Club Competitions - General Information
For all months other than December, our Club holds 3 photographic competitions. At least three times a year these competitions involve entries on a "set subject" involving photographs taken on a particular theme or method.
As of April 2021, the "competition month" is the month that the image scores and critiques are presented to the members. Prior to this time the competition month was the month that the images were actually submitted which is the month prior to presentation.
Our three regular monthly Competitions are:
- Digitally Projected Image
- Open Print
- Small Print
Our November competition (Kay Mack Memorial Trophy) is a monochrome competition. The number of entries for Small Print, Open Print and Digitally Projected Image is increased to 4 from the normal 3. The winner of the Kay Mack Memorial Trophy will be the image which is deemed by the Judge/Judges to be the best image overall. Honours and Merits still apply.
- Digitally Projected Image - Monochrome
- Open Print - Monochrome
- Small Print - Monochrome
In December we hold 5 annual competitions.
- Open Print Of The Year. (Entries from the previous 12 months Open Print competitions.)
- Small Print Of The Year. (Entries from the previous 12 months Small Print competitions.)
- Projected Image Of The Year. (Entries from the previous 12 months Digitally Projected Image competitions.)
- Landscape/Seascape Print
- Landscape/Seascape Projected Image.
The members enter their work into the relevant competition on Visual Pursuits (This web site) prior to close of business, Sunday following the prior monthly meeting. Print copies are to be submitted to the Competition Steward at the prior month's meeting. The Competition Steward collects the prints, collates them in preparation for the judging panel or external judge.
Between meetings a judging panel (Often made up of club members), consisting of at least three judges (or a single judge in the case of an invited external judge) meets and reviews each entry and agree on comments regarding the artistic and technical merits of the photograph. Each judge then awards the photograph a score out of 15, which they will enter into the competition software (Visual Pursuits) that is then averaged by the system software. The Competition Steward will then allocate the awards to the relevant entries.
The monthly competition awards are: score 12-13 = "Merit Certificate", score 14-15 = "Honour Certificate"
At the monthly Club meeting each entry is displayed and one of the judges relays the comments for that entry. The task of commenting is generally shared amongst the judges.
We use Club members to judge other members photographs. These members have agreed to do this and have observed at least one judging meeting prior to ‘qualifying’ as a judge. Up to four members participate on the judging panel at any one time – the Panel Co-ordinator, two other club members and an observer. The Panel Co-ordinator and the two other members then present their comments and scores at the Club’s monthly meeting. The observer does not have to do this as they are learning how to undertake Club judging duties.
Each judging panel consists of different club members taken from those that have the necessary experience to undertake the role.
The Judging Panel Co-ordinator role is shared among six experienced members, who are appointed by the Committee for a three-year term on a rotating basis.
We often invite visiting speakers to present at our monthly Club meeting. At the same time, we may ask them to also undertake the judging duties for our monthly competition. If they agree to do this, we supply them with an outline of the way we organise our judging, and recommendations for scoring our images, so that they can understand "the way we do things".