On Camera Club Judges

FindArticles - Who judges the judges? - camera club judges - column
PSA Journal, Jan, 1989, by Gilbert Hill

A debate as we slowly close 2008. How do you feel about Camera Club judges?

All Camera Club Judges have my sympathy. This has to be one of the least-envied tasks in photography.

As a judge, whatever you do or say, you will always upset someone. You'll award prizes to the good and great and hand out a few highly commended ("highly condemned"), commended ("condemned") or creative marks but there will always be a body disgruntled that you have not given sufficient marks to their individual image. Have you been a judge? Can you share your insights and experience? What makes a good camera club judge?

But those being judged need sympathy too.

Having work judged and critiqued is something I never enjoy but over the past few years have taken the view that if a judge likes my work, then that's great but - if they don't then - in the words of the immortal Tony Hancock - he/she simply does not realize that "I'm an artist".

Mind you, this sanguine somewhat philosophic view only lasts as long as the club evening, then I climb in the car and gently seethe until I get home. It then takes at least one glass of Cabernet Sauvignon before I can look at the image I created to set the world's "hearts wild with desire"(another Hancock line) and try to understand why the judge described it as 'competent' (...oh has there ever been such a hateful word?).

What about you? Tell us your experiences as the beneficiary or victim of a camera club judge.