ImageZ competitions for 2012/2013 season
Through out the season we have competitions for our members to take part in. As a club that embraces digital photography we have both printed image and projected image competitions. We have the league based ImageZ Club Challenge and three other “winner on the night” competitions during the season.
These competitions are for the clubs members, and therefore only members who have paid their annual membership subscriptions are allowed to enter images in the club competitions. Competitions fill up the whole evening session to allow members and judges to review and critique images submitted.
2012/13 competition schedule
- 25 September 2012 – ImageZ Club Challenge #1 – Summer & Open
- 9 October 2012 – ImageZ Club Challenge #2 – Night & Open
- 6 November 2012 – Print competition – Movement (no open section)
- 4 December 2012 – ImageZ Club Challenge #3 – Past & Open
- 8 January 2013 – ImageZ Club Challenge #4 – Wild & Open
- 5 February 2013 – Projected digital competition – Front cover (no open section)
- 5 March 2013 – ImageZ Club Challenge #5 – Digital & Open
- 2 April 2013 – ImageZ Club Challenge #6 – Grey & Open
- 7 May 2013 – Print competition – Three (no open section)
ImageZ Club Challenge
This is a “league competition” that comprises six separate rounds with points from each round counting to determine the winner of the ImageZ Club Challenge trophy. The person most likely to win this major competition is the member who enters each of the six rounds.
Entries for the competition are submitted as digital files to the Internal Competition Secretary, this keeps the cost of competing down since you don’t need to prepare or purchase prints and mounts.
At each round there is a set “theme” and an “open” category of competition. Members can submit up to three images in total for each round. This could be one in the open category, and two in the “theme” category -OR- two in the open and one in the “theme” section. You can also choose to enter just two pictures, one in each category. The best score from the theme and the best score from the open category at each round are used to determine the score for that round.
2012/13 Themes
- Summer
- Night
- Past
- Wild
- Digital
- Grey
Winner on the night competitions
These three competitions award a winner on the night, the judge will score all pictures and the top scoring images are then shortlisted for the judge to select the best of the competition. There is a trophy for each winner of these competitions.
You can enter up to three entries for each of these competitions. Print titles must be sent to the internal competition secretary before the competition. In the event of over 80 entered images we will have to cut the third entry from each members entry, please make sure you identify your third entry.
2012/13 Themes
- Movement (P)
- Front cover (D)
- Three (P)
(P) – print competition
(D) – projected digital competition
Answers to some of the questions you may be asking before entering a competition
Projected digital images
You need to send them to the club’s internal competition secretary by midnight on the Saturday before the competition on a Tuesday. This gives the competition secretary the chance to load the images to the laptop and warn the judge about how many pictures they will have to judge. More information about the process for submitting entries is on the website too.
Prints
You need to inform the club internal competition secretary how many prints you will be entering in the competition, and the title(s) of the images by midnight Saturday before the competition on a Tuesday. You need to bring the entries on the night of the competition or make arrangements with the competition secretary or other members to bring them on the night for you.
Deadlines for entries
All entries must be sent (or title sent in the case of print competitions) to the Internal Competition Secretary by midnight on the Saturday before a competition on a Tuesday.
In the case of the ImageZ Club Challenge the scores will count from the two remaining entries, which must be one from the open category and one in the “theme” category.
Members enjoy the creative challenge of taking a concept and shooting pictures to match it. We find the the traditional camera club categories such as portrait, landscape and still-life are not inspiring our best pictures so we use “themes”. If we choose a “theme” such as BLUE it gives photographers the chance to interpret and be more creative with their pictures. Blue may be the blue sky in a landscape, it might be a blue racing car, someone looking sad or even a blue steak!
Competitions are available for all members, they provide a method to get valid assessment of the photos you produce. By entering our competitions the pictures are judged with the other members and scores awarded, but usually the most valuable part is listening to someone appraising your picture as they see it. Members can use competitions to get their work reviewed.
As with many creative endeavours one persons “outstanding work” is another persons “it’s ok”, but you soon get to see what draws people to recognise the best pictures.
Projected images
We use a high resolution projector for our competitions with 1400 pixels wide, and 1050 pixels tall. You need to resize your image to fit within these dimensions. However images do not need to be exactly 1400 x 1050 pixels, portrait images may be 700 pixels wide by 1050 pixels tall. Please check out the article on resizing images for digital projection elsewhere on our site.
Printed images
Printed competitions are for mounted prints only, please ensure that any mounts are no larger than 50cm x 40cm (20 x 16 inches) please.
Indeed we do cater for beginners. Specifically we are one of the few clubs to offer a dedicated workshop for new photographers trying to understand how cameras take pictures, but only photographers make pictures.
We have decided not to separate beginners, intermediate and advanced photographers in to separate classes for competitions. We have discussed and debated this several times, and there’s no correct way to determine if someone is a beginner or more advanced photographer; we have seen new photographers win competitions outright in their first year in the club. If it’s by choice then the option for an advanced photographer to elect for beginner status and win everything is there; many other clubs keep the levels for a whole season. Also for someone to elect for the advanced level only to get discouraged if they are not doing as well as expected is a possibility. The club committee have considered and experimented with various methods of “playing field levelling” with handicapping like in golf, using success ballast like in motor racing but as yet nothing really fits. Discussion with other clubs that do have separate classes for competitions also shows that this is a hugely contentious area. It seems that in reality there is no right answer.
By entering competitions with an equal chance and having critique and scoring by qualified judges we hope that members will see how they might improve their photography in the future.
Members are invited to submit this as a topic at the club’s annual general meeting (typically in April / May), or with the chairman if they feel that it needs to be revisited.
Other competitions
We also compete with other clubs in the Chilterns Association of Camera Clubs, mostly through the annual Rosebowl competition.