John Blessas who judged our March Aggregate Competition was unable to present his image assessments owing to work commitments – he had a 2am start the following morning. He has provided the following information for members explaining his judging process.
“I found the standard to be quite high.
The primary factor in looking at all images is emotion.
How does the image generate feeling (good or bad)?
Have I felt a sense of a feeling, story, place or other emotion?
Technical merit is considered, but only as to how it helps with the emotion/story/etc of the image. I believe an image does not have to be razor sharp, on the thirds, etc to tell its story.
I do use the” Three Images” test for deciding grades.
If this was one of three images on a wall, what would make me come back to that image?
All comments are made with the consideration that if it was me submitting my images for critiquing;
“What would I be happy to have a judge say about my images (good or bad) and how I could possibly improve them?”
As I do not know the level of the photographer, how much post processing was done, etc. my comments are made with the best intent to help the maker of the image.
Travel and workshop images. These can compete with each other. When you see a similar image come up it will be subconsciously compared to the first image. It helps if only one image from a trip is entered to keep the wow factor alive.
Personal emotion. We all have favourite images and family images. These shine in our eyes. But how will someone else with no emotional attachment see them?
All advice is given for use with Photoshop and initial adjustments in Photoshop Camera RAW. I use and recommend third party software from Topaz and NIK. A very useful add on I use is the free “A Touch of Light and Touch of Darkness” from MCP Software.
All images were judged in simular light conditions and normal resolution. No images were greatly “blown up” or “pixel peeped” during judging.
Again, thank you for this opportunity.
I am quite happy to answer questions if members want further comments.”
John Blessas – 0428 495929 or jb@mky.net.au
