Distinguishing features of the upcoming North Shore Challenge
The North Shore Photographic Society is delighted to be hosting its unique 40th North Shore Challenge on Zoom on Saturday, March 1st, 2025. Over the years, the North Shore Challenge has evolved into a premiere photographic competition in Western Canada. Photographic competitions occur around the world. What makes ours unique? Three characteristics do, a combination of club and individual images, two rounds of scoring for individuals and judges’ comments.
The North Shore Challenge started as a club-only competition years ago but has evolved into a competition featuring the best images from clubs and individuals from around BC and the Yukon. This is the first distinguishing characteristic. Prizes are awarded for both individual and club submitted images with one image being chosen best in show. Each individual can put forward three images. Each club can submit up to six images from six different photographers. The club with the highest scoring images will win the North Shore Challenge trophy.
This brings us to the second distinguishing characteristic, two rounds of scoring for individuals. All individual images are scored by a panel of judges in round 1. Scores from round 1 are shared with the participants. Each individual’s highest-scoring Round 1 image will advance to the second and final round which will be scored by a different panel of judges. Judges meet online to discuss images that have tied scores to determine which one from each participant becomes part of the North Shore Challenge gala show on March 1st, 2025.
By far, the biggest difference from other photographic competitions is a recent addition to the North Shore Challenge, judges’ comments. Each of our judges will be commenting on three different images including all six of the winners. Apart from the six winners, judges get to choose which images they would like to comment on. Sometimes judges all want to comment on the same image but only one judge can.
This new feature of judges’ comments is an incredibly popular hallmark to the North Shore Challenge. Photographers and non-photographers alike truly relish hearing from our panel of distinguished judges about what strikes them about particular images and in some cases how they can be improved. Judges may provide their comments live on the actual night of the North Shore Challenge or in a recorded format. If the comments are pre-recorded, sometimes the actual image is brought into a processing software and the suggested changes highlighted that way. Regardless of the format of their delivery, judges’ comments are becoming the most popular portion of our evening.
Competition entries for the 2025 North Shore Challenge open on November 1st, 2024 and will close at midnight PST on January 12, 2025. British Columbia and Yukon individuals and photography clubs are encouraged to consider “taking the Challenge” and submitting images this year. The cost of participation includes free admission to the Zoom session on March 1st, 2025. Non-competitors from around the world are welcome to attend, for a small fee, the gala show which will begin at 7 pm PST on March 1, 2025. We invite you to witness for yourself why the North Shore Challenge is a celebration of excellence in photography.
