Preparing for the annual Show was almost a last minute thing again. It does not help that I have no ink supplies and must rely on printing services in town. It was a rush job to select the entries and my heart knows I might have selected better had I been able to give more consideration to the process.

It cost me £19 for the printing, which was somewhat of a shock. Never mind, I thought, at least the prints will be quality prints. I deliberately chose to do them this way rather than commit them to an Internet company because I expected a real live Human Being to intervene and check things.

In the event, the photographs were put through a kiosk machine!

All the effort that I went to to crop my images for A4 printing was wasted, as the shop actually committed them to 8 * 12. It's my fault I suppose for having elected to use some framed images but they do look awful - with two sides of any framing cut off by the printer.

The borders are odd too. I wish I could have persuaded Lightroom to output borderless prints when I asked for them!

At least the 5 * 7 prints came out reasonably.

Anyway, 'tis done - and I shall know better next year. I certainly shall not be sending off extra A4 prints to choose between - not at that price. I'm just saddened that the ones that I have are not actually fit to frame.

Of the five A4 prints I had done, I elected to use one of the Aurora  Borealis and the view of Kirkwall and St Magnus Cathedral taken from the Earl Thorfinn.

Which do I have hopes for? Well, I believe that the Redpoll photograph will do well in the Wildlife class and perhaps also the Peedie Lodge might be successful in Beautiful Decay. I would like Moon Over Isegarth to be placed in Sanday View too as I am very fond of that image - though a night shot would not please some judges of Sanday View? The A4 view of Kirkwall is lovely but the strange printing may prevent it from doing as well as it might, it now looks unbalanced.

Update on how it went will be available on Friday evening 1st August.