Judging criteria, lists, tabulations, forumulas, and the like

Shay Stephens

The short answer for those in a rush...no!

For those with a little more time, the judging for the qualifying rounds is a gut instinct, emotional, and aggregate result with no room for posted tabulations, formulas, and micro indicators of how your photo did in the contest.

It is unfair and opaque by design. If you were in the business world of photography and you had to bid a job against other photographers, the way many of those decision would be made is as I made them above. And you will never know the hows and whys and how close you came to be chosen. So you might as well get used to the same treatment here for qualifying rounds.

Each judge is told to pick their top ten as they see fit. They are encouraged to use their gut feeling. The judging time is short so they can't sit and stew about it for days and reason themselves a different answer. It is a quick gut feeling decision by design and necessity.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, this contest is kind of like a boot camp, to toughen you up, get you used to rejection, apparent unfair treatment, and the occasional sweet reward. Get through this, and you could probably go in to business for yourself because you will have the chops to survive in the real world where people make gut decision and don't tell you why they made that decision.

The results are the results. We have a constantly changing judging panel that do there honest best to choose those photos that speak to them the most. Those are added up and the top ten chosen from those results. Those are the breaks, the beautiful, life training, mind expanding breaks (see my signature below).

Brett

The way I see it, if the comments that people give you in your trial entry thread aren't enough, then what else can you do? All I hope to get out of this is to be satisfied in knowing that my photography skills and knowledge have advanced and I have created some nice work that I feel I wouldn't/couldn't have created before this.

My two Yen.

Nikolai

In this case...

Shay Stephens wrote:

... They are encouraged to use their gut feeling. The judging time is short so they can't sit and stew about it for days and reason themselves a different answer. It is a quick gut feeling decision by design and necessity....

I guess we're sticking with 24 hr decision deadline

Andy

Nikolai wrote:

I guess we're sticking with 24 hr decision deadline

Nothing of the sort Nik. Let us do our jobs, we'll let you know what the new timeframe for releasing the top 10s will be. Focus on shooting, Nik

Nikolai

Andy wrote:

Nothing of the sort Nik. Let us do our jobs, we'll let you know what the new timeframe for releasing the top 10s will be. Focus on shooting, Nik

Oh, I am, no worries. I'm simply not in any rush to submit. I like my ideas to be marinated first...:-)

I really could care less how long the judging takes. 5 minutes, 24 hours, 2 weeks... I know my job is to do my best with my entry, then your job starts with judging.

winger

Brett wrote:

The way I see it, if the comments that people give you in your trial entry thread aren't enough, then what else can you do? All I hope to get out of this is to be satisfied in knowing that my photography skills and knowledge have advanced and I have created some nice work that I feel I wouldn't/couldn't have created before this.

My two Yen.

You dont have to depend just on people on this board, sometimes I float photo ideas by people that dont necessarily have a photo background but can tell the difference between a good photo and a bad photo and know I want to hear the truth.

Especially with these themed entries, I know for myself I can have myself so convinced that a photo is good or it is conveying what i want it to until someone knocks some sense into me and has me relook at it.

I mean there are aspects that joe snap shot of the street might not recognize, but friends, families and strangers on the bus can tell if a photo conveys chilled or steamy or not.

You could even ask them the question without leading. Such as "what does this photo make you think of?"

Dgrin is a great forum but it should not be your only source since there are alot of ways to make a technically good photo, but opinions will differ on a photo you simily enjoy.