Dallas Camera Club Competition Meetings

I discovered the Dallas Camera Club last month and I’ve been going to their meetings since then. They have meetings on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month; the 3rd Tuesday is their regular meeting while the 1st Tueday is the competition meeting.

Not having much interest in entering pictures, I didn’t give much thought to competition meetings. However, at the last regular meeting, they had to finish some business from the last competition meeting since they ran out of time. So, I had the opportunity to see what went on at a competition meeting.

In addition to participants handing in images for that month’s competition, each competition meeting also includes commentary and results from the last competition. When the photos are turned in, they’re sent off each month to a judge such as a professional photographer or a photography professor. He or she then scores each photo and records some commentary on an audio cassette.

The pictures are mailed back to the club and the commentary is presented with the images. The room is dimmed, with the exception of a lit easel in the front of the room and, timed with the commentary, the various photographs are displayed.

So, of course, all of this happened at a regular meeting and I was pleasantly surprised — I had in mind that the competition meetings would be fairly boring as people turned in their photographs and received their scores. On the contrary, it was fascinating to hear the comments of a professional on such a variety of photographs.

The audio commentary really made the photo sequence much more interesting. And I now find myself really looking forward to the next competition meeting (August 5th).