Catch. The moment at which the spoon of the blade is immersed in the water and propulsive force applied. Immersion and force application should be indistinguishable actions.

Every year my local camera club, Crossbow (Frampton Cotterell), competes with two others, Thornbury and Chipping Sodbury & Yate, in a ‘three-way battle’. The clubs take it in turn to run the event, choose the date, venue, and host the results evening. The last time we were able to hold the event, prior to Covid and lockdowns, Thornbury chose the Bristol waterfront on a Sunday in May for the ‘shoot-off’.

On the given day, at any time, as many members of each club as are available make their way to the venue and take their pictures, some go at dawn, some at dusk and some at more sensible hours, but always with the aim of taking something different, striking and unusual. Once the pictures are taken, members show their best at a club meeting and twenty five are selected to represent the club in the battle at a later date.

Speaking with a friend about what he was doing that particular weekend, I discovered he was a gig rower and would be out and about in the docks, early on the Sunday morning. I decided I would get up early, too, and see if I could get some decent pictures of the gigs and what went on in the docks before it got too busy with the public and other photographers.

On arrival at the boathouse, the first people I met were Steve Burnside and Len Collacott, Old Colstonians, who were going to be rowing in another gig. They were surprised to see me at such an early hour (7.30), but when I explained why I was there, Steve suggested I join them, as a passenger, in their gig and take some pictures while they rowed.

This seemed too good an opportunity to miss, so once they were ready, I jumped in and off we went, my camera at the ready. It took a while to get used to the jerkiness of the boat with the crew pulling on the oars and I needed to make adjustments to my camera settings to avoid all my pictures being out of focus and not composed properly. Once sorted, I began to enjoy the ride and take pictures of Bristol’s landmarks from different perspectives to the ones I have been used to, previously.

Steve and company rowed for about an hour and left me to, happily, click away and get my shots. Once back at the boathouse, with Steve and Len preparing for more rowers to join the training, I took my leave and shot more photos from more conventional, land based, positions.

Over the next couple of weeks, I edited my shots and presented them, with all the others taken by club members, so the club could decide on the most varied and interesting twenty five images to go forward to the final judging against the other clubs. You would not be surprised, with a ‘committee’ of about eighteen members, how difficult it is to select twenty five from somewhere around the three hundred or so that were presented!

Eventually the best shots were selected and, later in the year, the three clubs got together, in the presence of an external judge to hear how they had got on and what the judge thought about all the individual entries. The result is easily achieved. Every picture is displayed by projector onto a large screen, in random order and with no one knowing which club took the picture. The judge gives each image a mark of between one twenty points, the average being around fourteen or fifteen. The club with the highest score from their twenty five photographs wins.

Sadly, Crossbow, didn’t win this time but, on the up side, my shot entitled A Good Catch, was one of only two pictures that received the maximum score of twenty – another good shot? The shot of an oar, as it entered the water, turned black and white with a little extra contrast, gave the judge that little bit extra that none of the other photographers were able to give. This shows that having an organisation like the OC’s, with a network of friendly people who are always willing to help a fellow OC achieve their goal, is irreplaceable and worth becoming involved with, because you never know when it can be very useful!

Here are a few of the shots I took, not necessarily ones that were entered in the competition, but just to help show what a beautiful city Bristol is.