June: club photographic judging

Last month was a bit of a shock to me in the sense that before last month’s club meeting I had entered 5 photographs the previous months and all were awarded gold awards. Then came last month and I entered 4 photos of which 3 got silver awards and only one gold.

So, with a new challenge for this month’s judging at the club I thought I’d try again! The Set Subject for this month was Mono Abstract. That is apart from all the other normal categories like Nature, Mono, Sport, etc.

I walked away there very surprised tonight since at my 1 Star level I won three categories and in the fourth I got a silver, which I kind of expected.

So, here are the pics:

Wired Up. Mono Abstract 1 Star category winner.

Stripes. Mono 1 Star category winner.

Seed Bearing. Nature 1 Star category winner.

Water Baby.

With Water Baby I had a feeling that it would only get a silver. However, I still hoped that because there was water and movement involved that somehow it could get a gold. But alas, no! I actually told my wife when I chose the photograph that I would probably only get a silver.

I really enjoy the monthly meeting at the photographic club. We get to chat with other photographers and we get to listen to the judges’ comments and so learn through what they have to say.

Judging photographs is not easy

At the start of this year I decided to take photography a little more serious than I had up till then. So, I decided to join a photography club. I joined the National Photographic Club of South Africa here in Pretoria.

As a newbie in photography I had to start as a 1 Star photographer. There are 5 star levels for photographers. Once you become a 5 Star photographer, you need to move up the 5 Star ranks of 5 Star Master Bronze to 5 Star Master Platinum. And, of course, this doesn’t happen overnight. To move from 1 star to 2 star a total number of 30 judging points have to be accumulated and at least 7 gold or certificate of merit (COM) awards, where COM = 5, gold = 3, silver = 2 and bronze = 1. This is explained in the table below:

 

photographer_star_grading

 

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