I don't like the idea of a purely subjective /opinion-based judgment. Then the criteria becomes:
"What kind of pictures does this judge like. OK I'll make those kind of pictures to win the competition."
This results in a boring, sameness and a reluctancy to try anything new, hence stagnation. I see many camera-club images where people are still trying to be Ansel Adams clones because the judge has a thing for the zone system.
I feel the results should be from informed and educated analysis of the images.
Off the top of my head I can't remember the marking form I designed but it looks something like this:
I break it down into a series of marks for different criteria:
Firstly the preliminary run-through I'm looking to do away with images that don't conform the the theme and images that are totally
boring. This is the most subjective part. I mark on
1. Context (Out of 10)(Assuming the competition has a theme) and
2 Visual impact (out of 10)
Then I add other criteria
1 Contex; (0-10)
2. Impact (0-10)
3 Clarity of subject matter and is it the centre of interest (0-5)
4. Use of line, shape, space, texture, colour, light, rhythm and pattern (Aesthetic merit) (0-5)
5. Is there metaphor, allegory or other special visual interpretation (0-5)
6. Technical quality (0-5)
Mark out of 40.
Get the finalists and sit and talk about the pictures. Use a process of elimination.
Herschel
Herschel Mair
Head of the Department of Photography,
Head of the Department of Photography,
Higher College of Technology
Muscat
Sultanate of Oman
Muscat
Sultanate of Oman
Adobe Certified instructor
+ (986) 99899 673
Talk is cheap. Use Yahoo! Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min.
