Photography Judging: For Photographers, Photojudges, Picture Editors

186 Pages·2021·7.772 MB·English

by  Tom Ang

PHOTOGRAPHY
JUDGING
FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS PHOTOJUDGES PICTURE EDITORS
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Contents
Introduction 4
Chapter 1 Essentials 7

Responsibilities 8
Basic selection strategies 13
Chapter 2 Practical matters 23
Practical set-up 24
Help with fatigue 32
How to win with your pictures 35
Chapter 3 General concepts 43
Levels of appreciation 44
Photographic ethics 52
Genres, norms, and contexts 60
Chapter 4 Dimensions of judging 75
Technical dimension 76
Aesthetic dimension 89
Visual exercises 99
Panel sequencing 111
Image manipulation 119
Chapter 5 Competition management 130
Scoring systems 131
Scoring image manipulation 152
Competition rules 159
Disqualifications 176
References 181
Acknowledgements 186
3
Introduction
This is a practical manual for judging
photography in any context. From international
competitions, awards and concours to personal
projects and educational institutions, it is a unique
source. This book can inform and help anyone who
judges, evaluates, selects or uses photographs.
This book is designed to be an essential guide for
photographers of all grades ... and even if they need
only to judge their own work.
It offers essential reading and reference material
for those who wish to enter their images to
photography competitions, concours, or salons.
Above all, it is designed to be a comprehensive
handbook for those who carry any responsibility for
judging photographic entries for awards or prizes at
any level.
If you are, or have been invited to be, a
photography judge this book aims to give you all the
information you need to perform your duties with
skill, flair, and fairness. With the thousands of
competitions, awards, salons, and photo concours that
take place around the world, there is a pressing need
for a clear, authoritative manual to guide photojudges.
This book aims to be that manual.
Visual references
This book is not full of visual references. The reason is
that it’s not my purpose to influence - let alone dictate
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visual exercises to help the less experienced work on
how to analyse, then articulate in words, their visual
and visceral responses.
I have worked for 40 years in photography in many
capacities: from leading Masters courses at university
to beginner workshops, from editing photography
magazines to running a picture desk for a national
newspaper to consulting for the photo industry. I’ve
also judged extensively. From club competitions to
sitting on juries of some of the most important
photography awards in the world I’ve had the pleasure
and honour to breathe and talk photography with
some of the finest photographers, picture editors and
photography judges on the planet.
Certain questions recur; every photography judge
on every continent, in every country will be asked a
variant of them. It reflects what appears to be a
mysterious, unpredictable process and takes many
forms:
• ‘How do you judge a photograph?’
• ‘What makes a photograph good or bad?’
• ‘How can you spot one great photograph from thousands
of others?’
• ‘Surely judging photography is totally subjective?’
• ‘What’s the difference between a good photograph and a
bad one?’
• ‘How do you know what is a good photo?’
This book is essentially a long answer to the
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This book is essentially a long answer to the
questions. In doing so, I hope to help you become a
skilful, subtle, prudent judge of photographs. And
that you’ll appreciate there’s much less subjectivity
and more objectivity than you might think.
While being a great picture editor offers no
guarantee that you can make great photographs, you
can be sure the reverse is true: gaining good picture
judging skills confers enormous benefit to any
photographer.
May this book improve your photography, and
picture judging!

Auckland 2021
NOTE
In this book the term ‘picture editing’ means “the process of
selecting an image best suited to a specific use or purpose”,
and a picture editor or photojudge is someone engaged in that
process. Picture editing is not the same as image editing which
is the process of using image manipulation software to alter or
process images. Therefore, in this book, ‘picture editing’ does
not mean ‘image manipulation’.
6
Essentials
Chapter One
Responsibilities
Basic selection strategies
7
Responsibilities
You could say that anyone who can capture an
image has what is needed to judge a photograph. They
can see, they have their own tastes, they can express
their preferences between what they like or don’t like.
In short, they can make judgements about
photography. And just about everyone is very willing
to express their opinions. However, there is more to
judging photography than personal opinion.
Responsibilities
At the very least, everyone can judge their own
photographic efforts, if even they never look at anyone
else’s. Nonetheless, there is a small - but rapidly-
growing - number of photographers who take on
responsibilities for judging that go beyond their own
photographs. A lot further: their judgements may
themselves be judged by others, sometimes debated
all round the world.
If you are one of these, if you have been asked to
judge a photographic award, salon or prize - whether at
the local club, regional or even at international level -
you take on a big responsibility.
It’s a responsibility both to the photographers
taking part, and to the competition organisers. It’s a
responsibility to know what you’re doing. Knowing
your photography does not automatically make you a
photography judge. You have a responsibility to
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Responsibilities
understand the framework of rules, to appreciate the
process of judging photographic work; and you take on
a wider duty of being an opinion leader in
photography.
With the great increase in numbers of awards and
prizes for photography, a proportionally big increase in
the numbers of judges is needed. Many judges are
appointed from the ranks of past winners. Although
being a fine photographer does not guarantee the
person is a skilled judge of photography, one can learn
on the job. Many of the finest picture editors and
photojudges have risen from the ranks of
photography, gaining experience from looking at,
assessing and using images for years until they
become expert at assessing images in dynamic,
sophisticated and educated ways.
This book won’t try to substitute for the
experience and knowledge gained from the critical
assessment of thousands of all kinds of images and
accumulated over many years of working at high levels
in book publishing, magazine editing or curating
exhibitions.
This book does, however, provide a framework for
those who need to acquire the essential skills and
understanding to be able to function as a responsible
and skilled photojudge.
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Responsibilities
In addition, there is a great deal of material in this
book that will benefit any photographer keen to hone
their picture editing skills. Improving your picture
editing can be the most effective, and cost-efficient
way to improve your photography. This extends to
improving your chances of winning photographic
awards, and getting exhibitions or being published.
How to use this book
This book is split broadly into two parts. The first
deals with the fundamentals of judging and
understanding how we respond to the image. For
example, our assessment of an image may change
according to the context of its use or the photographic
genre. We will also look at technical issues, discuss
images and their uses in different contexts. And we
look briefly at the art of sequencing or creating panels
of images.
Central to the whole processing of judging and
editing is how to select the single winning image out
of hundreds or thousands. By ‘winning’ we mean not
only the photograph selected as a prize- or award-
winner, but also pictures that will ‘win’ a position in a
photographer’s portfolio or web-site.
This first part will be useful to photographers who
are working only with their own images as well as
helpful to judges and picture editors. However, it is
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