Photography News 06

Opinion

SPEAKERS’ CORNER

Cold judging or considered opinion?

This is your chance to climb up on your soapbox and have a rant. This issue, ColinWalls holds forth on the role of judges: simply there to offer snap judgements on the night, or to provide thoughtful, constructive feedback

who want a proper critique of their images, the instant thoughts that occur to a judge in the heat of the moment may be better than nothing, but, considering the effort taken to prepare an image for a competition (prints particularly), it would seem reasonable to expect some more detailed remarks. Some judges only do cold judging. They like to show up on the evening, pontificate for a couple of hours, take their fee and go home with a misplaced feeling that they have done a good job. In reality, they have wasted a significant amount of the limited time available in a club evening pondering themarks and places. Their critique, such as it is, becomes truncated and is often repetitive and littered with ‘ums’ and ‘ers’ and scoring, particularly for lower end pictures, tends to be very inconsistent. As an experienced judge myself, I simply view judges who only work this way as lazy, as they are not prepared to put in the effort to deliver what the competition entrants deserve. I was recently talking with the programme secretary of a club and I mentioned that I would only do judging when I could preview the images. He said that they have plenty of local judges who did not stipulate such a requirement. Clearly he thought that the previewing process was for my benefit! I feel that some thought about the purpose of competitions is needed. Club members should

Words by Colin Walls CPAGB

Most camera clubs use external judges for club competitions at least some of the time. Being critical of the judge is just part of the culture, but most club photographers would agree that there are some from whom they gain useful insights, even if there are others who contribute little. But there is another aspect of competitions that can have a bigger effect upon the value gained by the participants: the judging process. There are broadly two ways that a competition may be judged: ‘cold’, the judge doesn’t see the images before and makes snap judgements and off-the-cuff critique; or the judge can see the work ahead of time and spend some time considering each image, probably making notes and then, on the evening, can give a thoughtful critique and a reasonably rational mark or placing. Before deciding which process is best, consider whyclubmembers enter competitions. Undoubtedly some simply want to win. But most want to get some useful feedback on and constructive criticism of their work and, if it is graded as better than other pictures in the competition, that is a nice bonus. For those who just want to win, cold judging is as good as anything, but random selection would probably yield results that were scarcely less useful. For those

demand a better service from judges so that they have a chance to improve their photography. I have heard several arguments against image previewing. Some judges say that they do so many assignments in a year, they have no time to perform extra work. In my view, they should take on fewer and do a better job of those. I will accept no more than five or six invitations to judge in a year, as I work full time and, therefore, look at sacrificing the better part of a weekend to each judging assignment. I enjoy doing that work, as I get to think about the images much more than I would if they were flashed past me on the night; it inspires me and improves my photography. Another argument is the cost and logistics of getting the prints to the judge in advance. That is fair, but easily circumvented by electronically sending them the images, which gives almost enough to completely critique all the images with only final ‘tweaks’ needed on the night. It may be suggested that cold judging tends to favour high impact images that make an immediate impression. This is good training for photographers who aspire to enter images for major exhibitions, where the selection process is, by necessity, very brisk. However, I would argue that a judge’s comments and criticism are more likely to help a photographer reach the necessary standard for exhibition acceptance. If you want to find out whether your images are good enough for exhibitions, just enter a few and find out.

As an experienced judgemyself, I simply view judgeswho onlywork this way as lazy

π To find out more about Colin Walls and his club, go to www.beaconcameraclub.co.uk.

ABOVE Are we nearly there yet? by Colin Walls. LEFT Photographer and judge Colin Walls always prefers a considered opinion to an instant message.

Does swift, on-the-spot judging leave you cold? Are you a judge who likes to take your time examining images? Whichever, share your thoughts with us and our readers at opinion@photography-news.co.uk. WHATDOYOUTHINK?

Photography News | Issue 6