A Little Competition is a Good Thing

As I've mentioned before, we belong to a camera club. Monthly meetings 9 months of the year bring us together to have workshops on various photography topics and skills, as well as to have themed competitions. February's competition , Motion, was great fun.

Members can enter either digital or print images; slides have gone by the wayside, I'm afraid. But this makes the set-up very easy and the meetings run smoothly between the two venues. Three judges enter scores for the entries and the results are averaged. If someone enters photos and is also judging, this person enters a "0" when their photo is displayed, and the other scores are averaged. It works. The highest score you can get is an 18, which means you've earned a "6" from each judge.

Fortunately, neither of us is fiercely competitive, so though our photos compete against each other we haven't had a major meltdown yet:) Here's a perfect example, from this month's competition.

This Sandhill Crane was photographed in Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, in New Mexico. The bird is in sharp focus, but the background blurred, indicating the movement of the bird. This photo earned me a 17 in competition this month.

This fireworks shot was taken last summer at Fort Hood, Texas, while we were there visiting family. It's sharp, with very little distracting smoke, is well composed as a horizontal image with three main areas of display (odd numbers of objects are preferable). It also shows motion in the blur of the pyrotechnics as they shoot into the air, and fall out of it. This photo earned Daryl a perfect 18.

So, if we were competitive this might cause a little friction. But not so. Peace reigns. Of course, it helped that we had a group of people in the car on the ride home so there was no opportunity for "discussion." Yes, timing is everything.

Does anyone else choose a theme for photography practice?