Is a camera club worth it?

[photog01]

I have thought that participation in a camera club ‘competition’ would help me to make ‘better’ photos.

I joined a club reputed to be the oldest camera club in the USA. I sat through a few photo judgings and left depressed. There seemed to be no rules, pattern, or consistency to the evaluations of the images. There was no feedback about the pluses or minuses of an image. The judges made their decision in 5 seconds or less. So I had only 5 seconds to identify the basis for their decisions. Their decisions seemed based on, “Do I like this?” It seemed like if the photo was like something they were familiar with, the photo got a good rating. If not, then the rating was questionable.

Since there was no feedback, the judgings were of little help. However, I wanted to see if there was validity to their scoring.

To test the quality of the judgings, I was tempted to submit a great but little known photo from an outstanding photographer. The club did the task for me.

I attended a presentation by the club’s competition chair on the basis and method by which photos were judged.

To begin she presented briefly a list of the usual 8 or 9 elements to be sought in a good photo. She explained how the judges reviewed these elements in 15 seconds to arrive at their decisions. I had never seen more than five seconds spent in arriving at a score.

Next, in a querulous manner she presented the attached photo by Harry Callahan. She questioned how this photo could be selling for $10,000. She would expect the photo to be rated a 3 or maybe(?) a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5. Certainly not a 5.

Competition chair seemed unaware that this photo is part of the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. You know right there along with other ‘wantabes’ like Ansel Adams, Georgia O’Keeffe, Grant Wood, Edward Hopper, Picasso, whoever. Currently the photo is featured on the intro page to the institute’s photo collection. I guess they still like it.

This test served to convince me that club competitions would not help me grow. Rather the clubs I had attended were social groups brought together by photography. There was no objective of improving members skills.

It is easy for me to see how a club would like to be selective about its members. I have been told by professionals that they participate only in informal peer selected groups. Groups of people who agree what is a good photo and who want to share solid feedback and suggestions.

The work of Harry Callahan in the Chicago Art Institute

 

[davidedric]

In my neck of the woods, the judge gets the images a week before competition night, reaches his conclusions, and then explains why on the night.

Doesn't always go down well, of course.

I suspect that at least some of the time you are learning to produce images that please judges, but it does make me more careful - no-one likes to have their work rubbished in public.

Dave

 

[Krusty79]

TBH, that shot by Callahan does not do anything for me, but what do I know? I don't understand how the works of Andreas Gursky command so much money - I don't get his work either. I've seen shots that have won or been finalists in contests that I would have immediately deleted if I had taken it. Photography is so subjective, I don't try to shoot what I think some judge will like since I have no clue what they like sometimes! I just shoot to please myself and if some judges happen to like it too, then fine.

 

[hotdog321]

It really depends on the camera club. Sounds like you got involved in a club that does not meet your needs. I'd try another.

I've judged and spoken at several Houston area clubs over the years and am really startled at the high level of photographic expertise from many of the members. Personally, I LOVE discussing the pros and cons of specific images and getting feedback from the photographer and other club members. Heck, I'm not god's gift to photography--sometimes someone points out some aspect I totally overlooked and I need to do a quick reevaluation.

What drives me crazy is how good most of these photographers are. It's a snap to judge an amateur image with multiple flaws--composition, PP, exposure, depth of field, flare, etc. etc. It's really hard to separate one superb image from another and try to award ribbons.

 

[tonywh]

Good camera clubs are very worth it.

You may have to go to a few clubs to find the one that suits your temprement.

In current camera club competitions the image you exampled would score low. When it was taken it was innovative. With modern equipment and the experiance of those who went before better images are been produced every day.

 

[Chris R-UK]

In my neck of the woods, the judge gets the images a week before competition night, reaches his conclusions, and then explains why on the night.

This is how our club operates and I think is standard for club competitions in the UK. The judge will typically talk for about a minute on each image.

As Dave has indicated, there are good judges and bad judges. There are judges who like my work and others who don't (they are the bad ones of course :-D ). I think that just displaying your images to other club members via competitions is important and the feedback from them is often more useful than from the judge.

Overall I have learnt a huge amount from club competitions and the discipline of taking and preparing my images for the competitions has definitely improved my photography. We also have informal critique evenings when we discuss our images in small groups and that can be very useful as well.

We have one very eminent photographer in our club, ex-president of the Royal Photographic Society, ex-chairman of the London Salon, served for a long time on RPS judging panels, etc., etc. He is now in his late eighties but still very sharp and very funny. He hates club judges because he believes that most of them are not capable of seeing the artistic merits of an image and therefore fall back on technical faults and composition rules.

He has a lecture which he has given several times on how to judge. He takes each of the "rules of composition" and shows great paintings and great photographs that don't conform to the rule. Typical: "portraits must have catch lights in the eyes" but 40% of Rembrandt's portraits don't. He then shows more great paintings and photographs that are full of "technical faults". It is a very entertaining lecture.

 

[Krusty79]

In current camera club competitions the image you exampled would score low. When it was taken it was innovative. With modern equipment and the experiance of those who went before better images are been produced every day.

Oh good, then I'm not the only one who feels that way.

I've heard the clubs can be very beneficial if you find one that fits your personality/skill level.

 

[Aaron801]

Though I think that I'd really like getting together with other like-minded folks and talking about photography, if it was obvious to me that a particular club was NOT full of like-minded folks, I'd skip it. It wouldn't be enough for me to know that they're all photographers (lots of folks are, right?) but I'd be looking for a group of folks that might have some understanding and insight into what I do and that I respect and admire what they do.

it seems that there are as many kinds of photgrahers as there are kinds of people... so I wouldn't expect to have a lot in common with lots of photographers. Besides, with this particular club it seems that the accent is on the "judging" aspect and not so much of any kind of critique and that just seems like some kind of popularity contest... which doesn't seem to serve much point at all.

I'd skip it...

 

[Mark B.]

I've avoided clubs that have judged competitions, opting instead for more casual clubs that go on outings to local events and points of interest, with static meetings where we share photos from a recent trip and sometimes a member will do a presentation. I'd rather have an open critiquing session than a competition.


Mark

 

[Aaron801]

I'd want to be dealing with a group of folks who can appreciate Harry Callahan.

 

[Aberaeron]

I've avoided clubs that have judged competitions, opting instead for more casual clubs that go on outings to local events and points of interest, with static meetings where we share photos from a recent trip and sometimes a member will do a presentation. I'd rather have an open critiquing session than a competition.

Mark

I agree.

Some camera clubs seem to only exist for competitive judging of member's photographs. These tend also to be very cliquey once established for a good while. Some photographers are completely ignorant snobs when it comes to the equipment used, no matter what equipment they use.

There's more to life than that.

 

[Pantyhose Bandit]

They tend to become bureaucratic, clique ridden, expensive and pretentious. The older thge club, the worse it generally gets.

Last week I joined a club.Its the first I've joined in 25 years. I joined because I knew some of the people and had been on their website for 10 years.

It's a quiet club more social than anything else.

 

[tony field]

The problem with a "well established" club is largely associated with the power structure of the members. The group of judges are simply a collection of people who have an iconoclastic perception of photographic art. They have no understanding of the Zeitgeist of today - they understand only the zeitgeist within their own small group - and have boiled this down to a prescribed series of rule. Such clubs have little real value other than showing a few nicely done images that follow some arbitrary value set that is universally understood by only the judges.

One print club I was a member of was rather different. Of the 40 or so members, four or five were superb photographers ... many of their images are in the Canadian national art archives. We had occasional major shows and exchanged these shows with other countries. The rules of the club were simple:

1. members could bring two16x20 prints - one for a "subject" and one for a "open" category. On a typical evening, maybe 15 photographers would submit.

2. the prints are displayed.

3. attending members would examine the prints, and vote on three image with a value of 3,2,1 (written on a little piece of scrap paper and deposited in front of the images). Since they only had three scraps of paper, they could only vote for three images. Some of the members might only vote for one image if that particular evening's selection was not very good.

4. the print with the most points was the "evening's winner".

5. one of the better photographers would be the "lead judge" for the evening. Two other members would volunteer to be judges as well ... not necessarily even "good" photographers.

6. the judges would give a critical commentary about the images... maybe about 30 seconds each for every image (good or bad) submitted. (these comments were almost never consistent among the judges unless a particular image was truly "magnificent" or "terrible").

7. After the three "formal" judging of a print, comments and critique was open from all members .. if they wished to comment.

8. all of the images received significant commentary that may be useful to the photographer. All in all, this fairly represented the photographic zeitgeist.

Believe me... the Callahan photo would have been a winner in this club

--
tony
http://www.tphoto.ca

 

[CharlesB58]

My own experience with clubs has been similar. From guys sitting around talking about which lens has the highest resolution, to enduring a club president preach about how the best 35 slr system ever made was Praktica, to competitions in which genuine creativity took a back seat to satisfying the technical and aesthetic expectations of the judge(s), I have not had very good experiences in clubs. Still, a lot of people have, so the OP (and I) may have just had bad luck. I have seen clubs which have really good reputations, but they have all been college clubs which were only open to students.

One thing to consider with any photo competition, whether a local camera club or a major one, is that judging can be either "is that a pretty picture" or "is that effective as a photograph". Not everyone realizes there is a difference in aesthetic between the two ways of assessing a photo. Just look through the DPR challenges to see how often "eye candy" wins out over photos that engage the viewer and create a need to question or examine the image beyond whether the viewer likes it or not.

(I used to not like the work of Garry Winogrand until I really thought about his quote that is in my sig. Then I realized that if I look at photos as something other than just an attempt to be pretty or capture reality, photos I previously thought were uninteresting became interesting, and my own way of "seeing photographically" was challenged.)

In a local club competition, if there is an entry fee, it's more likely a fund raising event rather than an attempt to seriously judge photos. 15 seconds to assess photos? Most major competitions last weeks, even months, and the judges may spend hours comparing the finalists, after many hours of sifting through various levels of entries. A judge taking 15 seconds to assess a photo isn't looking for genuinely creative or high quality photos: he's looking for something he wouldn't mind putting on his living room wall.

Therein lies the issue with all competitions: how objective are the judges? Sometimes they are, other times they will choose what they like (because they assume that they were chosen as judges for that very reason) Since many of the camera clubs I've encountered are mutual admiration societies, I wouldn't put much stock in judges from such clubs that will go beyond their own established creative borders when judging photo.

 

[fishy wishy]

I'd want to be dealing with a group of folks who can appreciate Harry Callahan.

I know what you're thinking. Did he judge for six seconds, or only five? But being this is a 44 Megapixel, the most powerful SLR in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?

 

[Mike_PEAT]

For the record I've attended more than 100 competitions over more than 10 years, and I'm also a trained photographic judge.

I joined a club reputed to be the oldest camera club in the USA.

Since you never mention the name of the club I can't check to see what accreditation(s) they have, if they are a member of PSA (Photographic Society of America) or follow their guidelines.

I sat through a few photo judgings and left depressed. There seemed to be no rules, pattern, or consistency to the evaluations of the images.

That you know of...if you don't know what they're looking for you can't know the pattern.

There was no feedback about the pluses or minuses of an image. The judges made their decision in 5 seconds or less. So I had only 5 seconds to identify the basis for their decisions. Their decisions seemed based on, “Do I like this?” It seemed like if the photo was like something they were familiar with, the photo got a good rating. If not, then the rating was questionable.

How many images do they have to get through in an evening...usually it's several hundred and they don't get out until quite late. If you judge photographs over and over again you get quite fast at it...you start with looking for errors, merging with the frame, exposure, focus, rule of thirds, etc., and then look to see if there's anything worthwhile about the image that overrides those mistakes, skill of photographer (are they in a beginner's, advanced, or master's division, or is it an open competition), the difficulty of capturing the subject (could they have moved a few feet to make the capture more interesting, or were they at the edge of a cliff or captured once in a lifetime action), and then give the score.

Next, in a querulous manner she presented the attached photo by Harry Callahan. She questioned how this photo could be selling for $10,000. She would expect the photo to be rated a 3 or maybe(?) a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5. Certainly not a 5.

Competition chair seemed unaware that this photo is part of the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. You know right there along with other ‘wantabes’ like Ansel Adams, Georgia O’Keeffe, Grant Wood, Edward Hopper, Picasso, whoever. Currently the photo is featured on the intro page to the institute’s photo collection. I guess they still like it.

A popular photo that tugs at people's emotions doesn't necessarily make it a good photo, or override errors. For many famous photos I can say, "a good attempt but there are these basic photographic errors so this photo deserves a below average score". I never saw the original print of the photo you posted, but the copy you posted look quite soft with nothing sharp, and if the original was like that I'd also score it lower.

This test served to convince me that club competitions would not help me grow. Rather the clubs I had attended were social groups brought together by photography. There was no objective of improving members skills.

Not if you take the score you received for your photo on its own without comparing the photos that did score higher than yours. Of course if all you do is focus on the number you received you aren't going to grow.

It is easy for me to see how a club would like to be selective about its members. I have been told by professionals that they participate only in informal peer selected groups. Groups of people who agree what is a good photo and who want to share solid feedback and suggestions.

What you're looking for is an image "evaluation", and that takes a lot more time than participating in a competition, and done for different reasons. In an evaluation you usually look at a group of photos by the same person, and a decent evaluation you have to pay for it. You look if there's a constant mistake that the photographer is making, if there's something the photographer can learn to make their photos more interesting...you're looking at the photographer's style and consistent technique.

 

[Tequila MockingjayBird]

I have thought that participation in a camera club ‘competition’ would help me to make ‘better’ photos.

I joined a club reputed to be the oldest camera club in the USA. I sat through a few photo judgings and left depressed. There seemed to be no rules, pattern, or consistency to the evaluations of the images. There was no feedback about the pluses or minuses of an image. The judges made their decision in 5 seconds or less. So I had only 5 seconds to identify the basis for their decisions. Their decisions seemed based on, “Do I like this?” It seemed like if the photo was like something they were familiar with, the photo got a good rating. If not, then the rating was questionable.

Since there was no feedback, the judgings were of little help. However, I wanted to see if there was validity to their scoring.

To test the quality of the judgings, I was tempted to submit a great but little known photo from an outstanding photographer. The club did the task for me.

I attended a presentation by the club’s competition chair on the basis and method by which photos were judged.

To begin she presented briefly a list of the usual 8 or 9 elements to be sought in a good photo. She explained how the judges reviewed these elements in 15 seconds to arrive at their decisions. I had never seen more than five seconds spent in arriving at a score.

Next, in a querulous manner she presented the attached photo by Harry Callahan. She questioned how this photo could be selling for $10,000. She would expect the photo to be rated a 3 or maybe(?) a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5. Certainly not a 5.

Competition chair seemed unaware that this photo is part of the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. You know right there along with other ‘wantabes’ like Ansel Adams, Georgia O’Keeffe, Grant Wood, Edward Hopper, Picasso, whoever. Currently the photo is featured on the intro page to the institute’s photo collection. I guess they still like it.

This test served to convince me that club competitions would not help me grow. Rather the clubs I had attended were social groups brought together by photography. There was no objective of improving members skills.

It is easy for me to see how a club would like to be selective about its members. I have been told by professionals that they participate only in informal peer selected groups. Groups of people who agree what is a good photo and who want to share solid feedback and suggestions.

The work of Harry Callahan in the Chicago Art Institute

It is ALWAYS subjective.

the photo by Harry Callahan was also selected by one such group. I am sure even then there would have been a furor, albeit internally. But the greatness of such groups lie not in making it public, but in marketing themselves and their choices effectively to the world.



--
you need a team to realize your dream