I wonder if there ought to be a 'camera club' section on this forum - I've feeling that us 'camera club people' have a raft of subjects worth discussing but they would probably leave the non-clubbers cold.
Our club usually 'appoints' an experienced club member to the judging panel on each of the rounds of the annual competition - and usually one of them is female. I can't say I've noticed that they're biased towards one kind of picture over another, but then we don't see the individual judges' scores.
I try to get the Competitions manager to find more people from the 'art world' - I feel that a picture's impact and composition are more important than technical quality (in fact, if the first two elements are good, technical aspects are either less important or - being perhaps easier to learn - are usually of a good standard on a well-composed shot).
The 'arty' judges we get, though, tend to see pictures and score them at one end or the other - the visual impact is almost everything and it either works or it doesn't. They're 'primed' with some judging guidance notes beforehand but not many non-photographers seem to read them.... so they'll give either very low or very high scores. We halt proceedings when scores between judges differ wildly but it doesn't quite solve the problem.
Any other points about selecting judges?
Cathus..... well done with your competitions! That's a lot of images to submit. I've been looking at a few British camera club sites and often see two or three 'divisions' (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) but I really can't see how that works - a beginner can easily submit an image which might be the best image of the year, so can they only win their own 'division' with it? We have over 80 members now and those divisions could work for us but they only seem to benefit the 'prize hunters' and serve little purpose. Any opinions on that?
Our members also complain of 'too many competitions' and yet it's really just one competition, with three rounds (submitting 4 images per round). We do three rounds (of four images) because if it were just two rounds (of six images) there would be far too many images to judge (and give critique to). I feel like I'm chasing my tail sometimes! Maybe it's time to reduce the overall submissions in a year to 8 or 9 (two rounds of 4 or three of 3).
Anyway..... AGM tonight, time for more complaints!
Oh, and one more thing..... the Photographic Alliance of GB (PAGB) the umbrella organisation of many British photo clubs - has anybody seen
their website. Amazing, a top amateur photographic organisation and not a picture in sight!