CCC Forum

This thread has been created so that members can provide their views on the club's first virtual competition on 1 April 2020. It is the first time that the club has run such an event and it will be useful to know about everyone's experience as it there will be similar meetings in future. Tell us what went well and what did not. Constructive comments appreciated.

For obvious reasons, no responses are anticipated until after the event!

Most of all a thank you to all concerned in setting all this up, a lot of time has been spent in organising and testing and with the help of trail runs and adjusting. As a member of the club it is appreciated, Mike and his colleagues has my admiration in the work put in Thank you.

The evening I thought went very well, the Judge appeared to start off with giving fair comments and a lot of time spent on the images but I did not realise that he had seen the images well in advance and was referring to his prepared notes and marks. Had this been a club night he would not have had that opportunity and his judging might have been different. I thought his comments were relevant and fair.

I had a few problems with my laptop which started to overheat so I had to drop out a few times and come back in it does not like the programe.

All in all a good evening and all went well.

Ron

I agree with Ron in thanking Mike and everyone who organised last night's competition. For a first go I think it was extremely successful and went very well.
I'm looking forward to the next one and other Zoom meetings that we will have.
Keep well everyone!
Tina

Ronald Barker wrote:...... I did not realise that he had seen the images well in advance and was referring to his prepared notes and marks. Had this been a club night he would not have had that opportunity and his judging might have been different. I thought his comments were relevant and fair.

Thanks for the positive feedback, Ron.

In respect of the judge seeing the images beforehand, this is one of the changes we have had to make for virtual competitions. If we were meeting at the club, the judge would be viewing the entries on our calibrated projector which gives an as accurate as possible representation of the image. This would not necessarily happen with an online competition since we are reliant on the quality of a video connection and there is no guarantee that the judge is viewing the images on a good quality, calibrated screen. The opposite is more likely since many people use portable devices which have camera, microphone and speakers built in but often have screens which are often inferior to a standalone monitor.

Allowing the judge a preview ahead of the competition means that they are able to make their assessments using the same setup as they use for their own photography. Whether this has an effect on their opinion is moot, but it is the same for everyone. On the basis that judges have a lot of experience and posesses a properly calibrated monitor, this should be a reasonable compromise. Rob and I spoke in the morning to ensure everything would go well during the competition. He mentioned a couple of images where there were some issues which could have been due to how they were being displayed on his screen. I checked them on my own calibrated Eizo monitor and concurred with his assessment. I am content that all of the judge's decisions last night were based on aesthetics and there were no unfair comments in respect of technical considerations due to the manner in which our work was being viewed.

I agree with Ron and Tina It was a great night and I would just like to say how smoothly it went so well done Mike and all concerned.

By the way can we have that judge every time (just jokin)

I agree with the previous comments, while I missed the human interaction I enjoyed the fact that I could view the images in the comfort of my home - the bonus being that there was no travel time . It was good to see so many in attendance. Well done Mike and the other members who worked to make this happen. It went as well as it could, my experience was comparable to a normal DPI night minus the interaction with fellow members (although there was some through the messaging ):D . Well done!

I wholeheartedly agree with what everyone else has said so far. In fact the entire process was far easier, seamless and more effective than I thought it would be. ...…...And I could enjoy a couple of glasses of red whilst viewing the submitted photos, which beats a cup of coffee any old time .........so what's not to like.

I also think it was a wise move by the organisers to run the 2 trial sessions during the previous 2 evenings...…….. so very well done guys!

I would happily echo all of this. It was heartening to see such a high number of entries across all classes, which is a good sign of our collective determination to keep the club strong so that we can return to face-to-face meetings in rude health before too long, I hope.

Perhaps the SLF could run finals day this way so that we could win the mono prints competition in our 130th year...

The Chinese character for crisis is apparently made up of two words - danger and opportunity. Last evening did make me wonder if, at least over the next few months, there are opportunities to make the most of technology. For example, camera clubs could jointly pitch in to book speakers who would, if approached individually, ordinarily be well outside of their price bracket. Alternatively, tutorials on post processing would seem easier to follow online from home than if we were straining our eyes to look at a projected screen in the church hall. We could informally critique images in chat, watch a photography related documentary and then discuss. I'm sure others could think of other suggestions.

Well done to everyone involved. And congratulations to Bett who I think is now in an unassailable position - no need to venture outside to hand last year's trophy to someone else!

Steve

Hi Mike it seems I missed out on a good evening, I spoke to Franke and he thought it would be worth a try.anyway I tried to get in on the act but did not succeed, I suppose I had to have been in on process from the beginning. I will try and find out how to go about it for next time.
I am not sure but I may be in the same position as I was yesterday with my emails. That is why I am trying this method of communicating. So you know its me.
Good luck with the comments coming through.
Regards Wally

walterconquy wrote:Hi Mike it seems I missed out on a good evening, I spoke to Franke and he thought it would be worth a try.anyway I tried to get in on the act but did not succeed, I suppose I had to have been in on process from the beginning. I will try and find out how to go about it for next time.
I am not sure but I may be in the same position as I was yesterday with my emails. That is why I am trying this method of communicating. So you know its me.
Good luck with the comments coming through.
Regards Wally

Hi Wally

Good to hear from you. I have not seen any more spurious e-mails allegedly from you so hopefully that is a good sign.

Zoom is easy to use and we did hold a couple of sessions ahead of Wednesday's meeting so that people could get used to videoconferences before the meeting proper. There is going to be another official club meeting next Wednesday, but I will think about setting up another test event a day or so beforehand in case there is anyone else who wants to check out their devices and configurations. Apart from anything else, they have turned out to be useful social occasions which is no bad thing in present circumstances.