Photography News | Issue 42 | absolutephoto.com
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Interview
not technically good enough, or mostly because they just don’t hit the judges’ buttons – perhaps from entrants who are just starting with salons and are finding their feet. But every entry, whether it is awarded or accepted or not, is a learning opportunity for the photographer, it can help them work out which images do work – at least in this partly artificial world of salon judging. open worldwide, was this a conscious decision to open it to everyone? The decision to make it a worldwide competition was an easy one. Our first decision was not to allow prints – many salons do allow prints, especially UK only ones, but as we were just starting we didn’t think we could cope with all the physical aspects. We do of course have prints in our own club competitions and there are always logistical problems, storing, sorting, labelling, returning etc. and we reckoned these could only be made worse by having a print competition where the entrants could be, at the least, at the other end of the UK. So once it was a digital, online only competition, there seemed no reason to restrict it to the UK, and of course patronage The competition is
from FIAP, PSA etc. was only going to come with an international competition. Having said that, we get about half of our entries from the UK, and the rest from overseas. Tell us about the catalogue. How did the decision come about to produce this? We create a printed catalogue that every entrant receives, and we produce an audio-visual (AV) show of the award winners and selected accepted images. In return for getting the patronage from FIAP etc. we need to produce a catalogue showing the results and a selection of accepted images. When setting up the Salon initially we went with a printed catalogue to enhance our case for getting patronage and we review it every year, but we still currently feel that a catalogue where the entrants can see their name and images in print, provides the best incentive for them to enter and keep entering our salon. In fact we enlarged and improved our catalogue after the second year and have achieved a four star rating from FIAP. Getting a printed catalogue in the post and opening it to find one of your images is a special feeling. One of our members, Martin Fry FRPS creates a magnificent AV by
selecting and combining the images and putting them to appropriate music. The AV is the highlight of our award ceremony and we then take it round other local (and not so local) clubs to let them know about the Salon and encourage themto join in. We’ve done over 50 shows so far! What advice would you give to anyone thinking of entering? I have four pieces of advice if you’ve never entered a salon. Firstly, if you’re not already a member, join a club – this will let you see how your images are thought of in club circles. Then if your images are a good club standard try them out in a salon (ours preferably). Make sure you follow the rules about image sizes and what you are allowed to do to an image in each section. Finally, don’t get disheartened if you don’t get accepted, it all depends on the judges on the day and the other images you’re up against. I would always try an image at least half a dozen times before giving up on it. During the selection process the images are only seen for a few seconds so the image must have immediate impact, if not it is easy for the judges to dismiss. The other key thing is originality, anything that is different makes the judge look that little bit longer and gives you a better chance of acceptance.
Top right Pony Force by Chau Kei Checky Lam, RPS Gold, Colour Above Moving the Herd by Jenny Hibbert, PSA Silver – Story, Travel Right AWild Goose Chase by Lynne Morris, FIAP Gold, Creative Below left Male Banded Demoiselle on Convolvulus by Trevor Davenport, PSA Gold, Nature Belowright Caught in a Sea of Wildebeest by Alan Walker, RPS Gold, Nature
The exhibition
Cheltenham Camera Club will be holding its 5th International Salon of Photography (CISP) this spring. There will be five categories; Colour, Monochrome, Travel, Nature and Creative. Entry is now open and ends on 23 April 2017. All entrants will receive a full colour A4 printed catalogue. cheltenhamcameraclub.co.uk/ wordpress/salon/
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