Every year the Twin City Area Council of Camera Clubs (TCACCC) holds a “Spring Break” meeting with speakers, classes, and a competition.
Individual competitors are allowed to enter up to four images in each of five categories. Last year I only entered a couple of categories, but the competition is free for camera club members, so this year I decided to go through my previous camera club entries and enter everything I could. (After all, you never know what a judge may like!) I didn’t have enough winners from SPCC salons, so I filled in the rest with images I liked, but hadn’t ever entered in a salon.
Cindy’s 2017 TCACCC Spring Break entries
Color prints
As with most categories, I entered things that did well in Saint Paul Camera Club competitions, sometimes with a new crop or additional editing based on a judge’s comments.
Both the image of Mt Edith Cavell reflected in the river and the doorway inside a Moroccan palace (or casbah) were accepted into the competition.
Black and white prints
Like color prints, this was entirely a mix of salon entries from this year and last. I did re-edit a couple of them, but generally I was trying to minimize the amount of new prints I had to make and mat.
Creation (a potter creating a figure) and Rhino Mother and Child were both accepted into the competition.
Digital nature
Nature images can’t be manipulated to remove elements, blur backgrounds, etc. I like to print, so I usually enter my “nature” shots as prints where I don’t have the same restrictions. However, that required me to find mostlly new images to edit and enter for this competition.
Both the Middle Falls at Kuang Si (the only previous salon entry in this group) and the shot of an eagle after a meal were accepted into the competition. (I’ve never entered the eagle in a salon because another member entered – and scored well – with what is essentially the identical shot.)
Digital realistic
This is usually what I do for competition – images that look realistic, but may have been manipulated a bit to remove distractions or otherwise enhance the overall image.
The ballooning image is the only one I hadn’t previously entered in a salon. I had edited for another completion and liked it, so thought I’d see how it did.
Down in Morocco’s Dades Gorge was accepted into the competition . Kamikaze Chaos actually received an honorable mention.
Digital creative
The digital creative category tends to be a little all over the place, with some images looking pretty realistic and others not.
This isn’t something I do a lot of, although learning how to do it has been on my “to do” list for a while now. It isn’t a category we have in our club salon very often either, so I’m seldom forced to try to come up with something “creative.” That means that none of these images had competed in a salon, although I had plans for a couple of them.
I’m really a beginner when it comes to this creative stuff, so I was absolutely thrilled to have bike rack by the old-style mural accepted into the competition.
If you’ve been counting, you will note that is eight acceptances and one honorable mention out of 20 entries!
It’s actually a big deal just to get accepted into the competition, let alone win an award. (Last year I only submitted a few images and only my Cheetah Family was accepted.) So, needless to say, I’m pretty pleased (and a little amazed) by how well I did.