the food line
A side trip to learn a little bit more on how to more effectively assess my own images led to spending the better part of a sunny day on the weekend inside, where judging was taking place for the Professional Photographers Association of British Columbia (PPABC) 2010 Image Competition. I felt I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to learn from experienced professionals so I was willing to invest five hours viewing 276 images and listening to comments made by six rotating judges.
The judges assessed the images against the five criteria–impact, composition, technical, presentation, and title. Often they provided suggestions for improvement in case the imagemaker was present in the room. I don’t believe I had heard a photographer referred to as an imagemaker before so who better to ask than my friend Mary since she has served as a judge in this competition for several years. She told me that the judges do not like to use terms such as ”shot”, “to shoot”, or “capture” i.e. hunting analogies. They refer to the “imagemaker” because there should be a conscious decision what to include or exclude from the frame whether it be in the composition at the time the image is made or later by cropping. There is also the aspect of how images are presented by using digital photo matting.
I was surprised when the judges made comments about cropping or blurring the background in post-processing in order to improve the image. I’ve always been under the impression that cropping was not allowed in a competition and neither was anything in post-processing other than minor adjustments to levels, curves, colour, saturation, contrast and sharpening and removal of dust spots. The one category where images were judged more on viewer impact than on technical excellence was “Press”. Images in this category were to “evoke a direct viewer response because of the emotional, humourous, or unusual nature of the subject matter“. In this category, individual judges would often challenge the “Not Accepted” scoring because they felt the majority had placed too much emphasis on the technical merits of an image. Sometimes the challenge was successful but not always.
The “Press” category has piqued my interest since the 2010 World Press Photo winners were announced earlier this year. I was rather under-whelmed by the image that took the award for the World Press Photo of the Year. Then several weeks ago World Press Photo announced that they had disqualified the third place winner under the Sports Features Category. You can read more about this story at PetaPixel.com. The gist of it is this. To tell the story of street fighting in the Ukraine, the imagemaker entered a photograph that had been extensively cropped. However it was not the crop but rather the cloning out of a foot that was the reason for disqualification. Take a look at the original and then the image that was submitted to the competition and let me know what you think. Was the image worthy of an award in the first place? Should the image have been disqualified?
I like that term “imagemaker” and may use that in the future. I prefer not to use the words shot, shoot, capture, take, but because of many years of use I still slide one of them out. I also like to use the word create as explained by David Du Chemin.
I like it too, Monte. Somehow it seems to raise the idea of what we to being a real craft. I hope more of us use the term!
Very interesting. I always find it amusing when people get upset that the post processing on an photo journalism picture is altering its meaning. So much happened before that post process to convey the story the imagemaker intended to get across. You don’t just click and capture a scene without bias. From camera angle, to the lens, to the shutter speed, every decision made takes a significant roll in altering the viewers perception.
Out of curiosity – are you a member of the PPABC?
I’m finding that there are quite a few “naturalists” in photography and some are very vocal. It’s an interesting debate but I think at some point we each need to decide for ourselves what we want to do and then go out and create images.
I am not a member of PPABC but the judging was open to the public so I could sit in without any issue. When the judges decided on the awards, no-one was allowed to be there.
I don’t know anything about competitions, but I have to say it was a brilliant idea on your part to sit in on the judging. You can learn so much from wise critique, even if the images aren’t your own.
But what strikes me most is the photograph you chose to illustrate your post. The WPP disqualified photo is of a hand… being wrapped to fight. Your photograph shows a hand anticipating food. This photo is by far the more compelling.
I didn’t know much about competitions either, Erin so it was a good learning experience for me. It was actually Mary who suggested I sit in because she felt I would learn a lot and she was right. In some ways it was easier to learn because they weren’t my images and I could be listen without feeling any personal attachment.
Tune in tomorrow for a follow-up on the image I posted today!