Fed Up With 'Camera Club Judges' --

elmarman

elmarman

Bail out the Brits too !
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At Brentwood & District Photographic Club here in ESSEX England several members have LEFT THE CLUB due to stupid Critiques by Competition Judges ! We had one Woman Judge say about a Street Photo of a Protester " all I can see is his Adams Apple - it needs to be Cloned Out" -- Many Judges just cannot see 'FILM IMAGES' and say stupid things when it is a Film Negative in an Enlarger !! I have to get my Mates to say " It is FILM" to remind the Judge , but now we have had Judges come who admit they have NEVER taken a FILM Photo and NEVER ben in a darkroom or know anything about Film Processing !!
 
Agreed, I quit before digital. They follow set rules. One member made the print viewing box which was supposed to be a certain brightness, and it was 1+ EV brighter. His Cibachrome prints looked great, mine looked terrible. I refuse to make special dark prints for competition.
 
Suggesting that a photograph should be digitally manipulated in a photography competition should get the judge banned.
 
Every camera club I've ever been to or seen has been much the same: almost everything is macro or bird photographs, maybe the odd badly-lit portrait, and everything is digital and HEAVILY over-processed.

I went to a local one not long after I moved to the South of England. First week there I mentioned I used film - this was about ten years ago - and everyone there was basically laughing saying it's too slow, too low-quality, you need auto-focus, 8fps motor drives, LCD displays to chimp with, etc.

The next week I took in a scan of a shot I'd taken with a Yashica 24 for the member's show-and-tell thing, and described how I saw the shot coming, and set the exposure, focus and framing in less than a second while holding up this "antiquated and useless" TLR.


Venturing into the mist. by Tony Gale, on Flickr

I don't think I went back.
 
A few years back, we tried a new "hybrid" category in our Juried Photo exhibit, the idea being that the photographer/artist could experiment and try something new. A friend of mine is an artist (pastel) and asked me to photograph a local model wearing a white gown. I did, and printed that image onto special "rag" paper, which she could be draw on. She then took this photo, and applied pastels to it, being true to the photograph, but making the image look like a soft, dreamy. It was really quite effective and a striking image. The judge marked the image down because it was "soft and fuzzy." Apparently he didn't even read the description card placed directly beneath the image describing what was done. The winning picture was that of a chickadee.

Jim B.
 
Years ago - before Digital - a friend brought me to a meeting of a local Camera Club.

Apparently, at every meeting they had a judged contest. It seemed to me that anything that didn't personally appeal to the judges' sense of style or taste was dismissed as "photojournalism" and didn't even get a second glance. To this day I still don't understand what they were looking for to elevate a photo out of the tacky depths of what they so callously wrote off as photojournalism.
 
Almost by definition, competitions are designed to reward those who follow the rules, and the rules are made and enforced by those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of superficial images that challenge no one, including their makers. Don't look to others for validation of your vision, unless they are people who know and understand your work, and, most importantly, the history and challenges of photographic seeing.
 
When I was a member and Past President of Barking Photographic Society we had one of The Old School members George Guy who was about 70 years old and he insisted that Photo Clubs were for 'Pictorial Photography' -- anything like 'Street' or 'Action' was OUT -- luckily we got a new Chairman in with 'More Modern Thinking' and 'Press Photos ' were allowed ! Now in Brentwood the winners are nearly all 'carefully controlled images' mostly shot indoors at home and PhotoShopped for 5 hours -- my outdoor ones under some difficult conditions never win !
 
I’m in a group that is not a camera club. The idea of competitions and trying to win reminds me of the convergence pressure of something like Instagram. It is antithetical to so much of what is worth doing in photography. Picasso and Matisse had a certain rivalry but there was deep respect. No thought of one of them being the winner.
 
Last time I joined a photography group I had mostly positive experience. There was a sense of appreciation for other people's work and people always posed interesting questions. Sadly I didn't continue due to family commitments and later on the club was dissolved as the chap running it passed away.

But it took a lot of courage to go there- my previous experience with a photography club was atrocious. I joined it back in my country, they asked for 300 euros to display 20 of my pictures, they did not show up on two occasions and eventually they said that my pictures were not up to their standards and wanted my to go 50-50 with another group member. Most of their pictures were taken in Japan in a trip partially subsidised by the state. They described their pictures as "experimental". They didn't need to go to Japan for that. Anyway I ended up leaving and I think I prefer not joining any clubs.
 
I think the nature of camera clubs, no matter the location, have simply become competitions. Competitions for the most votes, meaning as someone said bird and flower photos or the best post card looking image that defines the rule of thirds or any other none existent requirements of quality artistic photographs. That said...Some reviewers are trying to be too polite in their critisism and so they foster more mediocre images. Some photographers can not handle constructive criticism. Even if it meant to improve their photography. If you are comfortable with your own photographs and you are your harshest critic, then perhaps it's time to enjoy the social and perhaps technical discussions at the camera club and leave the competitions behind.
 
I think there’s an unconscious reason a lot of these organizations call themselves “camera” clubs and not “photography” clubs.

I have not nor will ever join one - for many of the reasons cited previously.

Though I’d be fine with a club where people talked just about cameras and nothing else.
 
A long time ago I entered a local newspaper photo contest, I submitted a waterlily pond picture reminiscent of a Monet painting. I won second place, a portrait picture of a baby won first place (I think the judges were Mothers 🙂). I was thrilled to take second place, the prize was an inexpensive gift coupon; the whole experience was a lot of fun. A few days later when I went to pick up the gift coupon and my picture the newspaper editor said she liked my picture so much that she'd like to buy it to hang on her wall. I was so flattered - I gave her the picture and walked out of her office with my cheap coupon and a huge smile on my face.

I'm not the kind of person that joins clubs of any kind. I did enjoy my old days when I had some photography buddies to go out on photo excursions with. One of my friends was a real tech savvy guy when it came to cameras but had zero imagination when it came to composing a good picture. He'd just follow me around and take a picture of whatever I took a picture of; no problem, he was my friend. I don't have any photo buddies now to share with, fortunately for me the RFF exists and gives me a place and people to share with.

Sorry for rambling on, this thread stirred up some old memories.

All the best,
Mike
 
Interesting stories, guys! I recall being a member of Boeing employees camera club briefly around 1970+-. They had a print/slide competition each monthly meeting. I found my photos of local subject matter did not do as well as photos of exotic locations (at the time I had not long before lived for 18 months near Izmir Turkey and traveled around the area a bit). After I noticed that these exotic locations raised the score, even over better recent local photos, I lost respect for the judging and faded away.

On the other hand, we had a small club here in the small rural city where I now live, no competitions but we did "photo walks" and often a member would put on a presentation on some aspect of their work. I recall doing a presentation on rangefinder cameras, which no one else there used! Very nice comfortable group but when the one who arranged things moved away nobody stepped forward to carry on.
 
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