One meeting each month is a photo evaluation / competition. Members may submit original work to a panel of three judges, who are also members, and have their work critiqued and ranked. The judging takes place on Sunday before the meeting and the results are shown at the meeting.
While structured as a competition with places given, the focus is on having others critique your work and give you ideas on how you may improve it. By submitting your photos you will get feedback from an impartial audience which can tell you more about how you are doing than the typical response from friends and family.
See the pages below for more information.
Entrants must be paid members of La Crosse Area Camera Club.
Each entrant may enter two images into each category.
Entries must be prepared as explained in Preparing and Submitting Entries.
Entries must be submitted by 5:oo pm on the Saturday before the judging takes place. Judging is held on Sunday at 6:30 at the home of John and Gloria Zoerb. A drop box for entries is available at the Zoerb’s home.
Images will be judged based on 3 criteria: technique, composition & impact. See What the Judges Look For for more information.
While we don't place a limit on manipulation for categories other than nature, all entries must start as a photo. The photo and any manipulation must be the work of the entrant. Entries into Nature cannot be manipulated.
Any evaluation entries receiving an acceptance, honorable mention, 3rd, 2nd, or 1st place shall be eligible to be entered in the End of Year Competition.
Because not everyone is at the same skill level, the photo evaluations are divided into two categories: A (for Advanced) and B (for Beginner). New members can choose which group they feel they belong in. There are no special requirements to be in group A, but you will be judged against experienced photographers. If you don't feel ready for that, you can ask to be in group B.
Any person in group B that gets first place in any category during Year End will automatically be placed in group A the following year. Occasionally, someone will win with a "lucky photo" and overall not be ready to move to Group A. If that happens, you can request to remain in group B.
Have you entered any of your photographs into the competitions yet? If you did enter something that didn’t do as well as you hoped, do you know why? Knowing what the judges will be looking for may make it easier to enter your treasures for evaluation. And watching and listening to the results can be an experience to learn from.
TECHNIQUE
When evaluating for technique, the judges look at such things as focus, lighting, exposure, and presentation. But what, really, are they looking for?
Focus is the easy one – usually. The subject of a photograph should be in focus. Does the image need to be entirely in focus, such as a landscape, or is selective focus of one part of the scene needed to isolate the subject? Determine your focus by deciding what your subject is.
Lighting is another factor to consider when evaluating a photograph. Is the lighting of the photograph appropriate for the subject? Side lighting will bring out texture while front lighting will provide the absence of shadows. Back lighting, whether rim light, silhouette, or ethereal shapes, is very dramatic. The intensity of the light (the soft light of an overcast day vs. the hard edge of direct sun or electronic flash) and the color of the light (the warm light of early morning and late afternoon or the cool light of noon sunshine) are also taken into consideration when evaluating an image.
Lighting and exposure go hand in hand. Is the image overexposed (too light)? Is it underexposed (too dark)? Or is it right on? A camera’s metering system exposes for 18% gray. A light subject, such as snow, will require more exposure than the camera’s meter suggests. And, because film and digital sensors can’t handle the range of light form deep shadow to bright highlight that our eyes can define, the exposure of a contrasty subject must be made to favor either the shadow or the highlight.
Presentation means simply submitting a slide that is clean rather than dusty and full of fingerprints. In the print competitions, the matting should compliment the photograph rather than compete with it. The mounting of the print should be even – no bubbles under the print and mounted square to the mat board (none of the backing showing). For digital, make sure the image is the recommended size as small images are hard to judge.
COMPOSITION
Composition is the arrangement of all the elements in the picture so that subject is presented in an attractive manner. When evaluating composition, the judges look for such things as placement of the subject on a “1/3” position, the use of a “line” leading the eye to the subject, foreground interest, and the use of a frame for the subject. Is the subject presented properly as a horizontal or vertical? Does the subject blend in to the background, or is it well separated? If you shoot your subject from more than one angle, trying different compositions, you are bound to present your subject in an attractive manner.
IMPACT (INTEREST)
Technique and composition are tangible areas of evaluation. There are rules to measure against. Impact is the intangible area of evaluation.
Most photographs with good technique and good composition will present an acceptable interest. What changes a photograph from good to “Wow” is the creativity used to come up with the subject; it is the originality of the presentation of a common subject; it is often a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Impact is what makes us laugh at the image, pull back in disgust, or wish we had taken that shot.
When you are starting out submitting images for competitions, it is very difficult to evaluate your own work. Go over your photographs with a critical eye to select several possibilities. Then have someone look over your possibilities for a second opinion. This person does not have to be a photographer – just someone who will look at the photographs with an impartial eye and say which ones they prefer, and hopefully why.
So, have you entered any of your photographs into competition yet? Now that you know what to look for, what are you waiting for?
The Club currently accepts entries submitted as slides, prints, or digital images. Each of these has its own rules for preparation.
The following four items must appear on the back of all prints submitted for evaluation:
These five items must appear on all slides submitted for evaluation:
Glass mounts are not acceptable for club competitions due to the possible damage to slides if the glass mount should break. Slides may be “cropped” by using various masks or Erie slide mounts. Never use plastic or cellophane tape to mask a slide; they get gooey and can cause damage.
For each evaluation, three club members are needed to judge. Two of the judges need to be in A class and one in B. These three judges meet along with the judging chair to view, critique, and score all the images submitted. You don’t need to have any prior judging experience to volunteer; you can learn on the job.
So what is it like to be a judge?
You meet with the other judges on the Sunday before the evaluation meeting, usually around 6pm, and it lasts until around 9pm or later, depending on the number of entries. The judging is broken down by media (projected and prints), then subject for projected (Open / Nature / People), and then by class (A / B). Each section is judged individually. First, all the images are shown fairly quickly to get a feel for them. Then they are shown again, slower, to give you time to decide on a score. During this time, no discussion of the images is allowed.
You will be given a sheet for scoring that has the images numbered and broken down by subject and class. Each image is given a score in each of three areas: technique, composition, and impact. (If you have no experience in critiquing, you may find it helpful to read the article “What the Judges Look For” before judging.) The three scores are then added to form a total score for the image. When a section (subject & class) is finished, you read off your total scores for each number to the judging chair. The chair will total the scores from the three judges and determine the places to be awarded. If there are ties or other issues (such as not enough entries in a section) the chair and judges will decide how the places will be awarded.
After all the images are judged and the scores collected, the images are shown again and opened up for discussion. This gives all the judges a chance to say what they liked and didn’t like about the image and what could be done to improve it.
The judging chair takes all the scores and the images and puts them together for the evaluation results meeting. At this meeting, all the images are shown (still within subject and class) from the lowest score to the highest. The three judges take turns giving a critique of the images as they are shown. This can be a summary of the discussion from the judging or your own thoughts if you can’t remember what was discussed on that image.
So now you know what judging is all about. Next time the president calls for judges, be sure to volunteer and try it out for yourself.
In June of each year we have the Year End photo evaluation. Any photo that placed with acceptance or higher during the year is automatically entered into this competition. This includes includes images that were voted in for acceptance by the membership. Three judges, who are from outside the club, will re-judge all the photos for this final competition. To see if you have any photos eligible for the current year end, see this photo list sorted by maker
The first Sunday in June (usually) is the Year End banquet. We all get together at a local restaurant for drinks and dinner and then we view the results of the evaluation. Plaques and trophies are awarded to the winners.
You can view the results of past Year End evaluations by clicking on a club year below.