Visual Impact or Relevance?

August 8, 2008 in Articles about Photography
Tags: Photo contest, picture contest, photography contest, photo competition

Criteria of judging photography contests are usually composed of the following:

For theme photography contests:
Visual impact 70%
Relevance to the theme 20%
Uniqueness or originality 10%

For open photo contests:
Visual impact 70%
Originality 20%
Style 10%

You may notice that the “relevance of the theme” on the criteria I proposed is quite low. Some may thought that entries that with low adherence to the themes will have a hard time winning photo contests but for the judges’ point of view, the starting point is “choosing” and “eliminating” their best bet by quick browsing along hundreds or thousands of entries. You photo entry must get the judges’ attention first. Your entry must move them. If you measure the distance between the judges and the print. It will be around 1 meter or more if the prints are posted in the wall so the preliminary selecting - “visual impact” counts most of the votes.

Let me get this clear. I’m not trying to say that you will totally focus on visual impact and disregard the theme of whatever picture contest you will be joining. It is needlessly to say that the photo should be relevant to the theme and of course technically sound. But while relevance and technicalities are important, I believe that the visual impact is the most important factor since it gives you the edge of getting noticed right away in the initial judging. But we must not forget that there is the later stages of judging where relevance and techniques become more critical. It will be your duty to weigh things out and manage to pour in all the necessary spices into your photo. You will eventually get the hang of it once you know how to sort things out.

Picture contests are sometimes judged by the same panel of critics. If you are lucky to anticipate the set of judges for the next photo competition you are planning to join then all you need to know is how they “really” pick their choices. Observe and take notes, know their names and make a compilations of their profiles and styles of judging all in one file. Outwit and outsmart. everything is easy if you know how to gather resources and put them in good use.

Another useful information I can add is the stages of judging for photo competitions:

First stage of judging: entries are viewed from a distance: applying the “visual impact criteria” (color scheme- colored or b&w, composition, metaphor, sometimes “originality and style” comes into play here) that’s why i gave this high percentage.

Second stage of judging: establishing the relevance to the “theme” of the photo entries, this is where the judges closely view the images in terms of adherence to the theme and the quality of prints (plus post processing techniques).

Third stage: Deliberation among judges is very important that’s why there should be one “chairman of the board of judges” (elected on the spot by the invited judges )which i don’t see in all camera club photo contest’s judging. This chairman should give the final verdict or put the process in order. As they have now in their hands the short listed entries, the crucial decision now to determine the winners must be deliberated by the board of judges- this is where all concerns will be raised and voted upon like theme, originality, etc.

That’s it folks.. I hope you get some good points out of this topic.

To see how John Warton, senior photo editor at Photo Laureates reviews photographs and meet, go to www.thephotochallenge.com