Multi-Club Competition 2025, Date May 8th
Boston, Gateway, Newton and Stony Brook Camera Clubs
All members of the Boston, Gateway, Newton and Stony Brook Camera Clubs are invited to participate in the friendly 6th Annual Multi-Club Competition to be hosted online on Thursday, May 8, 2025
All images must be created within a one-year period beginning April 1st, 2024 and ending March 31st, 2025.
Members may choose to submit digital photographic images in any or all of the eight categories detailed below.
Category
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Definition
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1. Birds in the Human Environment
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Send us your birds! This is your chance to capture images of these beautiful creatures in human spaces. The “nature story” sought after in typical competitions will not help you. Don’t worry about hand-of-man; that’s what we’re looking for! Photos here should show how birds live among us – a gull grabbing your French fries, or pigeons crowding a sidewalk. Just make sure a bird or birds is the subject.
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2. Clouds
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Forget those clear blue skies; give us clouds! Listen to Joni Mitchell and head out to shoot them – cirrus, cumulus or even altocumulus! Other objects can be in the frame, but it needs to be clear that clouds are the subject. Although fog might be considered a cloud of sorts, we’re sorry to say it doesn’t fall into this category.
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3. Environmental Portrait
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Environmental portraiture shows subjects in a setting that reveals details of their lives and illuminates the essence of their personality. This might be the subject’s home or place of work, but locations outside the subject’s normal environment can provide a fresh perspective. It's all about context. Where is this person? Why is this person in this place? How do they relate to the place where they are?
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4. Night Photography – People and Places
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Let’s get you out shooting at night. You can shoot anywhere – urban, suburban, landscape, etc. – as long as it’s between the hours of dusk and dawn. But no star trails, Milky Ways, or other night sky shots and no sunrises, sunsets or eclipses. Instead, we want to see people and/or places in your shots.
You might take inspiration from the painter Edward Hopper, who was most admired for his night scenes. Check out his work. He adapted the device of highlighting a scene against a dark background, creating the sense of sitting in a darkened theater waiting for the drama to unfold. By staging his pictures in darkness, Hopper was able to illuminate the most important features while obscuring extraneous detail.
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5. Perspective
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Perspective refers to the visual connection between the elements in a photo. It may involve the angle from which the image is taken, the composition of the subject(s) within the frame and how the photographer positions themself during the photographing process. A recent article states that perspective is not only an effective way of making a photo more captivating, it's also an opportunity to challenge the way people see the world. With a skilled eye, you can show a unique view of the most commonly photographed subjects.
Keeping the above in mind, try applying various perspective techniques,including Linear, High Angle, Low Angle and Leading Lines, to name a few. This is also an opportunity to experiment with lenses and filters, as well as to take advantage of light and shadows, but make sure you have fun doing so. Try to create some drama in your photographs. Let creativity take hold in the field.
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6. Selective Focus
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Selective focus leaves one part of the image sharp and the rest blurry.Choosing a pinpoint focal point in your image and using a shallow depth of field is a technique you can use to simplify an image, eliminating distractions and drawing the viewer’s attention to the most important portion of your shot.
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7. The Thrill of Victory, The Agony of Defeat
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Starting in 1961, ABC's Wide World of Sports ran for 37 seasons, providing a weekly digest of sports’ major events.The show’s opening sequence featured a dramatic fanfare and a voice-over intro that went,"Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport... the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat... the human drama of athletic competition... This is ABC's Wide World of Sports!” while showing a video montage of of dramatic winners and losers — a heroic athlete being carried from the field, a weightlifter raising an impossible weight over his head and, most memorably, a ski jumper crashing horribly off the end of the jump.
Though sports may be the best venue for capturing these images of human drama, you can also capture displays of victory celebrations or disappointment at defeat in other venues for this category – games, child’s play, political rallies, etc. – as long as the emotion is there!
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8. Trees
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Trees come in all sizes and shapes, have unique leaves, flowers and fruit. In winter, the bare branches provide opportunities for silhouettes. Light, color and shadow are important elements.Submit an image in which the tree or trees is the main subject.
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Members from the clubs will be assigned to either Class A (advanced) or B (beginner and intermediate) in Multi-Club to give all photographers a chance to compete fairly with others at a similar level of experience and skill. Next April, each club will select a single final image in each category and class to compete in the event. Only one image per member may be submitted to the finals, allowing 16 members from each club (8 categories x 2 classes) to compete.
Multi-Club will once again be judged by a distinguished panel of three judges independent of the clubs. The judges will offer their comments on all finalist images, especially focused on stressing each image’s impact in communicating the category definition. Awards will be given to the best image in each class/category based on the judges’ rankings. Club awards will be given for best total placement across all categories in Class B, Class A and Overall. Finally, at the end of the competition, the judges will also each choose a Judge’s Favorite for each class, across all categories, for a total of up to 22 individual awards (16 category winners and up to 3 across all categories in both Class B and Class A).