Roy Sewall Photography

Training

By Joe Miller’s Center for the Photographic Arts, Northern Virginia Alliance of Camera Clubs. See www.nvacc.org 

How I perceive my role as a judge

I view the first and foremost role of a judge to be an educator.

For novices, the educational experience will hopefully be an increased awareness of the basic issues that comprise good photography.

For advanced photographers, the educational experience will be to further their understanding of how others (who perhaps are peers) view their work, as opposed to learning the basics.

Criteria for judging

The criteria I use are as follows:

Compliance with the competition theme is a go/no-go criterion.

Emotional impact is how the photo gets me in the gut – it includes the choice of the subject, creativity, originality, mood, and (in some cases) story-telling.

Artistry is composition, use of color, light, texture, perspective, taking the viewer’s eyes to the right place, absence of distracting items (such as miscellaneous stuff in the edges and corners), use of picture space, etc.

Technical issues are sharpness, depth of field, exposure, control of details in the highs and lows, print quality, matting quality, etc.

Presuming the photo is compliant with the competition theme, I view emotional impact as the highest priority criterion. If it isn’t there, the photo is “out.” Next, artistry and technical issues have roughly the same weight, but this depends on the context of the photograph.

Judging assignments

 

February 2006 – North Bethesda Camera Club (3-person panel)

May 2006 – Silver Spring Camera Club

January 2007 - Northern Virginia Photographic Society

April 2007 - Washington Apple Pi (Mac Users’ Group) First Annual Photo Contest (2-person judging team)

October 2007 – Gaithersburg Camera Club

November 2007 – Frederick Camera Clique

January 2008 – Rossmoor Camera Club

February 2008 – Silver Spring Camera Club

October 2008 – Reston Photographic Society

November 2008 - Frederick Camera Clique

January 2009 - Manassas-Warrenton Camera Club

February 2009 – Silver Spring Camera Club

May 2009—Vienna Photographic Society

September 2009—National Institutes of Health Camera Club

October 2009—Northern Virginia Photographic Society

October 2009—Rossmoor Camera Club

November 2009—Gaithersburg Camera Club

March 2010—Loudoun Photography Club

 

See Testimonials on Roy’s judging

JUDGING PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITIONS