Judy Boyle  FRPS FIPF

Judy comes from Creggan, Newry in Northern Ireland and has been involved in photography for over 30 years. A keen monochrome darkroom printer for many years, she was one of the first photographers to embrace the digital era. Judy soon realised that digital has huge potential to unzip her creative artist skills, and her photography moved to a level where she quickly became one of Ireland’s top photographic artists over the past 15 years.

She was awarded 2 Fellowships in one year and has won many awards in National and International photography salons. Judy is a member of the Irish Distinction’s assessment panel and was a member of the RPS Visual Art panel. She has also represented Ireland in photography internationals on over 30 occasions. Judy is a Fotospeed Lecturer and she regularly visits the UK to lecture and judge.

Des Clinton  FRPS MFIAP FIPF

Des has been interested in all categories of still photography for over 30 years. In that time he has documented Ireland and its people extensively with his award winning photography, and has lectured widely in Ireland, UK and further afield. Des still loves print making and is a Fotospeed lecturer. He currently sits on the IPF and RPS distinction panels. Des gained his MFIAP distinction in 2010 in environmental portraiture.

Peter Young  CPAGB APAGB

After many years' practice, Peter achieved a high degree of mediocrity at all ball sports and elected to sublimate his competitive instincts into photography. He had been making photographs for as long as he can remember, first using the family's box camera and then graduating (?) to a Brownie 127 before, in his early teens, moving to 35mm. He was still using 127 film when a fond uncle bought him a B/W processing kit and he never looked back. Peter has always been held in thrall by the slowly emerging image in a dish of print developer.

Although his tastes are catholic, the subjects that he most enjoys are landscape and studio work, particularly nudes.

Having attained many exhibition successes with digital photographs, he decided to return whole-heartedly to his darkroom for the production of B&W prints and will start complaining about level playing fields when he stops getting international acceptances and awards by that method.

Mary Cantrille  FRPS EFIAP MPAGB

Mary took up photography in 1993 after moving to Dorset from Surrey. Having previously known nothing about cameras, F-stops or the art of photography, she set about learning from photographers more knowledgeable than herself. Group workshops and camera club outings were ideal opportunities for learning. As she progressed, she felt the need to test her images by entering for PAGB and RPS qualifications, achieving the MPAGB in 2005 and then gaining a Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2010, both with panels of natural history images.

Birds soon became the focus of interest and, with her husband, she went on gannet and puffin forays, visiting islands around the UK before venturing further afield to Florida for the abundant birdlife to be found there. More recently, she has been bitten by the safari bug and travelled to Namibia and South Africa for photographic expeditions in Etosha and the Kruger National Park. In addition, worldwide travel has been a life-long interest.

She has regularly entered competitions and exhibitions both regional and international, gaining considerable success with her images and has recently been awarded the qualification of EFIAP.

Liz Cutting  ARPS DPAGB

Liz found an evening class at a local school in autumn 1994 offering a short course on black and white film processing and printing. It was very basic but by the end of the course, she had purchased a set of second-hand darkroom gear (British-made and metal, so clearly quite old) and joined her local camera club. For about 10 years, she concentrated on landscapes or landscape elements plus some travel and environmental portraits. She worked almost exclusively in monochrome, but says that an occasional transparency film passed through her camera.

Liz bought her first digital camera in 2004 but film continued as her main medium for another couple of years. By 2007, her darkroom was all but abandoned. Initially her digital photography was diverse. After changing from working a ridiculous number of hours for an energy company to working part time and volunteering for a conservation organisation, her childhood interest in the natural world was re-awakened. For the last three/four years, Liz has concentrated primarily on nature photography, especially birds.

Liz is proud to be a founder member of the Beyond Group, which has been instrumental in helping her improve her photography.

Terry Wall  EFIAP/p DPAGB

Terry was born and bred in Birmingham and remembers vividly the day his Grandpa put a Box Brownie camera into his hand and took him off on the bus to Dudley Zoo. The next day the magic began: down in the shed at the bottom of the garden Grandpa Ridley set up an impromptu darkroom and Terry will never forget that first image coming up in the dish of developer. No wonder he has a passion for elephants! A wildlife photographer was born!

Following in the family footsteps, Terry worked at Land Rover for 38 years and then in 1998 he returned from his first wildlife trip to the States, arriving back at work a day late. "Terry", said his young boss, "You know this hobby of photography? Well, how do you fancy doing it full time?" Returning home to his partner Wendy he showed her the figures for a redundancy package, to which she responded, "When are you leaving?"

Terry has now been freelancing full-time as a wildlife photographer, travelling all over the world for the last 13 years. He has been an avid supporter of international exhibitions, having got hooked after his first entry into Handsworth Photographic Society Annual Exhibition in 1989, winning a Gold Medal. Within 8 years he had obtained both the AFIAP and EFIAP distinctions. He went on to gain a further total of 1106 acceptances in FIAP exhibitions with 291 new pieces of work and 80 awards. His top awards comprise 9 Gold Medals, 4 Best in Nature and 1 overall Best in Show. Twenty years after starting competitive photography, he was awarded the coveted EFIAP Platinum, only 1 of 12 people from the UK to achieve this in the last 25 years.

A natural teacher and born story teller, the only thing that Terry likes better than giving illustrated wildlife talks is to be off travelling with his camera bag.