For Photography In Central Massachusetts
Competitions are just one way that photographers enjoy their art. Our club has several in which we engage: Multiscreen, NECCC, Assigned Subjects, and "Formal".
This is a yearly event in which we compete against three or four other clubs head-to-head using an assigned subject list. Click here for more information.
For the sake of convenience, and to give us an advantage going into the yearly Multiscreen Competition, we use the same list of assigned subjects for our informal monthly competitions. Here, we break the list up into chuncks of four subjects for each month (October to March) and members are encouraged to submit photographs about those subjects for "extra credit". As this is an informal club function, we offer no ribbons and winners mearly get extra points for our year-end merit awards. Mostly, though, we are trying to hone our photographic choices for the Multiscreen.
There isn't anything better to call these competitions. We used to have them monthly and they were called "Monthly Competitions" which, during their day, confused members because Assigned Subjects were monthly too. We now hold these more formal events two or three times a year depending on scheduling. Members compete head-to-head and we have independent judges select winners and provide commentary. Depending on media types, members can submit up to three images per medium.
It's all about size!!! Digital images will be projected using a projector that has, roughtly, a 1024x768 resolution. So, if you submit anything larger than that, it will be a waste of your and our time, because we'll need to resize it for you (which takes time), or it'll just take longer to load into our computer. So, please do the resizing ahead of time! How much to resize? We will adopt NECCC rules here, because quite often, we'll select from the competition pool entries for one of thee NECCC Digital Inter-club Competitions. Their rules state that a horizontal image can't be larger than 1024x760, so the width limit is 1024. Conversly, a vertical image can't be taller than 768. There are many programs that will resize an image. Just make sure that you resize proportionally...that means, make it match the original. As a member if you have questions. Please title your image and include your name in the title. For our sake, please don't use spaces in the name. For example, Flowering_Trellis_by_John_Doe.jpg or FloweringTrellisByJohnDoe.jpg or Flowering-Trellis-By-John-Doe.jpg all work nicely...note that there aren't any spaces there. Wither the words are run together or they are separated by underscores or dashes.
So as not to confuse anyone about the digital medium, what we mean here is that an image will be projected using a digital projector. So, the images are provided on CDROM or some USB memory stick device prior to the competition. (We prefer the USB memory sticks because they are fast...please consider getting one...they are cheap for the small capactiy ones and that's all you need.) Images can also be emailed to the competition coordinator. This "category" does not imply anything other than the fact that images will be projected using a digital projector. It does not mean that digitally manipulated images are somehow limited to this medium. If you have a nicely done transparency, and you would like to see the image on a digital projector and can get someone to scan it, then that's OK.
Snapshots were intended to make it possible for members to compete in a category that didn't require the expense of mounting and framing. Over time, the added requirement that a snapshot be a more spontaneous expression of photographic art - a true "snap" shot as opposed to a posed and planned artistic statement - came into being. Of course, this is NOT a requirement and should be discussed with the judge at the start of the competition. Snapshots should be sized according to the norms of what you might get from a local 1-hour Photo store. Typically, this would be 3x5 or 4x6.
Digital images, because of the nature of the technology, can be viewed using projection methods or print methods. As a projected image, they can be treated a lot like slides; however, the logistics of this can be cumbersome. Images can also be viewed on a small monitor, but this limits what an audience may see. As prints, digital image are no different from a film-based print, including snapshots.