Revised competition rules – your views
Over the past few years there have been times when it has been clear that the Club’s competition rules can be rather vague and open to misinterpretation. To sort out any ambiguity and to be as clear as possible about what can be accepted and what can’t, we have revised the rules. We’ve also taken the opportunity to update the information, so, for instance, we are suggesting that the En Print Competition should now be called the Small Print Competition, as well as updating the PDI submission rules.
The Management and Selection Committees along with the Competition Secretaries have worked together on this and we would now like to have your opinion. You can find the draft Revised Rules here Please let Lorna Brown have any comments or questions by Thursday 21st April.
We hope that we can agree revised rules by the end of the month so that they can be approved at the AGM in May. The revised rules would then come into effect from September with the new season.
Lorna Brown
Joan Barham’s Gathering Clouds over Loch Arklet scored a 10 in the final Intermediate Print Competition of the 2015 – 16 season
An excellent job; however I think the winners of the small print competition should be displayed as small prints at the Annual Exhibition. To enlarge them may be beyond the skills of the photographer or make extra work for another club member.
Rule 2 in small print Competition states that name etc must be written on the back of the print. This is not a good idea on an unmounted print if Biro is used, as it can damage the print. Better to write on a label which is adhered to the back of the print.
Yes a good idea Connie. Some people already do this.
I see no point or relevance in the final clause of PDI Rule 3a (Image resolution). Since the file is to be projected the print resolution has no effect on the image and, if the image were to be printed, 1400pixels at 300ppi produces a print less than 5 inches on it’s longest side – scarcely sufficient for a poster or handbook let alone a newspaper or magazine article.
Judging by comments made over the years many people have seem to enough trouble resizing their images as it is without introducing unnecessary complications that do not affect the projection quality or size.
Print Panel Competition.
Two hanging plans for the print panel are needed: one to be included with the panel (in the plastic bag) and a second one separately.
These second hanging plans should be collected and handed to the judge to allow him a preliminary assessment of the entries (in place of the normal judge’s preview of prints or PDIs).
Many of our members in the Beginners section are quite experienced photographers and there is a certain stigma attached to being in this section and being unable to progress. Often the images entered into competitions could have scored well in the Intermediate competition. To avoid people being forever classified as Beginners would it be a good idea to rename the Beginners and Intermediates as IMPROVERS and DEVELOPERS, thereby blurring the distinction between the two sections? People in the First section would be improving their skills and learning new skills whilst those in the Second section would be developing the skills that they have acquired during the improver stage.
Point 4 in the Small Print Competition should finish by saying “subject to point 6 below” not point 9.
Lorna could the first paragraph of the Small Print Competition be like this?
“The Small Print Competition is intended to give Beginner members who do not have either the facilities or inclination to participate in the “full scale” Print Competitions a chance to match their work against others of like mind. The competition is open to all Beginners in the Print section, apart from previous winners of this competition. New members should be aware that they need to have been assessed as a Beginner by providing images to be seen by a member of the Selection committee at the start of the year.”
This covers the point about New members needing assessment first, because we did need to remind people to do this at the start of this year. It also doesn’t repeat the information about processing prints which is given in the next point (1b).
The Print Competition: The rules state that
3) The same image can only be entered once in the internal competitions either as a print or as a
PDI. It may not be entered as both a print and a PDI.
I am still unclear as to whether the above rule applies to competitions in just one season or can an image be entered as a print in one season and then as a PDI in the following season (for example) . Also what about a black and white version of a colour image – can this be used in a subsequent year?