A couple of weeks ago we welcomed our friends from Cumnock Camera Club to our meeting room at the Irvine Community Sports Club for one of our inter-club knock-out competitions. In the world of competitive photography, our creative work is almost always left in the hands of an independent judge to be assessed and criticised. Several years ago, Irvine Camera Club decided to ditch the judge led assessment process for what are meant to be a social and friendly evenings. Instead, we came up with the idea of getting the audience to choose which photograph is the best.
We do this by showing the photos in pairs and asking everyone to vote for their favourite. This only really works if everyone votes impartially. To ensure that we always ask for new images, ones that haven’t been trotted out in previous competitions. That way everything should be fresh and new, and crucially, anonymous.
Our chair, Tracy Ross, took control of the technology and projected the pairs of images for everyone to vote on. After our official hand counter, Colin Houston, had decided the triumphant image in each pairing it was over to Bob Wark and Derrick Phillips from Cumnock to give their considered opinion on the vanquished photograph.
Getting through all 32 images took us nicely to break time where a splendid buffet prepared by Tracy was enjoyed by all. Suitably refreshed and after a good blether with our friends, the lights were dimmed, and battle commenced once more as we headed into the next rounds of the knock-out.
It’s always fascinating how the random pairings come out and it is great to see the audience having to really look at the images to decide which one they like best, it isn’t always an easy choice! After 5 rounds of voting, we eventually ended up with the last 2 images standing. Unfortunately for Irvine, the final vote was between two Cumnock shots “Light, Pattern, Texture” by Isobel Shaw and “Sun Rays” by Phil Hobb, with Phil taking the win in a very tight show of hands.
The Phil & Isobel’s photos are shown here along with the contenders from Irvine.
If you love photography and you’d like to join a sociable and fun club of like-minded people then check out our website www.irvinecc.co.uk for all our details. Until next time, Enjoy the Light!
