P3D competitions!

[John Baird <jbaird@xxxxxxxxx>]

hi p3der's!!    a few words about my experience with camera clubs and
competitions!

i've been chairman for kc metro photographers assoc. for ten years now!
the first two years we had monthly competitions!  this got to be a
problem because of; #1 hurt feelings, #2 bloated egos and #3 took too
much time away from other more interesting club activities!! (workshops,
guest speakers)

we finally decided to ban competitions and replaced them with a monthly
show and tell!  members were invited to bring, preferably recent, work
with a limit of 5 prints (5x7 or larger) and or slides to meeting! they
were told they could ask for critique but only if they wanted it!  this
arrangement worked well for several years until new blood asked why we
never had photo contests!!!

at that point, we decided to reinstate the contests but not on a monthly
basis!  we now work on a quarterly schedule where the first month we
invite an outside photographer to be guest speaker or lead a workshop! 
the second month we have one of our own members be the speaker and
showcase his or her work!  the third month we reserve for photo contest!
we pick subjects (4) at the beginning of the year and have three members
who didn't bring work, to judge the entrys! they use a 1 to 5 scale and
add scores to determine the winners! we have seperate print and slide
contests and run the slides thru two times for the judges to vote!

at every meeting, even on photo contest nite, we continue to have show
and tell and have found this to be the best balance possible for our
group's needs!  we have been approached by n4c and psa to get involved
in inter club competitions and have decided not to because of the
additional organizational (pain in the ass) problems it would entail!!

actually, we have a problen with having enough entrys for photo contest
now and frequently only have to pick first, second and third of three
entrys but still have plenty of folks bringing stuff for show and
tell!!!   as an additional encentive, we put the winning entries up on
our web page for the quarter and still have problems with enough
participation!!

we do have about two or three club exhibitions yearly at local gallerys
and librarys! we always show anyone who goes to the trouble of framing a
print to our liberal guidelines (white or black mats and minimum 8x10
prints in 11x14 frames)! due to our size (20 to 30 monthly attendees) we
never have a problem with too many entries so don't even need to have a
show judge pick down to certain prints!  subjects for members shows are
open and always make for a very diverse, interesting show! 

this has been our experience with competitions and hope this will give
other groups some ideas on how to create a balance of club activities!!

tooDDDeloo!!   john baird!   creative stereography!   kansas city!


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