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Photography Judging: For Photographers, Photojudges, Picture Editors PDF

186 Pages·2021·7.772 MB·English
by  Tom Ang
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PHOTOGRAPHY JUDGING FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS PHOTOJUDGES PICTURE EDITORS 1 Otherbooks Photography:History,Art,Technique Photography-theDefinitiveVisualHistory PhotoInsights PictureEditing Ang'sWorld PhotoFieldGuide CreativityforEveryone Copyright © TOM ANG 2021 DigitalPhotographyStepbyStep DigitalPhotographyEssentials All images © TOM ANG DigitalPhotographer’sHandbook Text © TOM ANG (except material quoted in CompleteDigitalPhotography Questions&Angswers Resources section) DigitalPhotography:anIntroduction The right of Tom Ang to be identified as the TheCompletePhotographer author of this work is hereby asserted in DigitalPhotographyMasterclass FundamentalsofPhotography accordance with Section 96 of the New DigitalPhotographyThroughTheYear Zealand Copyright Act 1994. The design, HowToPhotographAbsolutelyEverything DigitalPhotography layout, text and images are all subject to TaoofPhotography copyright. EyewitnessCompanion:Photography PictureEditing PhotoshopCSForPhotography ISBN 978-0-473-55922-9 DictionaryofPhotographyandDigitalImaging DigitalPhotography Fonts used: Barlow, Trirong SilverPixels Published in New Zealand by AngBookCo an KISSDigitalPhotography imprint of Nuku.Press AdvancedDigitalPhotography CompleteDigitalPhotography PrivateAlbum DigitalVideoHandbook DigitalVideo:AnIntroduction Asphotographer TheMarcoPoloExpedition JoyofSex WalkingtheScottishHighlands Dorset 2 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 4 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 5 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 8 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. 9 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 10

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