Competition Time

Wednesday night saw the first of the camera club competion rounds. I was happy enough with how it went and was pleasantly surprised by the number and variety of entries. A couple of my own pics did well, but I was more taken with the work submitted by some of the people in the general category. Some of the work by the Shooters gang was outstanding, and a couple of the portraits they submitted were amazing. Seeing my own little dark apprentice getting 1st place for her black and white shot of a couple of orangemen provided a little moment of parental pride.

So far, so good.
Here comes the gripe. Our judge was (surprise) very conservative in his approach to the pictures and I think what shocked me more was his apparent disregard for, or lack of awareness of HDR processing.
I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but used sparingly and with the right shot, I think it can work well. To describe the HDR pictures by saying "there's something funny about the colours in this - they're a bit over-saturated" of "it looks like someone has applied a funny filter in photoshop to this picture" really shows a lack of knowledge for what is becoming a fairly common technique.
My gentle suggestion that we thank him for his efforts by buying him a copy of Trey Radcliffe's excellent book Stuck In Customs on the process of HDR fell on deaf ears. I might send him one anonymously anyway.