Jervis Bay and St Georges Basin, Shoalhaven, NSW
Meetings: 7:30pm
2nd and 4th Tuesdays of month
Vincentia Community Hall
Our Monthly Photo Competitions
Sections - our monthly competitions are divided into two sections - an Open section where the subject can be anything at all, and a Set Subject section.
Awards - like most clubs, we have three levels of awards. The lowest level is No Award as you would expect! The next level up is Commended and the highest level is Highly Commended. Some clubs have no award, credit and merit - these are equivalent, but potentially confusing and less obvious.
Best of Section - once the images have been evaluated and awarded, we ask you to then choose the best "Highly Commended" image from each section to receive our Best of Section award - so there will be a Best of Section for the Open section, and a Best of Section for the Set Subject section.
How many awards? - sometimes judges ask us how many Commended and Highly Commended awards they should hand out, and we say that images should receive the awards that they deserve, so theoretically you could no awards to all of the images, or they could all receive Highly Commended awards! Over the years however we have found that most judges seem to favour "the rule of thirds" (pun intended) where one third of the images receive no award, one third receive Commended awards, and one third receive Highly Commended awards. More discerning judges might hand out less awards; more generous judges might hand out more - it is entirely up to you!
Viewing our images - images for club competitions are uploaded to albums on our Flickr site - one album for the Open images, and one for the Set Subject. Links to the albums will be sent to judges at least 9 days prior to the photo competition meeting where the judge's critiques and awards will be presented. Images can also be provided via Dropbox if the judge prefers.
The club's Flickr site can be viewed at Bay and Basin Camera Club Flickr site. Simply click on an album and then on each photo in the album. If you scroll down below each image, you will see the image's exposure details (and all EXIF data if you want), and you can add comments if you are a Flickr member. You can click on the "full screen" arrows in the top, right corner to display the image full-screen in your browser, and then you could hit F11 (in Windows) to make your browser full screen as well, and scroll through the images one by one. A further click on the images increases its size to 100%.
Please comment on every photo - we only say this because one judge insisted on only commenting on images she deemed worthy of an award, so we had no feedback from her on why she thought the "less deserving" images were "less deserving"!
Format for Judge's critiques and awards - whatever best suits each judge - see "Formats we can handle" below!
Formats we can handle - if judges submit their critiques and awards in any of the following formats, we can accommodate them -
- Handwritten or typed letters - delivered via a postman - contact our secretary for our postal address!
- Email - critiques included in one or two long emails are fine.
- Text file - critiques can be provided in a text file using software such as Notepad
- Word document - Word documents are fine, as are more obscure document formats, but Word is preferred.
- Excel spreadsheet - some judges prefer working in Excel, and that is fine too.
- Flickr comments - if you are a Flickr member, you can sign into Flickr and add your critiques directly below each image in the box provided.
- Powerpoint slideshows - we haven't had one yet, but can work with a Powerpoint slideshow if necessary.
- Audio files - a judge can send us their comments on an audio file such as MP3 or WAV.
- Movies - be totally in control of your presentation by sending us a movie with our images as video and your critiques as the audio!
Tips for Judges
Speech to Text - if you are a terrible typist of think faster than you type, why not use an app on your phone to transcribe what you say into text. We recommend "Speechnotes". And if you want something even easier, use "Speechnotes" on your computer by visiting speechnotes.co and use your computer or laptop's microphone to transcribe your speech directly to the web page. One click - and your text is copied to your clipboard for pasting anywhere - but be warned, according to the website, this feature only works on a Chrome browser!
Audio files - display the images on your computer screen as usual, and speak your critiques into an audio recording app on your phone, much the same as you would do if judging prints "live". Send us the recording when you are finished, and we will create a slideshow of the images with your audio file added. We can also run your audio file through a "speech to text" app, and add the resulting text to the relevant images on our Flickr pages without the need for you to do anything extra!
Movies - there are many free programs available that record your screen and sound - here is a link to a review of what are supposed to be the 8 Best Screen Recorders for Windows 10. After installing your software, use whatever program you normally use to view the first images you are judging. Start the recording program, and speak your critiques into your computer's microphone, scrolling through the images one by one. When you are finished, click stop - and you should then be able to save the recording in a variety of movie formats that you can send to the club you are judging - assuming they are happy to receive it like that!
