Camera Club

 This week at camera club was an open competition so it was anything goes both Rachel and I entered three photos each. I thought for those of you that have never been to a camera club or competition I would describe what happens.

They hold the competition in two sections printed and digital. Purely because I am never that organised and never get my photos printed in time ours were in the digital section. The judge was really nice and took an instant liking to my memory stick camera ordering one for herself on eBay from her iPhone!!

Then it was down to business with judging the prints, there were some great photos ranging from portraits to landscapes each photo is described by the judge, who remarks on the good points and how she thinks the picture could be improved and then it is marked out of 10. These marks tend to range from 6 to 8.5 and then any of the prints that the judge would like to hold back because of their merit are then looked at again and given marks of 9,9.5 and then the winning print is given 10 out of 10.

After a short break where there is the chance to have a look at the prints that have been on show and have a cup of tea then it's onto the digital prints. The procedure is exactly the same as with the printed photos but with the photos loaded onto a laptop and projected onto a screen. It can be quite nerve wracking seeing your photo on the big screen especially as one of mine was up first. The projector is colour calibrated but sometimes it just cannot cope with all the colours so the judge was able to view both the photos on the laptop and on the screen, as it was apparent that there was a difference as one of Rachel's photo of a post box was noticeably darker than it should have been. It also effected several other photos including two of mine.

Here are the photos that I entered the first was a dandelion clock. 

I cropped this so that the clock was in the bottom corner which the judge complimented me and gave me 8 out of 10.

My autumn leaves photo 

was up next which didn't look as good on the big screen as it did on the laptop so I was a bit daunted but it was well received and it was suggested that with photoshop I could have removed the light stalk blemish in the bottom left corner. I don't use photoshop at the moment, it is on my photography wish list, so this is something to bear in mind for the future. I received another 8 out of 10 for this photo too.

Finally it was my bumble bee photo, 

as you can see I have a bit of a nature thing going on in the competition!!.

Out of all of my photos this one looked the best on the big screen and received pleasing remarks from the judge who awarded it 8.5 out of 10.

I was really pleased with all my marks these are recorded and used towards the photographer of the year competition at the end of the year.

Rachel did really well too with her photos too scoring 8 out of 10, 8 out of 10 and 7.5 out of 10. So I think there will be a bit of healthy family competition going on! Pop over to her blog to see what she had to say about her first competition.