Judging images for Berwick

Monday, June 6th, 2011 at 11:38pm

Tonight I travelled out to the Beaconsfield Pub to have dinner and then look at a series of images, for eight seconds at a time.

Every year the Berwick Viewfinders have their Pub National where club members enter their best images from the past year. The “pub” part of the name should have been immediately obvious, while the “national” comes from using the same format as a national competition.

As one of three judges (also from Waverley Camera Club) we were shown each image for eight seconds, after which we each held up a card with a score (between 2 and 5, for a total out of 15).

It was definitely an experience, with challenges.

The first challenge was the fixed period of time that we were shown each image. At first eight seconds sounds like a very short period of time, but it is actually longer than you think. Even so, the time limit meant we had to judge mostly based on initial impact.

The second challenge was what score to give, especially for the first image in each section. If that first image is good and you give it a 5, what happens if there is a better image later on? If that first image isn’t very good and you give is a 2, what if a later image is worse? In the end we realised we would judge against possible images, not just what could be in the section.

Overall it was a good night, that was well worth doing.

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