separate from the background, she got the shot. She doesn’t do a lot of nature images and was surprised and delighted to get into the exhibition, and then put forward as one of the 12 images in the calendar!

There were 59 images chosen for the exhibition out of 1100 entries in total, so WPS had 5% of the successful entries! The exhibition is at Cley all through October and then may travel around the region.

WPS were also involved in a ‘Tripod’ competition with two other photo clubs, spread across 3 continents: WPS were involved in a ‘Tripod’ competition with two other photo clubs, spread across 3 continents: Wymondham in the UK, Pikes Peak photo club in the USA, and Adelaide photo club in Australia!

Each club put forward 20 images that were then scored out of 10 by three independent judges, one from each country.

The range of subjects was vast, with geysers in America, sunny, sandy landscapes in Australia, Norfolk and Lake District shots, and numerous wildlife shots featuring some familiar animals to us and some very exotic birds and mammals.

Once we had seen all 60 images and heard the individual scores and judge comments, the final results were declared. In third place was Pikes Peak on 462.5 points, second was Adelaide on 489.5, and 6 points further up the road was WPS with 495.5 points! It was a great win for the club against some tough international competition.

To cap off the result, the top three individual scores from the night went to WPS members, Jez Wood, Lydia Taylor (‘A Living Jewel’) and Gavin Bickerton-Jones, with Jez being the only author to get a maximum 30 points for his Osprey image! Lydia's image is featured here. You can see Jez's Osprey and Gavin’s image here.