Photography News Issue 42

Photography News | Issue 42 | absolutephoto.com

42

Interview Cheltenham International Salon of Photography The Cheltenham Camera Club Salon was set up in 2015. We caught up with Des Ward, chairman of the Salon to find out more and how you can enter

Interview by Jemma Dodd

Why was the salon originally set up? What inspired it? We started the salon with several goals. Firstly, to get Cheltenham on the national and international map, photography-wise; we’re always looking for new members and this is fantastic publicity for us. We were also motivated to celebrate the club’s 150th anniversary in 2015, and the salon contributed hugely to that. In addition to this we wanted to encourage our members to improve their photography even more, and getting them involved with our own salon has indeed encouraged many to enter other salons and go further down the route of getting photographic distinctions. For 14 years we have run the fantastically successful Gloucestershire Young Photographer of the Year competition and I see our salon as a further extension of photography into the community. How does the competition work; can you talk us through the judging process and the awards? The competition is completely web- based, photographers upload their pictures, up to four images per person in each of the five sections; Colour, Monochrome, Creative, Nature and Travel. Colour and then Monochrome are by far the most popular sections, presumably because all images fall into one of those categories. This is followed by Nature and Travel where the authenticity of the image is paramount, you’re not allowed to alter these by, for example, cloning details in or out. The fewest entries come in the Creative section, but these have often had extensive and time-consuming work done to them, by way of montaging and other Photoshop techniques. These can be really Marmite images, some you love, some you hate.

Right Reflective Anticipation by David White , PSA Gold, Monochrome Below Hilarious Moment by Bob Bishop, FIAP Gold, Travel -

The judging is done to an exacting level of detail. The room must be fully blacked out, the computer and projector carefully calibrated and the judges sat in comfy chairs with a keypad containing the crucial buttons two to five. As the images come up, the judges independently rate the image two to five. A five means it should definitely get accepted, but it is the total score from the three judges, which could be from six to 15, that counts. There were 2051 Colour images to judge last year, so they are split into four rounds. When all the images have been judged we determine the score an image needs to be accepted. We’re looking for around 25% of the images to be accepted, but it depends on how many images get each score. Often 11 or 12 are the accepted level and every image that reaches that score is accepted into the Salon. After that, the judges need to select from the top scoring images to determine the medals and ribbons. This time however, the judges confer, pour over the details of each image and come to an agreement on the Gold medals and other awards. There’s also a judge’s ribbon for each judge to pick, so that an image they think is particularly good can get an award, even if all three of them are not in strict agreement. How has the standard of entries changed since the first competition? I don’t think there’s an awful lot of difference between the standard of images in the salon last year and the images entered in the first year. The best images are still completely fantastic and rise to the top, there’s a huge swathe of images which are highly commendable and there are plenty of images which probably won’t make it, because they don’t fit the fashion of the day, or they’re

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