Exhibition Rules and Schedule

Exhibition Schedule

Expanded Nature

Annual Awards

Exhibitions

The Channel City Camera Club holds monthly Exhibitions to showcase member images and to provide meaningful feedback from judges. The goal for each Exhibition is to have two professional judges and one club judge although that may vary based on conditions beyond the club’s control.

An Exhibition is held on on the first Tuesday of each month that the club meets, i.e. all months other than January, August, and December.  Meetings start at 7:00 P.M. and are held via Zoom. Participation in the Exhibition is open to all Active and Honorary club members. Dues must be paid to be an active member.

There is one type of media allowed for exhibition a digital file.

During each exhibition, there will be five categories for image submission. These are Conceptual/Creative Editing (formerly Altered Reality), Nature, Open, People, and Unscored. Members participating in a juried exhibition will be allowed to submit a maximum of three digital images per exhibition night, one per category for any of the three out of the five listed above that they choose. NO PRINTS!

Extended Nature will be allowed in March, May, July, and October.

To be eligible for a High Average Score Award, you must submit FIVE (5) OR MORE images in that category during the year.

You can submit a video up to one minute long into the unscored category. Due to the size of videos, you’ll have to make arrangements for submitting them if they’re too big to email.

This year we are moving back to assignments to challenge our members in a variety of categories and situations.

The Special Assignments for the year are defined as follows:

    • Conceptual/Creative Editing aka CRE: Open.
    • Nature: Open.
    • Open: Open.
    • People: Open.

CHANNEL CITY CAMERA CLUB REQUIREMENTS FOR EXHIBITION

This document details the requirements for accepting print and digital images for exhibition by the Channel City Camera Club.

General Requirements

The following requirements apply to both print and digital entry.

  • Each entered image shall be solely the product of the entering member. No commercially produced elements e.g. stock photographs, may be used to produce the image, with the exception of purchased textures.
  • An image that has been given an Acceptance award in a club Exhibition cannot be submitted again for exhibition.

Digital File Requirements

There are 5 categories of digital exhibition. (Revised 2019)

  • Nature: the nature photography category is restricted to the use of the photographic process to depict observations from all branches of natural history, except anthropology and archeology, in such a fashion that a well informed person will be able to identify the subject material and to certify as to its honest presentation. We are working on revisions to the guidelines to the Nature category and will update the website when they are finalized. In the meantime, see the Angle for the latest guidelines.
    • All adjustments must appear natural.
    • The story telling value of a photograph must be weighed more than the pictorial quality while maintaining a high technical quality.
    • Human elements shall not be present.  The presence of scientific bands, scientific tags or radio collars on wild animals is permissible.
    • Photographs of artificially produced hybrid plants or animals, mounted specimens, or obviously set arrangements, are ineligible, as is any form of manipulation that alters the truth of the photographic statement.
    • No techniques that add to, relocate, replace, or remove picture elements except by cropping are permitted. No compositing. Techniques that enhance the presentation of the photograph without changing the nature story or the pictorial content are permitted.
  • People: any depiction of human beings. Formal or casual portraiture, documentary, and photo-journalistic images are all appropriate as is an image of one or multiple people. Expressive images of specific body parts such as the eyes, hands or face are all allowed.
  • Open: an open-ended category that includes images of any subject created using any technique.
  • CRE (formerly Altered Reality): The intent of this category is to highlight members’ effective use of post-production techniques to produce a conceptual or creative change to an original digital image. Suggested examples include, but are not limited to, composites, abstractions, layering, blending, and other techniques of digital manipulation.
    Simply using unusual angles, extreme close-ups, direct capture of abstract subjects, the depiction of unusual situations, HDR, black and white conversion, camera movement (or other in-camera effects) as the basis for the creative transformation alone does not qualify a submission for this category. There must be other significant post-production to modify the image.

    All images and image components must have been taken, created, or generated by the member with the exception of 3rd party textures.

  • Unscored Critiqued: this category is available during every Juried Exhibition for members who want an image critiqued but not scored by the judges.  The unscored critiqued category has the following specific rules:
    • Subject: there is no restriction on the subject material or the technique used in creating the image.
    • Quantity: unscored critiqued submission is limited to one digital file for each Exhibition, and that individual is able to enter photos in two other categories as well.  Thus every Club member is eligible to enter three categories at each Exhibition.

A digital file entered into the Exhibition must adhere to the following requirements:

There is no required file size for exhibition entries, however, submissions that are under 2400 pixels horizontally or 1600 pixels vertically may not display sharply in the judge’s gallery. Conversely, images over 3840 pixels horizontally or 2160 pixels vertically provide no significant advantage.

  • Subject: the subject material must adhere to the requirements of the specific category that the digital file is submitted into as further limited by the Special Assignment if appropriate.
  • Quantity: members may submit up to 3 digital files for each exhibition, no more than one image may be submitted in any single category. Note that submissions of unscored images and prints are included in the maximum of 3 images per exhibition.
  • Color: there is no color restriction; images may be black and white, tinted, or in color.
  • Process: the photographer must have performed all image capture, adjustments, and preparation.
  • Digital File Format: all images shall be submitted in the JPEG (.jpg) file format. It is suggested that you use the highest quality setting when creating the digital file. Save file in Baseline Standard or Baseline Optimized (not Progressive). Guidance on File Saving appears in the Technical Detail section at the end of this document.
  • File Naming: There’s a new way to name your files when submitting images to Exhibition Nights: CAT Title by Firstname Lastname, where
    • Cat is the Category abbreviation: CRE for Conceptual/Creative Editing (formerly Altered Reality, Nat for Nature, Peo for People, Ope for Open, Pri for Print and Uns for UnScored.
    • Title is your title for the image; capitalize the first letter of each word.
    • Firstname is your first name.
    • Lastname is your last name.
    • Example: the Nature image “Before the Storm” submitted by Betty Smith would have the file name: NAT Before The Storm Betty Smith
  • Color Space: The recommended color space is sRGB. If you are not familiar with color spaces, ignore this requirement but please understand that a slight color shift may occur when the image is projected. Guidance on Color Space Conversion appears in the Technical Detail section at the end of this document.
  • Macintosh Submission: The suggested gamma for a Mac computer is 2.2. If you are not familiar with gamma settings or if you choose to use a different gamma value, please understand that your image when projected may appear slightly dark; you may want to add brightness to compensate for this situation. Guidance on gamma selection for a Mac appears in the Technical Detail section at the end of this document.
  • Digital File Submission: digital files are to be submitted by attachment to an e-mail sent to the club’s exhibition e-mail address, [email protected]. Submit multiple images as individual attachments to a single e-mail if possible. Do not place multiple images into a .zip or similar compressed file. The e-mails must be submitted before midnight on the Friday evening prior to the exhibition. A confirmation notice will be returned when the entry is processed.
  • Digital Projector: please understand that even with the club’s excellent digital projector, there can be a variation in color and tonality between the image you see on your home monitor and the image that is projected by the club.
  • Suitability: if there are questions about whether a digital file is suitable for exhibition, please contact the Director of Projected Image. A decision by the Director of Projected Image that a digital file submission does not meet the requirements stated above is final and that image will not be included in that night’s exhibition. Any appeal to this decision should be made to the President of the club.

Judging

Judging will be performed by three judges selected by the Director of Judges, typically consisting of two professionals and one Club member.

  • Performance: the judges shall provide a score for all submissions other than the non-judged digital images.  Verbal evaluation of each print and digital file shall be provided by one of the judges.
  • Scoring: the prints and digital files shall be judged on a scoring scale of 3 through 9 with the following criteria,
    • Score of 9: image showing exceptional artistic and technical skill.
    • Score of 8: image showing very high artistic and technical skill.
    • Score of 7: very good image worthy of award consideration.
    • Score of 6: average image with some good and some bad aspects.
    • Score of 5: below-average image needing improvement.
    • Score of 4: below-average image with a serious technical defect.
    • Score of 3: image with multiple defects.
  • Acceptance: an image that reaches a score of 21 by summing the score of the 3 judges is said to achieve Acceptance and will be eligible for the Image-of-the-Year Award.
    • If less that 30% of the entries in a given category achieve Acceptance, the criterion of reaching a score of 21 is reduced to a value at which 30% of the entries in a given category do achieve Acceptance.
  • Acceptance Variation: there are several variations to the Acceptance scoring to compensate for not having 3 judgments of the image,
    • If only 2 judges are available, the total score is increased by 50% (e.g., 2 scores of 7 = 14, increased by 50% gives a cumulative score of 14+7=21).
    • If only 1 judge is available, the score is increased by 200% (e.g., 1 scores of 7 increased by 200% gives a cumulative score of 7+14=21).
    • When the club judge evaluates their own image, they will disqualify themselves by scoring a 1, and the cumulative score will reflect that one judge was not available for that image.  Club judge cumulative scores can include half points (e.g., scores of 7 and 8 = 15 increased by 50% = 15 + 7.5 = 22.5)

Awards

Two sets of awards are given at the Annual Awards Banquet for photographic excellence.

  • Highest Average Score Awards: recognition is given for the photographers with the highest average scores over the year for each category: Print, ALT, Nature, People, and Open. In each case, the photographer must have a minimum of four images in a category to be counted in the highest average score calculation. Year-end awards will be based on the highest averages and will include 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, as well as Honorable Mention. The current scores for each photographer is available in the Scores section of the club’s web site, www.cccameraclub.com.
  • Image-of-the-Year Awards: recognition is given for the photographers whose work is judged the best for each category: print, digitally altered, nature, people, and open. All prints and digital files that have reached the level of Acceptance are eligible for this award. Image-of-the-Year judging is performed by non-member judges after the November Juried Exhibition using a special judging process closed to the general membership, and the results are not announced until the Annual Awards Banquet.

Technical Detail

This section provides guidance in performing the technical requirements for digital file submission. Specific steps are referenced to the current version of Adobe Photoshop but similar procedures are available in other image editing software.

File Saving
1. File > Save As
2. Set File Name in the format, CAT Title by Firstname Lastname, where Cat denotes the category and is either CRE (formerly Altered Reality), NAT for Nature, PEO for People, OPE for Open, UNS for unscored, and PRI for Print.
3. Set Format = JPEG (.jpg)
4. Check the ICC Profile box
5. Click on SAVE
6. Set Quality = 10 – Note: Using up to 4000 pixels may result in large files that could be problematic as email attachments. If so, use a lower quality JPEG setting (8 or 9), which will have no noticeable effect on the projected image.
7. Set Format Options = Baseline (Standard)
8. Click on OK

Image Resizing: Method #1 – Image Resize command
1. Image > Image Size
2. Check the Resample Image box and choose an interpolation method (normally Bicubic)
3. Check the Constrain Proportions box
4. Set Pixel Dimensions, either horizontal or vertical, to between 1000 and 4000 pixels
5. Click on OK

Image Resizing: Method #2 – Fit Image command
1. File > Automate > Fit Image
2. Set to at least 1000 pixels but no more than 4000 pixels in either height or width
3. Click on OK

Color Space Conversion
1. Edit > Convert to Profile (for Elements, this is Image > Convert Color Profile)
2. Set Destination Space = Adobe RGB (1998)
3. Set Engine = Adobe (ACE), Intent = Relative Colorimetric, and check all 3 boxes
4. Click on OK
5. Save this version of your file for exhibition with a unique name

Gamma Selection for a Mac Computer
1. Preferences > Display > Calibrate > Display Calibration
2. Select 1.8 or 2.2