The Camera Club of Laguna Woods Village conducts six (6) Digital Critiques per year, concluding with a Year-End Competition.

The 2024 Critiques schedule, and “Special Subjects” are listed below. Past Critiques are available through the “All Critiques Menu” at top right of this page.

NOTE: the Submission Rules have changed substantially for 2024 – go to the rules.

Critiques offer members the ability to have their images assessed by a professional photographer. These Judges provide insights on composition, exposure, lighting, color management, post-processing, and other techniques to improve our photographic skills.

You do NOT have to submit images to sit-in on a Critique. This is a great way to learn, and to prepare for your first entries.

Critiques are currently held via Zoom. Advance email flyers provide dates, deadlines, submission guidelines, and the specific Zoom link.

The Critique schedule is listed below, with Special Subject definitions. Critiques are also posted on the Club Calendar.

Submission guidelines (PDF), are listed below the schedule.

Most Recent Critique.

Archived Critiques – prior 2021.

2024 Scored Digital Critiques Schedule

  • Mon. January 22: “Curves” – COMPLETED, Click title to view
    Curves within photographic images can add a dynamic and aesthetic aspect to the composition. Either incorporated within the internal structure of an image, or as a captured object, shape, or pattern, curves are often a powerful element in photography. “Curved lines photography” can capture and highlight the beauty of bent shapes and lines in various objects, or curves can deliberately guide the eye to a specific area. Curves can be implied, or partial, or replicate known shapes like the letter “C”, or the letter “S”, which In painting, is know as the “the line of beauty”, an S-curve line that travels back and forth horizontally through an image as the eye proceeds vertically through the scene. Create a photograph that utilizes curves.
  • Sat. February 24: “Curves” – COMPLETED, Non-Scored Critique for “Newbies”
    Submission Deadline: Tuesday Feb. 20th, 5PM
    There will be an ‘extra’ Critique provided for members who have not previously submitted to a Club Critique, OR who have not submitted to a Critique for more than 12 months. The Critique will be Non-Scored – our Judge will be Rick Graves, Saddleback educator, and long-time Club member. Don’t miss this opportunity to receive feedback and guidance from one of the most esteemed educators in OC.Comments will focus on technical and artistic guidance. Look for details in an email flyer. A workshop on how to prepare images and submit to a Critique will be provided in advance of this event.
  • Mon. March 25: “Yellow” – images in ALL categories must be taken with a phone
    Submission Deadline: Tuesday Mar. 19th, 5PM
    As one of the oldest pigments used by humans, the spectrum of attributes associated with yellow are wide ranging. Yellow is associated with the sun, warmth, energy, and radiance. As a result, yellow has inherited connotations of power, knowledge, imperishability, and status. Frida Kahlo called yellow the color of the sun and joy, but also “of madness, sickness, and fear”. It is the color of warning. Your image must include the color yellow. Yellow does not need to be the dominant color in the image, but it must impact the finished photograph, either aesthetically, or symbolically, or both.
  • Mon. May 27: “Flora”
    Submission Deadline: Tuesday May 21st, 5PM
    Flora Photography can cover a wide range of visual interpretations of all forms of plant life. Images may include domestic or wild plants, such as flowers, grasses, trees, crops, forests, mushrooms, and cacti, both living or dead. Flora photography often emphasizes color, texture, patterns, and “personality” of the subject. Flora photography can also attempt to capture the mystical side of nature. In Roman mythology, “Flora” was the goddess of spring, of nature and flowering plants, and was the goddess of youth. Create a photograph of Flora.
  • Mon. July 22: “Portraits”
    Submission Deadline: Tuesday Jul. 16th, 5PM
    Portrait photography, or portraiture, is a type of photography aimed toward capturing the personality of a person or group of people though effective settings, manner of dress, lighting, backdrops, and poses. Portraits can be intimate, planned, candid, or captured moments and events. Avoid clinical, “unconnected” imagery, and instead capture the identity, personality, and essence of a subject, tell their story, or convey an emotion. Subjects must be human beings. Animals, flora, fauna, or inanimate objects, are excluded. Make a compelling portrait photograph.
  • Mon. September 23: “Atmospheric”
    Submission Deadline: Tuesday Sep. 17th, 5PM
    Atmospheric images have specific moods. They are not just “captures”, but instead are images that make you feel how the photographer wants you to feel. Atmospheric photography can employ mist, fog, or the incredible range of emotive, ambient light – soft, harsh, warm, cold, indirect, top light, reflected, shadowy, light, and more. Long exposures that portray an illusion of “time passing” in a still image, or photographs of clouds, waves, and objects interacting with light can be “atmospheric”, as we’ll as images with qualities of softening lines, graduating light transitions, and pronounced sense of depth. Alfred Stieglitz, one of American’s iconic early photographers, described atmospheric qualities in an photograph as follows, evoking the effect of tone:“Atmosphere is the medium through which we see all things. In order, therefore, to see them in their true value on a photograph, as we do in Nature, atmosphere must be there. Atmosphere softens all lines; it graduates the transition from light to shade; it is essential to the reproduction of the sense of distance. That dimness of outline which is characteristic for distant objects is due to atmosphere. Now, what atmosphere is to Nature, tone is to a picture.”
    – Alfred Stieglitz, 1864-1946
  • Mon. October 28: “Composites”
    Submission Deadline: Tuesday Oct. 22nd, 5PM
    Composite photography is assembling multiple photographs or photographic elements into one new photographic composition. The resulting image may seem to be a fully natural setting, or it may be an assemblage of unlikely elements that create surreal and/or artistic imagery. Composite photography can combine the removal of elements from an image and the addition of new elements, or it can juxtaposition unique and unlikely images, such as a night sky with an illuminated foreground, to create a cohesive whole. Composite photography can be the joining of images as in panoramic stitching, or the extreme usage of image stacking, as in Astral photography. Make an image that utilizes composite photography methods.

2024 Other Competitions and Events:

  • February 24, Sat. – Critique, NEW submitters only (non-scored)
    Clubhouse 4 Education Classroom
  • May 4, Sat. – Print Competition (non-scored)
    Clubhouse 4 Education Classroom
  • July 10, Mon. – Slideshow Competition (audience voting)
    Clubhouse 7 Main Room
  • August 3, Sat. – Print Competition (scored)
    Clubhouse 4 Education Classroom
  • November 13, Weds. – Year-End Competition Submission
    Email submissions
  • December 9, Mon. – Year-End Awards Dinner
    Clubhouse 7 Main Room

Submission Rules

Please follow these new rules carefully for image size, ppi, naming conventions, and Special Category guidelines. Send your images to the email address in the Rules PDF.

NOTE: the Categories and other guidelines have been updated for 2024. These are not the same rules as 2023.

2024 Digital Critique Submission Rules V6 (PDF, Feb. 1)

Submit images no later than 5:00 PM the Wednesday before the event.

“Non-Scored” submissions are allowed for all Critiques. See the “Non-Scoring Judging” section below, and the Submission Rules PDF for details.

Judges & Scoring

Scored Critiques are evaluated by one Judge, who provides comments and gives a score for each image. The Judge presents these results “live” (Zoom) at the Critique meeting while the images are displayed by category, with titles, but no photographer names.

The Judges are recognized professional photographers, and are not members of the Club.

Our scoring system is based on points:

  • 9 = Excellent
  • 8 and 8.5 = Good
  • 7 and 7.5 = Average
  • 6 and 6.5 = Below Average

All scored photographs are exhibited on the Club web site by category, title, and photographer’s name. Scores are posted, and a YouTube link provided for the Critique recording.

The scoring system:

  • Provides immediate evalution and recognition
  • Helps participants determine their best images for entry in the Year-End Competiton
  • Determines high points scorers for Year-End Awards

Non-Scored Judging

“Non-Scored” submissions are allowed for all Critiques.

For Non-Scored photographs, Judges provide constructive comments but do not score the images. Only the image title display during the Critique. The photographer’s name will not display at any time.

Refer to the Submission Rules PDF (above) for guidance on how to submit entries for Non-Scored critiques.

Non-scored images are not displayed on the website, but the images are included in the event video.

Other Events

Other Club events for submitting photographs are the Year-End Competition, Annual Print Competition, and Annual Slide / Video Competition.

For details, go to the Events Page.

View the 2022 Year-End Awards.

Completed 2023 Critiques

Scored Digital Critiques, with Special Categories:

 

If you need any assistance, please email cameraclub@cameraclublwv.org