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McNamee's Convention Walkabout - part 1 of 1 2

by Mike McNamee Published 02/02/2015

McNamee's Convention Walkabout (with Aled Oldfield on camera)

As ever, the Convention was a frantic mix of judging, meeting and socialising (in no particular order as they say on Strictly!). Friday was extremely busy, too much to walk about comfortably but great for the punters and trade. I even managed to get to a few lectures: Domenic Aquilina, Sanjay Jogia and a small portion of The Maltese Way. Like everybody else, much time was spent dazed and confused by the sheer scale of events, although the coloured feet on the floor were a real boon for those with a poor sense of direction.

Wednesday and Thursday were devoted to Business School, 16x20 Judging and Qualifications. The 16x20 attracted a strong entry, particularly the Nouveau, but there were always a fine array of finalists to pick through at the end. Qualifications saw lots of joy and a little occasional disappointment but, as ever, the successful fellowship panels were a delight to behold. For Nathan Wake, in particular, a nice surprise was in store, the assessors took a timeout during their deliberations of his Licentiateship panel and came back in with the unanimous award of an Associateship - and very well deserved it was too!

The number of submissions for Fellowship Qualification, which is the highest photographic accolade that can be achieved by submission of printed images, saw a dramatic increase on previous years and produced four successful panels from: Tracy Willis FSWPP, Christina Lauder FSWPP, Lesley Wood FSINWP and James Musselwhite FSWPP - Associate Qualifications also were achieved by Michelle Whitmore ASWPP, Nathan Wake ASINWP and Kevin Mullins ASWPP.

Around the Trade Show the new Epson Surecolour P600 was on view, its first UK showing following its arrival on these shores. This is an A3+ printer using the Vivid Magentas Range ink set but has an extra dense black to pump the Dmax up to an astonishing 2.86. It uses the 25.9ml cartridges for its 10 inks and has a footprint of 616w x 369d x 228mm high. It is a replacement for the R3000 and certainly has an advanced specification. We managed to pump out a quick audit print and although we will come back to the topic in a later issue, the initial indications are extremely good. Calling in at Bob Campbell's stand for an update about onOne software (again more on that in a later issue) we were taken with the two camera bag ranges that BMM now distribute. The Oberwerth bags are a traditional canvas/leather combination that is very stylish and will surely attract attention from the increasing number of photographers who are using the smaller lighter compact system cameras (and, dare we say it, the ladies, they love a nice bag!). They may be seen at www.oberwerth.de and can be obtained via di@bmmphoto.co.uk. We also spotted BMM's range of outdoor, rucksack camera bags which are quite like the f-stop range but more competitively priced.

Fotospeed were showing two new papers, tagged with the names of Joe Cornish and Charlie Waite respectively. We also got our hands on their test pack of panorama papers. This 24-piece test pack is a real beauty for the pan-maker containing:

PF Lustre 275; PF Gloss 270; Platinum Baryta 300; Photo Smooth Pearl 290 Platinum Etching 285 and Smooth Cotton 300 in an 81⁄4 by 231⁄4-inch format. We will issue a full test report in the next Imagemaker but you might also visit the Fotospeed website and download their new catalogue - we reproduce the relevant page three here.

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1st Published 02/02/2015
last update 09/12/2022 15:00:09

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