This was the fourth round of the PDI Trophy competition of the season held on March 9th 2026. This round had “Open” as one theme and the other was “Sport”
For each image I had to choose a roughly defined “genre” with the added condition that each submitted image must have a different “genre”.
Jacob Marley
At the Dickens’ Christmas Feast the ghost of Jacob Marley arrives to warn Scrooge of what is to come, with a single chance to avoid the chains and misery after death and to do this he has to listen to three spirits who will visit…
I selected “Portrait” as the genre…
Summary of judge’s comments
…[]
… I am going to treat this as a portrait
… interesting face, coming across [with] personality, seems to have a missing finger
… I like the hand held there I think it adds to the shot
… I like the differential focus , hand slightly out of focus, face sharp
There were 25 images in this Open round and the score was 9.
[[table]]
Sunday training
At the side of the Seine in January this runner came past.
I selected “Sport” as the genre . . .
Summary of judge’s comments
… Interesting treatment, in that you have him almost going of the frame rather than giving him space to move into which would have been the more classic thing to do
… in composition terms I think it works really well
… it looks like the runner is conscious of you taking his picture
… compositionally I like the leaning of the path down the side of the river
… it is not really quite sporty enough for me
… I do quite like it composition though
And on reflection, I have to agree with the judge not really in the spirit of the theme of sport.
There were 24 images in this Sport themed round and the score was 7.5.
[[table]]
The original images
Jacob Marley
Sunday training
URL January Paris workshop