Tss1203
11-20-2009, 12:24 AM
My local affiliate DPPA held it's print competition Tuesday night. I just joined the affiliate at last month's meeting and decided to go ahead and submit some entries to the competition. I wanted to share my first experience w/everyone (I will call this my 'first' competition even though I did enter WPPI 8x10 comp last year. I didn't prepare the images and sent them very last minute. So I'll just say that was practice, lol)
None of the other photographers I normally attend the meetings with were going so I had my Mom come with me as she helps me in the office. There was just no way I could go alone, lol. I arrived early b/c I was insecure about what to do. I figured if we got there before anyone else there would be less people to laugh at my inexperience with the process, lol. I recognized the absolutely adorable woman helping with print handling as Betsy even though I've never met her. She looked just like her last avatar :)
I wasn't sure I was going to stay for the judging as I was really nervous to hear the critiques. I was afraid the judges would be harsh. We decided we would at least stay for a little while. We ended up watching the Portrait, Wedding and the beginning of the Illustrative category. We would've liked to stay longer but we had over an hour drive home.
So here are my scores and what the judges said-
http://www.twinshutterbugstudios.com/images/endofthelin2.jpg
"End of the Line" originally scored 79 but was challenged by one judge who felt it deserved an 80. The other judges felt there wasn't anything in the image in focus and that the brightness on the belly drew your eyes up and out of the print. Her belly button was not in focus and in fact almost invisible and that was mentioned. The judge who challenged felt that the maker probably intentionally lit the belly brighter and intentionally created the image soft (which I did) and liked it that way. But, she concurred and it got dropped to a 78. Eh.
I didn't disagree w/any of the judges opinions and respected what they said.
http://www.twinshutterbugstudios.com/images/dogtired.jpg
"Dog Tired" scored an 80, which I guess also got challenged. One judge felt there wasn't anything to draw your attention, but all the other judges felt that the dogs eyes and face were very crisp and that was were the focus/attention was. So it stayed an 80. I don't remember any of this, or it even being challenged. I think I was too afraid they would drop the score that I just blocked the critique out, haha! My Mom had told me what was said afterwards.
The last two images both scored 77, but I hadn't expected more. They both had flaws but interesting characters/subjects. I had hoped that would over shadow the flaws, but in the end it didn't. I'm okay with that.
What I found was the judges were very fair and honest. Not one said anything really mean or harsh about any of the images. I was extremely impressed w/all the entries and didn't see anything that was sub par.
The truth is we all fear getting our egos squashed by not scoring 80 or above, but all the images that scored 77-79 were pretty great. It made me feel even more honored to have participated and score where I did. I don't know I would've understood the scoring w/o watching, so I'm glad we stayed.
I'm looking forward to doing this again. At least now I feel like I have a handle on what images of mine will work and what won't. I think next time I'll go w/my gut as I submitted a few that I knew was not my best work and those scored the worst. My husband is always critiquing my images for being too soft(he really should be a judge someday, haha) and that was my biggest flaw. So I'm really going to start focusing on fixing that.
We can debate all day whether print competition is worth it, whether we learn anything, whether it will make us money, etc. I think it is important to be critiqued every once in awhile. I'm inspired to create better artistic images for my clients and myself now, and I think that alone makes it worth it. I'm hoping by getting the courage to post my scores and the critiques it might inspire others to compete. It wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be, even the bad stuff :) I don't expect to change everyone's opinion, and I'm okay with that.
None of the other photographers I normally attend the meetings with were going so I had my Mom come with me as she helps me in the office. There was just no way I could go alone, lol. I arrived early b/c I was insecure about what to do. I figured if we got there before anyone else there would be less people to laugh at my inexperience with the process, lol. I recognized the absolutely adorable woman helping with print handling as Betsy even though I've never met her. She looked just like her last avatar :)
I wasn't sure I was going to stay for the judging as I was really nervous to hear the critiques. I was afraid the judges would be harsh. We decided we would at least stay for a little while. We ended up watching the Portrait, Wedding and the beginning of the Illustrative category. We would've liked to stay longer but we had over an hour drive home.
So here are my scores and what the judges said-
http://www.twinshutterbugstudios.com/images/endofthelin2.jpg
"End of the Line" originally scored 79 but was challenged by one judge who felt it deserved an 80. The other judges felt there wasn't anything in the image in focus and that the brightness on the belly drew your eyes up and out of the print. Her belly button was not in focus and in fact almost invisible and that was mentioned. The judge who challenged felt that the maker probably intentionally lit the belly brighter and intentionally created the image soft (which I did) and liked it that way. But, she concurred and it got dropped to a 78. Eh.
I didn't disagree w/any of the judges opinions and respected what they said.
http://www.twinshutterbugstudios.com/images/dogtired.jpg
"Dog Tired" scored an 80, which I guess also got challenged. One judge felt there wasn't anything to draw your attention, but all the other judges felt that the dogs eyes and face were very crisp and that was were the focus/attention was. So it stayed an 80. I don't remember any of this, or it even being challenged. I think I was too afraid they would drop the score that I just blocked the critique out, haha! My Mom had told me what was said afterwards.
The last two images both scored 77, but I hadn't expected more. They both had flaws but interesting characters/subjects. I had hoped that would over shadow the flaws, but in the end it didn't. I'm okay with that.
What I found was the judges were very fair and honest. Not one said anything really mean or harsh about any of the images. I was extremely impressed w/all the entries and didn't see anything that was sub par.
The truth is we all fear getting our egos squashed by not scoring 80 or above, but all the images that scored 77-79 were pretty great. It made me feel even more honored to have participated and score where I did. I don't know I would've understood the scoring w/o watching, so I'm glad we stayed.
I'm looking forward to doing this again. At least now I feel like I have a handle on what images of mine will work and what won't. I think next time I'll go w/my gut as I submitted a few that I knew was not my best work and those scored the worst. My husband is always critiquing my images for being too soft(he really should be a judge someday, haha) and that was my biggest flaw. So I'm really going to start focusing on fixing that.
We can debate all day whether print competition is worth it, whether we learn anything, whether it will make us money, etc. I think it is important to be critiqued every once in awhile. I'm inspired to create better artistic images for my clients and myself now, and I think that alone makes it worth it. I'm hoping by getting the courage to post my scores and the critiques it might inspire others to compete. It wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be, even the bad stuff :) I don't expect to change everyone's opinion, and I'm okay with that.