With most people carrying around a mobile phone, and most mobile phones having a camera, it seemed apt to adopt the Chase Jarvis phrase ‘the best camera is the one you have with you‘, so in 2021 we invited Laura Pearce to do a critique evening of our smart phone photographs.  From this we were encouraged to really use smart phones (and tablets) as cameras, but also differently from our traditional cameras.  Small, versatile and unobtrusive, there were plenty of images to be snapped that probably could not be achieved with a DSLR or even a compact camera.

A year on and Laura returned to judge our first Smart Phone and Tablet competition.  Our only rule was that images had to be taken on such a device, so editing was encouraged, if required, and the images were presented as pdi’s.

34 entires were received and duly judged, with Laura pleased that we were embracing mobile phone photography and she again commented that they were great for both reference shots and proper images.

7 images were held back, the following achieving scores of 9.5 ;

• I Got the Ball by Colin Sansom
• Rockley Common by Debbie Davies
• Take a Break by Stephanie Selwyn
• Sleeping Prickles by Melissa Young

And the winning image

• Barley Awns by Rachel Cooper