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Club Comps
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Was just wondering what people thought about club competitions within Ireland. I find it that environmental portraits seem to have the upper hand with judges. For a landscape to beat an environmental portrait it has to be really be out of this world IMO. A judge last week revealed that he was sick of landscapes and in General marked them down( not 1 got over 17 points). Another judge said of a seascape image, ” people seem to think if you put slow shutter speeds in seascapes and include some rocks that you get an winning image, which is not true”. Then he gave a pretty good seascape 15 points. I find that to do well in competitions you be better of forgetting about landscapes/still life/ street photography as portraits always get points at the higher end of table. whats it been like for ye?
I would tend to agree. I don’t shoot landscapes but I find current landscape & seascape images have the same old feel to them. A rock leading the eye out to sea with a ND filter attached with the same results but a different scene. I find landscapes the same, consisting mainly of a mountain scene reflecting in a lake or river. There are of course the obvious exceptions! I tend to agree that a portraiture will always score better in a club competition, not that I’ve always done well but I think there is a more judgmental critique of the image on offer. A little more of an in depth analysis of it.
I’m another non shooter of landscapes & TBH I usually find them repetitive. The same techniques used again & again. The use of ND filters with slow shutter speeds or the use of HDR which is mostly used OTT. Also, I find the use of wide angle lenses or more so ultra wide angle lenses in landscapes, just doesn’t work for me personally, unless they have been used “creatively”.
I’ve rarely seen vistas which captivate me for more than just a few seconds & even rarer to see one that covers a very wide area. I prefer when a photographer captures something from within the overall scene that he or she was attracted to in the first place, such as an oddly shaped tree with the mountains etc in the background, but with the tree dominating the scene.
I think that portraits offer the viewer “a connection” with the person being photographed & therefore holds their attention on an emotional level, even if you don’t know the person. Also, the photographer has to capture something of the persons character & personality if the portrait is to succeed.
These are only my feelings & are not an attack on landscape photographers. Some landscapes are excellent, but I find them few & far between, even though it is probably the most popular genre on this site. I must admit that I often skip “new posts” if they are under the landscape heading & this is mainly due to seeing the same techniques being overly used.I take club competitions with a grain of salt. In fairness to the judges it’s not an easy job and probably a thankless one too. However I could write a book of ridiculous comments which judges have uttered over the years.
There definitely are fashions in photographs submitted and fashions in what is popular with judges. Often it’s the luck of the draw with regard to the areas of expertise/interest of the judge on the night. For instance a fantastic and difficult macro shot may not get the recognition it deserves one night, but could have been the winner another.
While I can see there must be an element of genre fatigue, a club competition should really embrace all disciplines and interests of its members. It would be a shame if people submitted pictures because they are on trend, rather than what they are passionate about photographing.
A sense of humour and a thick skin are required in these matters!
Thanks for your views guys. Landscape wud be my preference towards photography although i do life fine art, still life and some portraits. I have been doing well in the club competitions but have found in general the environmental portraits getting 19’s and 20’s alot. Dont get me wrong, i like them too, but after a while an old romanian woman standing in a shed with all her belongings can get repetitive too. I just think that photography is such a wide range of subjects that a judge should judge the photos individually and not compare a good landscape to a good Portrait and Knock the points of the subject he/she doesnt shoot. Sports photography, i find, doesnt seem to get a fair shout either. Only my thought, and i hope some day i find an open minded judge to appreciate all works of photography. :)
I don’t think you’ll find one S’
We all have our likes & dislikes, even the judges!interesting conversation. I’m not in a camera club so i dunno what the judges are like but visual art is and always will be a matter of opinion. if you’ve seen loads of things that look the same you’re gonna find them boring even if the one in front of you is a very good example… i guess a successful environmental portrait expresses the unique nature of the individual and is therefore more captivating…. it will also contain some form of narrative and provoke active thought and imagination beyond what is shown in the frame.
i know but its kind of gone to the stage where landscape photography doesnt fit into competitions anymore, which in my opinion is a great loss. I have printed 10 pics for a comp for next week, and have only printed 2 landscapes. I, been a landscape photographer, have had to hold back on the subject i love, to try and compete with environmental portraits( if ya cant beat them-join them). Anyways, i will still continue my landscape photography dream as i love been out an about in this beautiful country. Thanks for the comments.
if you enjoy it then follow your passion. id imagine at the end of the day that regardless of how the judges might feel you’d still have a lot more people buying landscapes that environmental portraits!
I agree with Isabella. Don’t hold back from the subject that you enjoy photographing. I think the problem here is that the judges are being influenced by their own personal preferences rather than judging images on its’ merits and technical ability. There should be a panel of judges who shoot different genres and can appreciate how much effort, skill & creativity was involved in capturing the image. An image that is nice visually, may not necessarily be the image that best shows the skill of the photographer.
Recently in my workplace, there was an exhibition of photojournalism, which I personally found some of the images were not to my taste & were not much better than snapshots that someone could have captured using a P&S. I found that some did nothing for me & unless they had a catchy title, or that I could relate to the story behind them, I couldn’t really appreciate them.
There were also some images there, which instantly showed the skills of the photographer & which really impressed me. No catchy titles were needed to tell the story, the images spoke for themselves.
I enjoy shooting macro, but I find that people in general don’t like looking at bugs & insects, but they are usually impressed with the skill used to capture the images.
I’m not competitive & don’t tend to enter any competitions. I’m not in a camera club either, so I’m probably not the best person to be commenting on how they are run or how they should be run, but if you feel that they are unfair because of the judges preferences, then maybe you should suggest a theme based competition, where it would be run over time & involve different genres each time, to be judged overall.Sirvad, I find that in my camera club you get many of the ‘nice’ landscape photos described. They’re technically brilliant but after a while I get bored with swirling water and moody skies. Same goes with long-exposure waterfalls! Mind you, I’d find them very technically challenging myself.
My own preference would be for landscapes but I love portraits, especially in monochrome. Even there, so many club members seem to go off on holiday to Asia or Africa and get shots of poor, toothless—but colourful—elderly people or children.
Maybe the thing is to try to do something different things with landscapes or portraits.
As for judges, we had one recently who praised some shots and then gave them a low mark! Another one before that actually mocked some of the photos. It’s all very subjective.
It’s a great question. I am not very experienced in club competitions but I do have some.
At the moment if you want to win something you need to fly off to somewhere in deep eastern Europe and find a family who live in a house that also houses animals and ask them to look as miserable as possible then you are onto a winner. Alternatively get a daughter or niece to pose for you as a miserable Irish Orphan or stroll through a forest with a bunch of flowers in their hands. If you were thinking of old houses
that is so yesterday as is pictures of India.
I think the problem with club or interclub competitions is that the judges have seen it all. They are looking for something they can relate to as comfortable but different. There is a huge clique element. Certain photographers work is very well known and have a particular style which is judged highly no matter what. Many fine photographs are completely ignored as seen before – which isn’t fair on those photographs.
Other photos which I consider don’t have much merit score very highly until lots of others people copy it and then it becomes passe.
I must say the standard is very high in club competitions but the judging is very subjective.
It has really impressed me.
There are alot of excellent Polish and Russian photographers who are really breaking through by their technical skill and alternative vision.
They excel in high fashion shots.
I’d agree at times there is a fair amount of sneering at certain types of photographs. Often it’s very dismissive.
The judging of the L, A and F panels is relatively fair but it also has anomalies and you have an advantage if one of the judges is from your club as there can be “Group Think” which is influenced by your’s clubs judge.They also hang on “overexposure” or “lack of sharpness” as reasons to mark down even though alot of the most famous photos suffer from the same thing. I would think judging is quite difficult and it’s hard to get around your prejudice and you would tire of seeing the same sort of photo. What they would have thought of wonderful at the start they now find boring. This is especially the case with Landscapes. They could do with seeing photographs through eyes a newbie and rediscover what made them like photography again.It’s not easy to ignore a bad mark from a judge in a competition but I think I have to keep it in perspective. What makes their judgement much better than yours. Better to enjoy your own work and strive to improve. A competition is not necessarily a measure of how good you are. I know a few professionals who scoff at the IPF and what they are up to. They think they do not really understand photography as an art.
In general people in the IPF are very helpful and free with sharing knowledge. There is great comradery but also fierce competition and jealousy. They all watch each others work and what’s trending in terms of winning.
They are also in a creative bubble and with a “Group Think” mentality.
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