Martin Loc: Long Island NY

I would like some feedback on this. I currently belong to a camera club and was a past president. In our club the members are either A or B photographers. If an A photographer enters a different venue he can become a B photographer. I disagree with this as it isn't fair to the B photographers. If a member is an A photographer in prints they can become a B photographer in Digital. I feel this has to be changed. The only thing is sending the same print digitally.

Thanks for the feed back

Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.

I agree.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Will the opinions of UHH'ers carry that much weight with the club members? 🤔

.

CO

You are correct. Our camera club adheres to the Photographic Society of America guidelines. Once a photographer is in group A, they must only compete in group A. Group B photographers may compete as a group A photographer however.

Group A (Seasoned Exhibitor)
Any member MAY enter images in the Group A competition.
You are REQUIRED to compete in Group A if you have won any Memorial Award or have received more than 3 placed awards (1st, 2nd or 3rd place).
Once you have competed in Group A, you must remain in this Group for all future competitions.

Group B (Novice Exhibitor)
This group is for new/novice CCR Members.
In order to compete in this group, you must NOT have won any Camera Club Memorial Award or have received more than 3 placed awards (1st, 2nd or 3rd place).
Once you have won a Memorial Award, or received more than 3 placed awards, you MUST compete in the Group A category for all future competitions.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Another reason I avoid camera clubs.

Martin Loc: Long Island NY

thank you

Nigel7 Loc: Worcestershire. UK.

In the UK there are different arrangements depending on your club. I believe the most common one is for three classes, Novice, Intermediate and Advanced.
Novices move up by winning the Novice class over the course of the season. Ditto from Intermediate to Advanced.
If a new member feels he/she should start in a higher class, then a panel/selection of their work would be submitted to the committee (or sub-committee) for assessment.
With digital the difference between print and PDI (slide) is far less than in the film days. However, many photographers now, and back in the day, have their prints professionally done so a judge's comments on print quality don't always have a great deal of relevance.

Martin Loc: Long Island NY

I am beginning to think the same thing. They are really a dictatorship. And pretty stupid about right and wrong.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

My camera club has four categories...Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Master. New members may self-declare for any of the lower three categories when they join. Advancement is based on performance in contests. Master formerly carried additional requirements, but is being reconfigured to just be another advancement group. There is no advantage for "overdeclaring," or initially placing oneself in too high a group, and I have not seen it be a problem. Having more groups, especially in a large club like ours, gives more people a chance to do well against others of similar experience.

I do not enter as many of the contests as I initially did. In my case, I finally just got tired of judges making stupid comments about color ranges based on assumptions they made about places they hadn't been to or seen.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

Cxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi, Martin,
I think I understand the dichotomy you describe. Having been a member of several photography / camera clubs over the years, some pre-digital when image quality was judged upon prints and projected color reversal (“slide”) images, and later digital when image quality is judged based upon different sorts of digital display or upon the quality of properly prepared and properly illuminated prints. We’re not talking’ apples and oranges... we’re talking a basket of many different fruits.
It certainly is not uncommon that one who favored and was invested in black&white prints had little interest or regard for image quality discussions of projected slides... and vice-versa!

And today it should be no surprise that those who enjoy displaying their images as large, carefully prepared and properly displayed 36” x 48” prints from original raw image data captures have less interest in digital images of those specifically preferring digital display online or as relatively small prints to be viewed at reading distance or at arm’s length ... and vice-versa!
The specific purposes for display and evaluation of their images chosen by each photographer is a totally valid and esthetically unarguable creative and artistic decision.
The relegation of photographers to an arbitrarily hierarchical system of status (“A” vs. “B”) is, at least from my perspective as an artist - and judge - in several media, to be totally unjustified and unsupportable and far more reflective of the personal status insecurities of those imposing the judgements than of the actual qualities of the art produced by those of different esthetic persuasions.

This discussion is, of course, in no significant way, different from the current tendency of many photographers wedded faithfully to their “traditional gear” to patronizingly denigrate the image attainable using smartphone cameras. And for this reason I do applaud the chutzpah of the many smartphone photographers who have, for several years, been posting their images in various photography forums without indicating that they were smartphone photographic images! Funny how discussions of the purported inferiority of mobile phone camera images never arose unless it was indicated that a particular posted image was, in fact, the fruit of “smartphone photography”.

Photo gear status has been around since the first dry glass plates replaced the “traditional” wet glass plate negatives. Given the time, I suspect one might recall that “gear status” has reared its insecure head more than a few times since then!
...and so it goes....
Dave

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

Mac Loc: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia now Hernando Co. Fl.

Leitz Loc: Solms

I sympathise with you. Must be rough being forced to belong to a club whose rules you disagree with.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Thanks for defining what the A and B groups are

Ollieboy

I've been a member of the Brooklyn Camera Club for about 8 years. It's the oldest club in the USA. Chartered in 1864. We don't have any elite classes of members. We're not competitive. We enjoy sharing our photos at meetings (now Zoom). We are all classified as equal photographers here to have fun. We occasionally have competitions. I don't see how any member classified as a novice or beginner can feel comfortable among the self classified elite. It's about fun, not competition.