Guidance for Judges and Lecturers

Although most camera clubs are similar in many ways, each has their own ways of doing things, so to reduce confusion on the night we’ve prepared the following notes to help our judges and guest lecturers.

  • Emergency contact
    If you have any problems on the night, please call Andy Hyde our Chairman on 07917 154808.
  • Our meetings
    We meet at the Walsworth Road Baptist Church, SG4 9SP and start at 7.45pm aiming to finish around 9:45.
  • Getting to Walsworth Road Baptist Church
    1.       Coming from the A1(M), take the exit at Junction 8 to HITCHIN along the A602.
    2.       After approx. 3 miles you will come to a large roundabout.  Take the 4th exit [Signposted Town Centre (A565)].
    3.        Bear right at first Roundabout and you’ll pass St Mary’s church on the left.
    4.        Go straight on at the traffic lights, you’ll see the car par for the Queen Mother Theatre on the right
    5.        Walsworth Road Baptist Church is on the right at the roundabout
  • Map
    The location of Walsworth Road Baptist Church can be found here… https://www.wrbchitchin.org.uk/contact
  • Parking
    There is a small car park attached to the church, and as a judge or speaker you’re welcome to use it. In the event of the car park being full There’s plenty of free parking at the Queen Mother Theatre.
  • Finding the Hitchin Camera Club
    We meet upstairs in the building to the left of the church. Simply enter via the link building turn left and come up stairs
  • Arrival
    On arrival the chairman or delegate will welcome you to the club, let you know where the toilets are, etc. .
  • Payment/Expenses
    • Like many clubs we prefer to make payments for your expenses/costs via Bank transfer. Our treasurer will make arrangements for this upon your arrival, or during the break. We can also make payments via cash or cheque, however please advise us in advance if you would like to be paid in this way.
  • Timings
    • Our evenings start promptly at 7:45. The chairman will normally make a short address before introducing the judge and part 1 of the evening (normally the digitial competition)
    • We have a break around 8:45 for approximately 15 minutes. In HCC we do our announcements immediately before the coffee break
    • We aim to finish the meeting at 9:45, although we can overrun by 15 minutes if necessary.
  • About our members
    Within Hitchin Camera Club we have a very diverse membership from Full-time professional photographers to new comers to photography as a hobby.
  • Judging and Presentation Aids
    We can on request provide a laser pointer and a PA system.
  • Special Dietary requirements
    We offer tea, coffee and water as standard, and often have cakes! Please let us know if you have a special requirements or allergies we should be aware of.

Competition Notes
The following notes will tell you a little about how Hitchin Camera Club normally run our competitions and hopefully this will avoid any confusion on the night.

  • Run Through
    We always offer a run through showing each digital projected image for a number of seconds prior to the digital image judging.
    Prints will be placed on view before the competition and can be studied either before the evening starts or during the coffee break.
  • Holding back
    We can hold images back for both digital projected images and prints allowing you to make a final decision having had a chance to review all of the images in detail.
  • Scoring
    Within Hitchin Camera Club we ask you to score using a 10 point scale with half-marks allowed.
  • Winners and Runners up
    In some Hitchin Camera Club competitions we are simply looking for scores to go towards an overall prize at the end of the year, however for others we will be looking for a Winner and Runner up in each category (prints and digital) as well. In order to avoid one photographer winning both the Winner and Runner-up prize we will ask you for a second runner-up.
    We will guide you on the night as to whether Winners and Runner’s up are needed.
  • Prints and/or Digital
    Most Hitchin Camera Club competitions have categories for both Prints and digital images, however we will make this clear in the invite and at the start of the evening. We will normally view Digital images first.
  • Handling prints
    We will arrange for someone to handle prints for the judge and to move them to and from the print stand.
  • Pacing
    We limit the member’s entries so that we have typically have 1:00 minute per image. There is of course flexibility in this, but the Chairman or Competition secretary will help you keep track and will warn you if we’re falling behind schedule, or can take our time.
  • Feedback
    Judging is of course not just about giving a score but constructive criticism to help us improve. We would particularly welcome guidance on improving the technical aspects of our images both in the taking and post processing of the images and help with building strong and interesting compositions.
  • Talking about 10’s
    Once the judging is complete we have a tradition where we allow anyone who scored a 10 to speak for a couple of minutes about how and why they took their image.