2024-2025 Year End Internal Competition Judges
Our annual awards are based on our external judges’ rankings of all the images that placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd or honourable mention in each category throughout this last year. We sincerely thank our judges listed below for their adjudication of our images. Participation in our competitions is a valuable learning opportunity and the Competition Committee sincerely thanks all those who have participated in this year’s competitions. This has been another year of great images.
Images and judges’ adjudication placements are available on the Victoria Camera Club website.
Click Here: Victoria Camera Club Competitions Results
Leah Gray: Nature
Leah Gray, FCAPA, PPSA, AFIAP, BPSA is a Canadian Association for Photographic Art (CAPA) Certified Judge as well asa Photography Society of America (PSA) judge. She is the past Chair of the Victoria Camera Club (VCC) External Competitions Committee and past webmaster of VCC and CAPA.
Leah Gray has accumulated over 800 acceptances for her images in International Photography Exhibitions including 17 gold medals and 6 Best in Show awards. Leah’s wildlife image “Siblings” won the year-end god medal and best-in-show in the PSA Nature and Wildlife division from International Exhibitions world-wide in 2018.
Interests range from wildlife and landscape photography to sports, travel, macro, studio and creative images. Leah teaches photography with her partner Steve Smith.
“Photography is the culmination of planning, technique, vision, composition and perception, brought together in one instant – with a little (or more) editing.” – Leah Gray
More information about Leah and her photography can be found on her website: https://spirithills.ca/
Leah’s photographs can also be viewed at: https://www.instagram.com/spirithill.ca
Mitch Stringer: Open
Mitch is a freelance photographer and photography instructor in Victoria, British Columbia.
He truly enjoys the entire photographic process from capture, process to print and the constant quest of creating exciting images with each and every new assignment. As photography is his creative passion he has been constantly exploring and improving a diversity of skills, experience, and with each new assignment, creating a strong technical and creative photographic understanding.
Mitch has run many destination workshops to locations around the world. His passion and knowledge of photography have successfully driven over 30 years of teaching experience.
More information can be found on his website: https://www.mitchstringer.ca/
Karen Stoyles: Theme
Karen’s association with the Western Photographic Circle (WPC) since 1987 has given her significant motivation in the pursuit of technical excellence in photographic art through a monthly peer review of prints from many talented fine art photographers from the Lower Mainland.
Karen has been judging at camera clubs, photographic salons and various photographic competitions for over 25 years. She always likes to take the time and encourage photographers with helpful suggestions and positive comments.
More information about Karen and her photography is available on her website: https://www.kastoyles.com/
Gregg Eligh: People
Gregg is a now retired commercial photographer, having worked in Vancouver, Toronto and Victoria since the 70s. His commercial work has been directed towards advertising, editorial, catalogue and corporate assignments.
Occasional teaching, coaching and workshops further developed Gregg’s skills and knowledge as well as contributing to his ‘community’. “Imagination is better than knowledge”.
More information about Gregg and his photography can be found on his website: https://www.elighphoto.com/
Rick Shapka: Altered Reality
After a business career, Rick studied photography at Focal Point and art history at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. He creates photographs of landscapes, wildlife, action, people, macro and abstracted images which he often prints. Rick’s print skills have been honed with workshops in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Rick makes photographs wherever he travels, including Europe and western and southwestern USA.
Since Covid, Rick has taken his third Hummingbird workshop at Bull River BC, followed by a marine mammal trip from Port McNeil and grizzly bear trips to the Khutzeymateen.
Past service on the executive of the Canadian Association for Photographic Art (CAPA) has led to his initial interest and ongoing education as an active CAPA Certified Judge (since 2011). Rick judges for many photographic competitions.
Some of the images on Rick’s website have been printed for a recent group show at ArtSea in Sidney BC along with three other photographers.
Information about Rick and his photography can be found on his website: http://rickshapka.smugmug.com/
Mike Byrne: All Print Categories
Mike is one of the co-founders of Clock Tower Images in Victoria. Growing up in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, he has always pursued outdoor activities. As a natural extension, he started to produce outdoor adventure films and videos. Mike leads international photography workshops with an emphasis on wildlife. He has spoken at Victoria Camera Club’s competition nights regarding the judging of prints as well as conducting workshops on the use of flash in photography.
More information about Mike and his photography can be found on the Clock Tower Images website: https://clocktowerimages.co