First of all, congratulations to the winners of the Loxahatchee Photography Contest; recently held at the Green Cay visitor center on February 4, 2007. I know many of you and of the hard work you put into our craft. I would also like to commend many non-winners for sharing your photos.What follows next is an editorial review of how the Loxahatchee Photography Contest was conducted. Please take it as constructive criticism on how the contest can be improved.
In any photography contest, judging is ultimately very subjective; however, it should be consistent.
This was the first year I entered the Loxahatchee Photography Contest, after being disqualified last year for having the wrong presentation board. All I can say is that the execution of this contest was a complete mess, and Loxahatchee could really improve the whole process.
First of all, they need to make the contest rules clear. The rules and the categories are very vague; especially the differences between the Animal Life, Plant Life, and Close Up categories. It can be difficult to figure out which category an image should be submitted to. This is one of the reasons there are so many entries in the Animal Life category, because it becomes a catch all category for many of the images.
Rules as simple as the types of presentation boards allowed are not spelled out clearly enough for participants. In fact, the Turtle River Times (Loxahatchee's own newsletter) promotes a photography workshop by John J. Lopinot, one of the judges, that will include explaining the photo contest rules to you; but more on that later.
The contest administrators made many mistakes in categorizing images. It seems that they miscategorized more than a few images, and photographers had to quietly tell them which category an image belonged to. This in spite of the fact that each photograph had a label on the back that clearly displays which category it belonged to. This was all done in the middle of judging and a miscategorized picture meant that your image would be dismissed, since it could not be judged at the same time as the others.
The application of the contest rules was also wildly inconsistent. Photographs submitted to the Animal Life category that the judges thought should have been entered in the Close Up category were moved; and the same thing for the Plants category. However, no such consideration was made for photographs entered into the Close Up category that the judges thought should have been in Animal Life. Those images were just dismissed. Now remember, the category rules are so vague that it seems like only the judges know which category a picture should belong to.
Furthermore, judges did not seem to know the Loxahatchee area very well, because some people clearly tried to sneak in pictures taken at other locations such as Wakodahatchee, and the judges never caught on to this fact.
Judges did not know their wildlife as well. When judging photos, the judges would often misname the animal pictured. This is critical, because if you're going to judge a nature and wildlife photography contest that will include birds and animals, then you had better know your birds and animals. The subject matter of a photograph is as much a consideration in the overall image than anything else. A heron may sit still long enough for you to compose an image of it swallowing a fish, but a Prairie Warbler on a branch will give you no such luxury. Should they be judged equally? If you know your animals then you'll know that the photographer who took that image of a heron had all the time in the world to compose the image, compared to the photographer who had mere seconds to get an image of a tiny bird on a branch. Which is the better photographer, and which is the better image? Ultimately the subject matters.
Judges could not consistently apply their own preconceptions of what makes a good photograph. We all have a preconception of what makes a good photograph, which creates our bias. We apply this bias when looking at an image to see whether we like it or not. To judge properly, you need to do this consistently; otherwise contestants will never learn what they could have done better. Judges dismissed a photograph of a Great Blue Heron in flight, because a tiny portion of its wing tips were cut off. The same judges said that they liked a picture of a Red-Shouldered hawk that had its tail completely cut off by the bottom of the frame. They did this type of inconsistent nitpicking over and over.
The judges are not up to date with modern techniques in digital photography. For someone promoting digital photography only workshops, including Photoshop classes, John J. Lopinot could not identify a High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo. In fact he thought the image was miscategorized, but then failed to move it into the category for which he thought it belonged, and judge it there. Here's where the judges inability to adapt to new techniques, combined with their inconsistency in re-categorizing images, and the vagueness of the rules all come together. We have an image that consists of three separate exposures, so it clearly belongs in the Special Techniques category. But the judges aren't familiar with HDR so they think that the image is in the wrong category and should have been placed in the landscape category. However, even though they recategorized and rejudged other images, they neglect to do so for this image and simply dismiss it as having been placed in the wrong category; which were vaguely defined to begin with.
Finally, there is some sort of conflict of interest when during the judging of a photography contest, you are promoting your own photography workshop. Want to do better next year? The judge will gladly point you to his photography workshops costing $100 to $400. If that's not a conflict of interest, then I don't know what is. The Loxahatchee Photography Contest is supposed to promote the wildlife refuge, and its inhabitants; not the judge's for profit photography workshops. If this contest is to be used as a marketing event by an individual or corporation, then my federal tax dollars should not be endorsing it; and solicitations for the photography contest should be made off any public property.
Thanks for reading.
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