Important information for CCC members
These are some of things you need to know. Obviously not all queries can be anticipated but if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!
Role of the club
The club gives an opportunity to show your images and to improve your knowledge and skills as well as to meet like-minded people. It is open to all regardless of skill level.
Equipment
It is up to each member to decide what type of equipment to use. Good images can be captured with a wide variety of cameras ranging from DSLRs to mobile phones. The club is concerned mainly with the photographic skills needed to capture good images rather than with the equipment used to produce them.
Image Processing
A degree of familiarity with basic digital image processing is desirable. There is a considerable choice of image editing programs on the market. Adobe Photoshop Elements can be said to be a good starting point and can do most things which are needed.
Competitions
Members are free to decide for themselves whether to take part in competitions. The main club competitions are 1) Colour Prints 2) Projected Digital Images (PDIs) and Monochrome prints. Images in PDI format can be either in colour or monochrome, but images in print format must be shown in the appropriate competition – Colour or Mono, that is to say that mono prints are not allowed in colour print competitions and vice versa. Finally it should be noted that competitions are only open to fully paid up members.
Set Subject Competition
Two rounds of the internal competition are for 'set subjects'. A title, for example 'Doors' will have been chosen. In a set subject competition one of your images should conform to the set subject but the other subject is open subject. Provided your set subject image is deemed to conform to the set subject, an extra 5 marks are added to the judge’s score.
Marking
The Internal Competitions Secretary prepares score sheets for each member. Members collect their sheet before the competition starts, fill in the title, record the mark given and replace the sheet in the file after the competition, so that the scores can be recorded and added to our website.
Competition Judging
Competitions are usually judged by an experienced outside judge trained and accredited by the Surrey Photographic Association. Judges normally assess the merits of images on a scale of 5 – 10 including half marks. The role of the judge is to differentiate between a selection of images shown on a particular occasion and to make positive, helpful and encouraging comment. There is a significant subjective element in the process and it is not unusual for images to fare differently as between any two judges.
Repeat showing of competition images in the five main competition rounds.
An image which scores ten may only be entered once in the club’s five main competition rounds, although it can of course be entered in the end of year ‘best image’ competition or in the Reg Mullard or outside events competitions or in the club’s annual exhibition.
Other images which have scored less than ten on their first showing, may be entered a second time (and in a different format if the author so wishes). For example an image might be shown firstly as a PDI and for its second showing as a print, but it should be noted that a change of format does not mean it becomes a new image and the revised format image counts as the second showing.
When an image is shown again, you may of course wish to take account of the judge’s suggestions for the second showing - e.g. by cropping the image or perhaps by cloning out some distracting element. It remains, however, still the same shot and does not become a new image which can then be shown a further time!
Presentation of Prints
Prints can be surface mounted or recess mounted. The overall size of the mount must not exceed 50cm x 40cm. This is the size stipulated by the Surrey Photographic Association and is required for their competitions. Smaller mount sizes are acceptable in club competition.
At the beginning of the year the club normally includes a short presentation on print mounting. Costs can be kept down by buying materials from Seawhite (www.seawhite.co.uk) on the Star Industrial estate in Partridge Green, West Sussex, where their factory shop has mount board and cutting tools at prices significantly lower than High Street sources.
Presentation of PDIs
Images have to be resized to 1600 x 1200 pixels before they can be projected. This can be done in Photoshop or a similar imaging program. Alternatively members (who use Windows PCs) can use the PDI program downloadable from the club’s website. This program will give you a choice of title formats according to the class or type of competition entered. You simply add image title and name.
- CO_Image Title_Joe Bloggs.jpg (CO is short for Club Open Subject)
- CS_Image Title_Joe Bloggs.jpg (CS is short for Club Set Subject)
The club program will place a resized 1600 x 1200 copy of your image into its source folder. Please note that the title formats “AO_Image Title_Joe Bloggs.jpg and AS_Image Title_Joe Bloggs.jpg which also appear in the list are not now used so please make sure that you use the appropriate CO or CS title format.
For informal workshop sessions images can be brought to the club on a memory stick but competition images are e-mailed as attachments (no folders are needed) to pdi@cranleighcameraclub.co.uk before midnight on the Sunday preceding the competition. This is a strict deadline and images e-mailed after this time may not be included in the competition.
Our competition software will pick up your images from this e-mail address alone and not from any others! The competition software recognises which competition and which class is intended, from the image titling described above.
Finally most people feel that a small border enhances PDIs as it holds in the image and separates any dark areas from the projected black background. This needs to be done before the image is resized. If you use Photoshop first to make a copy of the image, go to select menu ‘select all’, then edit menu/stroke/ select size 3 of border—one or two pixels is probably enough; select colour by using eyedropper on image or colour swatch; location ‘inside’; blending normal and press OK. Finally deselect and you should find you have a border.
Workshop Critique Evenings
This is an opportunity to show some recent work either as prints or PDIs. Bring up to 4 images in either format. The aim of the evening is to appreciate the images having regard to how they might fare in competition and positive suggestions will be made by other members. Prospective new members are welcome to bring images to this meeting but they will not be eligible to enter competitions until they have paid their sub! As this is an informal meeting prints do not have to be mounted and it is not vital to resize digital images.
Outside visits
Each year there are a number of club outings and images taken on these outings are shown at an end of year competition. Participation is of course entirely voluntary. The visits give an opportunity to get to know other members who can often offer useful practical help.
Interclub Competitions
The club is affiliated to the Surrey Photographic Association and takes part in the interclub competitions organised by the SPA. The External Competitions Secretary plus a small sub committee select images to be entered. The club also has a small number of competition fixtures with other local clubs.
Website and password
The club has a website which can be found at: http://www.cranleighcameraclub.co.uk/
The website currently has details of the club’s annual programme, the current committee membership and the rules of the club. Our website shows thumbnails of winning images produced by members of the club and also contains links to other relevant websites. There is a members’ section which gives access to competition scores and to document and software downloads and is accessed using a password which is available to paid up members. The website is currently under revision.
Annual Exhibition
Entries are brought to the designated meeting a few weeks before the exhibition. Entry Forms can be downloaded from the members’ section of our website and these give details of the exhibition sections and the number of permitted entries in each section. As well as being an exhibition open to the public, the exhibition is also a form of competition, as a judge will award select first, second, third places plus highly commended images in each section.
You can enter images which have been shown at the club (including those who have been awarded a 10) or completely new images. You can enter as many or as few sections as you wish. You are free to enter any image which you would like to show and which you feel the public might like to see. The club does not vet or select images.
There is a charge of £1 per entry subject to an overall maximum of £10. These charges are necessary to cover the costs of the exhibition, the main one of which is the hire of the Village Hall. As there is a practical limit on the number of prints which can be displayed, the committee may have to decide an overall maximum number of prints which each member can display.
Prints must of course be mounted subject to a maximum mount size of 50cm x 40 cm. They must be properly labelled with section number and title, image title and author’s name e.g. Section 1 Mono (Open); Image title and your name. If self adhesive labels are used please ensure that they adhere firmly to the back of your mount. Old self adhesive labels can often temporarily lose their adhesive properties only to re-attach themselves firmly to the surface of some other unfortunate member’s work. Similarly some masking tapes used to fix the print to the mount can also lose their adhesion leading to prints parting company with their mounts.
Panels should consist of six related images which have some sort of theme. You can choose any subject you like as long as there is some sort of relationship or theme. Print panels should be presented on a board the overall size of which must not exceed 60cm x 85cm. There are 3 methods of creating a print panel - surface mounting, recess mounting and printing the whole thing using an A3 or bigger printer. Whichever method is chosen you need to arrange the images in a pleasing manner and this involves very careful measurement. Recess mounting involves quite a bit of mount cutting and takes a bit of time but the result is very nice. Surface mounting avoids the cutting. Printing the whole thing and then spray mounting on card may be easier as the design and measuring is done on your PC, but the disadvantage is that you have to be content with a smaller panel and smaller images. (In practice you probably need a printer capable of printing at least to A3, A3+, or even to A2.)
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