What a difference a day makes. Or should I say night.

Last night I was the judge at our local camera club. Evaluating images is always tiring and that feeling is often increased when the images I evaluate are made by people I know.

Over time you come to recognise particular works as belonging to this one or that one because the treatment they give their photographs always remains the same,i.e.,  sometimes under exposed, sometimes over exposed, sometimes oversaturated, sometimes too contrasty, sometime just not in focus and sometimes, just really poorly executed, both in camera and during post processing.

So, as you can understand I approached last night’s proceedings with some trepidation. As it turned out, my apprehension was totally unnecessary.

The images for evaluation were all of excellent quality, well composed, well thought out and most importantly, well executed.

For once, my work was most enjoyable, the members were genuinely interested in my comments about the images and seemed to agree with my decisions when it came to making awards.

In the post judging discussion no prompting from me was required at all. Everyone joined in with their comments and what surprised me was the fact that all criticism was constructive. It seems that the club members have jointly turned a corner and just want to get on with the photography learning process.

It was great therapy for me and by the time I arrived home at Cassa Creakingbones not long after 11pm I felt refreshed and the problems of the last week or so had receded far into the background.

No doubt about photography, it’s a great pastime and mood breaker.

Now I can’t wait for my next judging assignment.

Oh and by the way, no one gave me a flogging over the three images I snuck in. No one uttered a word about them either so if that was a sign of something, I know not what and frankly, couldn’t care less.

Hoo roo.