How does the competition work?

Very much like sports matches where two oponents or teams compete against each other, with the only the winner progressing on in the overall competition. Two images are presented, and one of those images is chosen as the winner. As with many sporting events, the competition is divided into a number of rounds, after the which the winners go onto the next round, ultimately to the quarter finals, semi final and he final.

Typically when this competitin is run, we ask for a show of hands from the audience to choose which of the two images on screen is the preferred one. Images titles are shown but not who took the image.

An example

Let’s assume that we have 16 images. Round 1 will have 8 ‘matches’ with two images going head-head with 8 images remaining. This is then the ‘Quarter Final’ with 8 matches. The four winners then make up the semi-finals, then the last two images in the final with the final winner.

So how many images are needed?

The number of images can be any number; typically we’d say that somewhere around 60 works well for half an evening. Any more and the whole thing can get a bit boring, much less and it’s over too fast (the origins of this competition for us was somehing to do after the AGM).

Ideally 64 images is good - because this means you have 1 round to get to 32 images, then another round to get to 16 images, then a 3rd round to get to 8 images for the quarter final.

However getting this exact number could be tricky, so a solution is available in the form of a ‘Random Knockout’ prelinary round. Here, a random selection of images are made. This will be a subset of the total images - but just the right number to ‘knockout’ to get to say 64.

Image format

Images should be

  • jpg images
  • Suggested resoultion 1400 by 1050, but they will be scaled down prior to display. Larger images will work but it will take a little longer to start the competition
  • The filenames should be photography name followed by title The name and title should be separated by an underscore _ or dash -
  • All in the same directory

How are images displayed?

When the competition starts, a title page is first shown, press ‘s’ to start. The controls for each round are the same.

Each image is displayed full screen, followed by the image it’s competiting with. They are then shown side by side, at which point the audience is asked to pick. The winner is selected, and the next set of images are displayed. When the round ends, a title will appear showing the name of the next round. Press ‘s’ to continue, and the round continues in eactly the same way.