Photography News 08

Competitions

21

Orange by Lyubomir Sergeev.

By far the biggest category of the four was general as you would expect and it was to be the last section of the day. Having already seen and assessed a couple of thousand images, the risk of overload or just fatigue was now very real. There would be runs of simply pushing the blue button, but then one stunning image would appear to make you stab the red button. There were certainly plenty of great images to enjoy. In this category I had the additional responsibility of picking an image for my individual selector’s award. I could do this in two different ways. Wait until the judging was complete and then choose one from the images that got three yes votes but that didn’t get a gold, silver or bronze award. Or I could select a few pictures as I went along and ask the computer guy, Mario, to mark the image. To do this though I had to tell him before I voted. In practice when I saw an image that I really liked I waited for my fellow judges to vote – coloured indicators on the screen told me when they had. If they both voted red for yes I did the same so I knew the image would be around at the next selection stage. If, however, one of them voted blue for no I had to let Mario know, otherwise I’d never see the image again. Some brilliant images (to my eyes) did get no

nature pictures although she did reject many good ones including several excellent kingfisher pictures. She has seen so many, she told me afterwards. The colour print section took longer purely due to a greater number of entries but I think we were happy with our work. Sitting last of the three judges I did feel a little extra pressure when my fellow judges both said yes to a picture. It made me look a little harder before delivering my vote. The image’s fate was in my power. Equally some images I thought worthy of a second look were out of the running for the big awards by the time I voted: that’s the reality of judging by panel. After lunch we swapped with Salon 2 and moved into a room with a big TV to view the PDIs. Here voting was done by pushing a button on a control pad with blue and red buttons – red for hot or yes and blue for cool or no. Once all three judges had voted the next image appeared automatically. In PDI we had four sections: experimental, photo travel, nature and general. It is worth noting that in the nature category we saw plenty of landscapes which, of course, are natural but nature indicates wildlife rather than auroras, rainbows and waterfalls and none of the landscape pictures in the nature category made it through to the next judging stage.

Less than two hours after starting we had finished the mono section and it was onto the colour prints, of which there were many piles awaiting our attention. The quality of the colour prints seemed higher, pictorially and aesthetically. The challenge for the judges when looking at general sections like these is that you go from looking at a fine art nude study to a landscape and then to a great nature shot or heavily manipulated image, all in quick succession. Comparing like with like is one thing but disparate subjects can be tricky. I wanted a good picture that was well composed, technically sound and worth looking at. It doesn’t seem much to ask but many failed by not being worth looking at. Judges have personal preferences too. Abdul had a liking for action images and Gabi liked excellent

The 536-page coffee- table edition covers 2000 masterpieces from various themes of the contest, a best of artistic photography, and a who’s who of contest and salon photography on a global level. It is available at £60 (including postage). Order from fotoforum @fotosalon.at.

I wanted a good picture that waswell composed, technically sound andworth looking at. It doesn’t seemmuch to ask, but many failed

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Issue 8 | Photography News

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