As the title implies, members bring in a selection of images and throw them on the table (well, not actually throw ... ) for other members to pass judgement on them - hopefully in a not too critical a way. We are all friends after all. But healthy criticism is useful, it helps us understand what we ourselves have missed in the picture taking process or in the post process (errm ...) process! The exposure may have been a little off (shooting RAW can obviously help resolve this) or the composition could have done with a little more thought (a post process crop could help here as well).
The critique is done in small groups around tables with a spokesperson delivering the group's verdict. So to achieve this today we go into virtual 'breakout rooms' with the first order of business is to find a 'volunteer' to be spokesperson. It's a simple process by which the 'volunteer' is determined as being the one who can't stand the silence any longer ... !
So now to the business at hand. We all have eight images per group with a time of approximately five minutes to discuss the merits or otherwise of the image. You might think that five minutes is long enough per image but it is quite surprising how quickly the time goes when each of the five members in the group have their say.
Back in the 'main room' all the images, as seen by each group, were displayed for all and it soon became apparent that Judy (the organiser of the evenings events) had been a bit sneaky! She had duplicated some images so that they were critiqued by more than one group. A rather good exercise, I felt, to see if these images were viewed in the same way by individual groups that had viewed them.
As it turned out, by and large, the multiple images were viewed in a very similar way. There were some differences obviously, clone this bit out here, a tighter crop there, but mostly the same type of comment.
A big thank you to the members who took the time to put their head above the parapet and submitted a couple of images. I hope they didn't feel they were treated too harshly.
And to Judy for pulling it all together making sure that no group member had to critique their own image (well - almost).
Oh, and let’s not forget to thank those ‘volunteers’ who didn’t step back quickly enough ... !
Also, congratulations to those members who had their images singled out as being the favourite image in each group.
07 February 2021