Should we remove scoring in club competitions?

[davidc]

Without expanding on any issues already raised, the concept of club competitions as a vehicle to gauge competence remains a popular vehicle. That carries on to inter-club competition.

I think this is one of my questions behind the "do we need scoring" premise. Personally, my motivation for entering competitions is to get feedback on whether my image works outside of my own head.

There are a number of things I don't care about -

Is my image "better or worse" than Tom's? Iggy's? Mike's? To be totally honest I don't care. I'll look at your images and think "ooh that's good, wish I'd had that idea" or perhaps be less interested in it. Like Tom, I still glean feedback from other images, but being arbitrarily determined "better" than someone else's image on one evening doesn't help my photography.

Putting it another way, competitions are a way of getting my image in front of someone new & independent. I want to compete against MYSELF - are my images getting better, do they have appeal outside of my own head, am I making daft mistakes? Where I rank against OTHERS is really not something I worry about at all What does it actually mean if Iggy's image gets 10 and mine gets 9.5? In real terms, absolutely nothing - what does have meaning is what worked in Iggy's image that I can learn from, and vice versa.

Do the other members care if their images come 1st, 2nd or 10th on an evening? Or do they just care about what advice they hear? I have no idea but that was part of the reason for posting this

If there is a fun element in terms of seeing who wins each evening that's fine. A bit of harmless fun is definitely a perfectly valid reason for holding competitions but with everyone happy winner there can be disheartened losers. Mitigating this is what I was wondering about - feedback with only a final judgement over what a judge personally likes the most gives competition second, feedback first.

One final question, what does the club get out of entering inter-club/inter-federation competitions? Why are we doing it?
I look at the national PAGB competition results and to be totally honest, it's the same old clubs winning competitions judged by the same old cliquey crowd. The same type of images win

Don't want to sound like I'm harping on or anything, it really was just a thought to kickstart discussion. Maybe this is better done over a pint at that pub round the corner from the club?

[Mike Farley]

I feel that I need to reiterate that quite frequently there is a disparity between the seemingly positive comments judges sometimes make, presumably motivated by wanting to be constructive, and a lower mark than the critique might suggest. You may not be interested in what a score represents in terms of rankings, but it does give a clear indication of what the judge really thinks.

There are other issues associated with judging; maybe the awarding of marks is actually among the least of them?

[Iggy]

Competitions in their current format are popular at the CCC, as there is almost always a better than average turnout on the night.
I have been helping newbies to get involved in the competitions with practical help in mounting and printing at ProAM or on how to get PDIs. Its all on the CCC Website but can be tough to do for the first time without being shown how to.
For the most part at this stage they are just trying to progress towards improving their photography. They are happy if they get a certificate.
Members who have been around a while understand that winning either the Print or PDI total rounds is their ticket to the level above. Same with the Intermediate Class.
I am in the Intermediate Class where I am staying afloat with little Photoshop skills as you would have gathered from the comments of the judges. The intention is to pick up more Photoshop skills via YouTube. You may LOL. posting.php?mode=reply&f=2&t=2241#
Too many things get in the way of me doing this and I always seem to run out of time. Next week, I will try and make a start with my recent image "Enjoying the Tuba".
Iggy

[davidc]

I feel that I need to reiterate that quite frequently there is a disparity between the seemingly positive comments judges sometimes make, presumably motivated by wanting to be constructive, and a lower mark than the critique might suggest. You may not be interested in what a score represents in terms of rankings, but it does give a clear indication of what the judge really thinks.

There are other issues associated with judging; maybe the awarding of marks is actually among the least of them?

I disagree, all the marks give is a cack-handed indication of where the judge thinks the image sits in relation to the others presented in that class. Take away the marks and you get the feedback and either "I like it so much I'll give it an award" or it won't. Not getting an award and getting 7 out of 12 is as vague an indication of what they truly think as not getting award and no score.

I'd rather a judge feel they don't need to spare my feelings or waste time trying to rank images and just say, "I can see what you've done, this works well, this doesn't, on balance there are images I prefer more tonight".

And I haven't even touched on how different judges use marks wildly differently

[Mike Farley]

I disagree, all the marks give is a cack-handed indication of where the judge thinks the image sits in relation to the others presented in that class. Take away the marks and you get the feedback and either "I like it so much I'll give it an award" or it won't. Not getting an award and getting 7 out of 12 is as vague an indication of what they truly think as not getting award and no score.

We are going to have to agree to differ. With your proposal, a ranking still takes place and it is less flexible than scoring as it allows the judge to give as many or few certificates on the night as they feel are justified, rather than be constrained to a fixed number. Much as I dislike the idea of awarding scores, it does force a judge to state their opinion of an image's worth which, for the reasons already proffered, does not always come out in the remarks.

I suspect it is moot, anyway. There does not seem to be much appetite for a change.

[Sarahrs]

As a newbie I enjoyed the challenge of the open competition. I got see how my photos compare to the best in the club at an early stage. This helped me to assess confirm which competition standard I should be in. It helped me assess the gap between where I am and again the best in the club. Both the feedback and marks were very useful for this. For example I know I can produce good quality pictures, but it's not consistent.

Photography is both a technical and subjective, as a result marks will reflect judges preference.

Really enjoyed listening and learning from the judges expertise and wider comments. His comments on issues including mounts, colour and print paper is very similar to the type of comments you recieve at a RPS awards events. Sometimes tough to hear but valuable to consider.

Please do keep open element to the Bamber trophy.

Also happy enough with the competitive, point scoring element.

[Iggy]

Hi David,
You missed the 1st PDI comp with some 60 entries on Wednesday just gone.
Tough but honest judge that was rather frugal with his marks, even with the Advanced class.
Just 4 or 5 certificates given in each class, where 2 new members did well.

We have the 2nd Print Competition this coming Wednesday.

Sarah said

Please do keep open element to the Bamber trophy.

There are several other open competitions each year - Nature, Master, Print of the year, & PDI of the year, for you to look forward to.

Iggy

[davidb]

"Print of the Year" and "PDI of the Year" are for your (considered opinion) best three images from the monthly competitions.

[Iggy]

Hi David B,

"Print of the Year" and "PDI of the Year" are for your (considered opinion) best three images from the monthly competitions.

Are these Open Competitions for the 3 classes combined?

The Judge liked two of your images that you need to submit for inclusion on the results pages of the website.
Same goes for our newcomers, Sarah & Steve that had winning images. Send the images to Ashley Shepherd <ashley@ashleyshepherd.co.uk>
See previous 10+ images at: http://croydoncameraclub.org.uk/ClubCom ... allery.htm
Iggy

[Mike Farley]

The Judge liked two of your images that you need to submit for inclusion on the results pages of the website.

Already done for all the certificated images as part of my projectionist duties.