What Are Judges Looking For?
What Does the Club Expect from a Judge?
Typical Camera Club Judges
This presentation, led by avid photographer and camera club judge Dave Ferguson, provided invaluable insights into the judging process for photographic competitions. Dave, modestly describing himself as relatively inexperienced, humorously acknowledged the inherent subjectivity of judging with the question, "Who the xxxx knows?!" He shared his own experience of receiving mixed reviews on his images, scoring 13 on one occasion and 20 on another for the same photograph. He then went on to explain his take on the question.
The club members' expectations of a judge were thoroughly discussed, highlighting key qualities:
Expertise: Is the judge actually an expert?
Serious Photographer: Do they have a strong background in taking and competing with photographs themselves.
Knowledgeable: Are they knowledgeable about various photographic techniques and genres, not limited to one area such as wildlife or landscape?
Current Techniques and Trends: Do they keep abreast of developments in the craft.
Time to Consider Images: Do they look at images carefully, taking time to review them several times before considering a score.
Constructive and Considered Criticism: Do they explain why they think an aspect of a photograph does or doesn’t work, and what could be done to improve it?
Recognise Individuality: Do they recognise and appreciate individuality in photographic styles?
Unbiased: Do they approach all different photographic genres equally?
Ideally, Trained: Have they had training in judging?
Consistent and Fair: Do they consider all pieces according to the same criteria?
Encouraging: Is feedback encouraging rather than disparaging?
Kind: Do they treat photographers with kindness and dignity, regardless of the level of their work?
What Do Judges Want from a Club?
From a judge's perspective, several factors contribute to a successful judging experience:
Fair Setup: A fair and equitable setup for the competition.
Proper Presentation: Images are presented properly.
Well Organized: The competition is well organized and sufficient time has been allowed to review images properly before the competition.
What Do Judges Want from the images?
Before going into the specifics, Dave recounted a particularly memorable incident where a judge, upon seeing an image of flowers, presumed it was taken by a woman, leaving Dave quite flabbergasted by the stereotypical assumption. He went on to expand that the person taking the photograph is of no relevance to how the result should be judged.
When evaluating images, judges typically look for the following:
Initial Reaction: Do they like the image?
Impact: Does it immediately grab the viewer?
Story: What happened which led up to this image, and what might happen next?
Emotion: To what extent does it provoke an emotional reaction?
Statement: Is it actually trying to say something?
Creativity: What technical, compositional and subject choices enable the viewer to see something in a new way?
Content:
What is the subject?
Is it interesting? Unique?
Is there an unusual angle or perspective?
Creativity (How Made): How was the image created?
Technical Difficulty: Was it technically difficult to achieve?
Execution:
Focus
Exposure
Sharpening
Contrast
Colour
Dave concluded by emphasizing that ultimately, "it doesn't really matter what the judge says," encouraging photographers to trust their own artistic vision. Before breaking for tea, Dave took some questions and discussed how he often uses the "Hamburger system" when constructing his comments - feedback on the good aspects and areas for improvement being sandwiched between an initial review of the image and its important features, and final encouraging comments.
Review of Mentoring Group Images
After the break, some of the club’s Mentoring Group images were presented and critiqued by Dave and club members. The images were taken from outings to a beach location and the Glasgow Transport Museum. Some highlights were
Smoking Man: A long shot of an older man in profile with roll-up cigarette dangling from his lips, showing the importance of capturing the moment.
Tesla: An image featuring a Tesla with deliberately crushed blacks and blown out whites, creating an abstract form.
Reflection at Riverside: An exterior structure reflected in a puddle. The author, Andy, claimed he couldn’t see the image at all until pointed out on the LCD by his mentor, leading to some discussion around seeing as a photographer.
Transport Museum Exterior: Dynamic lines and reflections in mirrored windows showing different aspects of the Glasgow skyline gave this image real impact.
Abstract sand with Twirls: An illustration of how creative photo editing techniques can transform an image.
Woman Looking in Shop Window: This image, whilst lacking significant initial impact, evoked an emotional feeling and told a story.
Beach Views: Two different images of grass on the sand showed creative techniques at play. The first used grass juxtapositioned with the skyline to create a frame for a distant lighthouse. The second used a combination of double exposure and intentional camera movement (ICM) to balance and contrast the differing textures and colours of grass, sand and sky.
Reflections: use of reflective structures inside the transport museum showed how creative selection of angles and shapes could produce an abstract image.
At the end Dave admitted that it isn’t possible to completely answer the question “What are judges looking for?” because no two judges are the same, but his talk was thouroughly entertaining and certainly illuminated the world of the judge, giving us plenty of ideas to take away on how to improve our own photographs.