Re: Judging - What Do Clubs Do

[P3D <Billbowie@xxxxxxx>]

There seems to be two questions involved 1) where do you find your judges and
2) what is your judging method.  In regard to the first, it is becoming
increasingly difficult to find good stereo judges as the general age of the
camera club population increases and eye sight and the abilitiy to resolve
stereo decreases.  Many of the avenues to find judges for our flattie color
slide competitions ie professional photographers in the community and members
of other camera clubs (with stereo photography experience) is extremely
limited.  Therefore, we general rely on two groups: members in our own club
who are not currently competing in the Stereo Division and open-minded
outsiders.  Since the pool of the first is very small, as a last resort, the
competition rules also allow for an active competitor to judge with a makeup
at the next competition.  There are obviously some drawbacks to both the
individual and potentially the other competing members in this event.  The
most common down-sides to have non-stereo workers as judges is that either
they become very rule-bound by what they think stereo should be OR they may
be overwhelmed by the stereo effect.  In either case, they may miss that a
stereo photo like any other photo needs to start off as a good image
photographically that is further enhance by the third dimension.

That brings me to the other half of the judging equation, the judging method.
 It seems that Cascade method is taking major lengths to be objective or at
least democratic.  At the Cordova Camera Club our method recognizes that
judging is inherently subjective and our approach is more one of selection.
 Each maker enters three slides.  The actual number of ribbons awarded
depends on the number of makers entered in that competition.  Approximately
50 percent of the makers ultimately will receive an honor. 

The judge previews each of a makers entries.  All three slides are shown
again and the judge selects the one that s(he) "likes" the best.   This
process is then repeated for each maker.     All of the selected slides are
reviewed. Then the selected slides are shown and the group is winnowed
through an in/out process until it reaches the number to receive awards.  The
judge then selects the places: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and the honorable mentions.  I
believe we have been using this method for almost 30 years and it continues
to serve us well.  The judging for our annual slide of the year competion and
Cordova International Stereo Salon is different and will have to wait for
another time.  Bill Orr

>>Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 15:32:08 -0800

George asks what clubs do to judge slides.


We, at the Cascade Stereoscopic Society, have tried at least 2 judging
methods. One is to chose 3 judges who are also competitors, but cannot vote
on their own slides. We have done this both ways: using primitive
electronic input devices or just written entries. We did the same also with
judges who are not competitors.

More recently we decided to involve all the members in judging. So far the
mechanics of this method have been to give each member a form which they
use for voting, later, two members tabulate the results during the break
period. This method seems to be much more objective. With this method we
have also allowed the judges to vote on their own entries. This, in my
opinion, has the advantage that the  total  population sample increases,
and assuming that the judges  give maximum points to their own slides, it
makes the base sample larger,thus perhaps diminishing the statistical
errors and it doesn't really change much of anything else.

Furthermore, so that we don't have what I call "the salad bar" phenomenon,
where you crowd your plate with lettuce and have little room for the Greek
olives, (or the first contenders get the worst grades) in your case, we
show the slides twice, the first time for preview, the second for voting.

I too am interested to know how other clubs do it and whether our method
has merits that can be adopted by others.

So far the main problem with this democratic approach is the relative large
size of paperwork involved, but it isn't so bad as it sounds and tabulating
can be finished in about 15-20 minutes. We will have this hurdle solved
however, when Mike K., finishes a design for super easy state of the art
electronic voting devices that will do everything except express opinions.
Right Mike?

Shab Levy
Portland, Oregon, USA
shab@xxxxxxxxxxxx<<


------------------------------