For the past several years, Kevin Garrett has been managing most of the HGCC competitions, using a Microsoft Access database to store the metadata about each image (title, photographer, category, etc.) and a thumbnail of each. The database, which resides on one of Kevin's machines, provides two significant benefits. First, it retains the image thumbnails, the metadata for each, and the image's score, providing an historical record of each competition. Second, the database is used during the judging process: as each score is recorded, a thumbnail of the image appears so that the scorer can verify that the correct image is being displayed.

Though the process is worthwhile, it is also labour-intensive: metadata from competition entry forms must be entered into the database, image files must be copied from CDs or via email, and physical media (slides and prints) must be photographed to create the thumbnails.

In 2008-9, our plans are to use the website to collect competition entries. Each photographer will enter the metadata (title, category) for each image and upload their entry(ies) to an image gallery for that competition. We'll ask photographers to do the same thing even for physical media; if a digital facsimile of the image exists, the photographer can upload that thumbnail instead a full (1024x768) digital image. The advantages of this procedure is the elimination of the form transcription process, and that HGCC photographers can upload their entries at any time prior to the close of entries.

Once the image thumbnails, the full-size digital files, and the metadata is on the website, we can then develop synchronization software to migrate the uploaded images to the competition database, generate a running order for judging via software, and record scores in the database as we do today. I would like to migrate the competition database from Microsoft Access to Sybase SQL Anywhere (my firm's product), not just because I am more familiar with it, but that my firm offers the synchronization software to sync database content. With that synchronization, we would also be able to (a) automatically compute the assignment of colour dots (done manually today) and (b) upload scores to the website, providing all of the members an online summary of competition results.

That's the plan, in a nutshell. If you have ideas or comments about the above, feel free to attach them to this blog entry.