10
Competitions
JUDGING
Behind the scenes Thousands upon thousands of photographers around the world submit to photography exhibitions and salons. Few, however, get the chance to see how their images are judged, so join Photography News as we go behind the scenes at the recent judging of the Smethwick International 2014
The popularity of national and international photographic salons has never been higher and entry numbers run into many thousands. Organising them is a serious undertaking and is hugely time-consuming for everyone involved. Over 11,000 images were received for the Smethwick International 2014, over 3000 of which were prints. As you might imagine, getting those images in front of the judges – two panels of three – takes time; this year the judging takes place over a long weekend. It starts off on the Friday with Open Colour PDI (Projected Digital Images), Nature Prints and Nature PDI. On Saturday it’s Open Monochrome PDI and Monochrome Prints and then Colour Prints on the Sunday. We’re sitting in on the Friday judging session, starting off with Nature Prints. The three judges are David Osborn FRPS, John Bebbington FRPS and Mike Lane FRPS, all experts in nature photography. Smethwick’s team outnumbers the judges. Chair of the nature judging is Barbara Lawton FRPS, who is calling out the image title, with five others handling the prints – mostly presented in 40x50cm mounts – plus a score checker and another monitoring everything on a computer, to ensure the scores and image title tally. It’s a very smooth, organised and fair process. Every image is given fair consideration, but the time spent in front of the judges varies between four and ten seconds, with six seconds being average. Each judge uses a keypad and scores out of five with the minimum score of two. The minimum score of six isn’t that rare, but the maximum score of 15 was. Each print scoring 13 or more is kept aside and then later all the prints are viewed again to determine the medal winners. It’s worth noting
that prints scoring 15 do not necessarily win a medal. In fact 47 prints score 13 or more, meaning they qualify for the final judging. These are whittled down to 36, from which medals, awards and honourable mentions are awarded. This section of the judging takes much longer as the three judges closely inspect the shortlisted entries. Of course, it is only after the results are confirmed that any photographers’ names are mentioned. At the same time as the nature judging, in another room another panel of three judges – Peter Paterson FRPS, Simon Allen MPAGB and Jean- Claude Menneron MFIAP – are steadily working their way through the 3000 or so images in the Open Colour PDI section. Here, thanks to a neat software called PhotEX, the judges can work on their own, with just the laptop for company. Originally written for Smethwick by Phil Stapleton, this software is now used by 24 exhibitions in the UK, US, Canada, Norway, Macau and Australia. The club version, PhotoComp, is used by about 50 clubs in the UK. For details see, www.photcompsoftware.com. The software shows the image with its title and as the last judge votes the image changes – each image is on screen for between five and eight seconds. Not visible to the judging panel, the computer shows the author’s name, title with the image and then the total score before the next picture is shown. It’s a very slick system that works impressively well. Again images scoring 13 and over are in the running for the awards. All in all, with 39 exhibitions under its belt and plenty of practice it’s no surprise that Smethwick’s operation is so smooth and slick. With so many entries, it can’t be any other way. If you’re a regular on the exhibition scene or thinking about having a go for the first time, you can rest assured that judging and scoring images – if Smethwick is any measure – are as fair as can be. But when you are preparing your entry you must remember that you have perhaps just five or six seconds to get your message across. Shoddy printing, poor presentation, weak compositions and dodgy camera technique will not do you any favours at all. To succeed your photography has got to be at its very best.
Judging is a very smooth, organised and fair process. But the time spent in front of the judges varies between four and ten seconds
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Photography News | Issue 3
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