Judgement Day

It all started with a message...

I was relaxing on the sofa when I got a notification on my phone from a old college friend explaining that a judge had cancelled for a club competition for this coming Friday. Would I be interested in taking his place?

It was a bit of a strange request because although we had been friends for over 30 years, out recent contacts had been few and far between (ironically the last time we had met was at a Charlie Waite talk). I was vaguely aware he was into photography and a member of a club, however I wasn't aware he knew the same of me, and certainly we had never done any photography together or had he seen any of my work.

In short I was surprised that he knew enough of my work and background to even consider me. Was he really that desperate?  Added to that he had no idea whether I had the skill, knowledge and experience to be a judge.

As for myself, I had to ask myself whether I wanted to do it? At the end of the day everyone is a judge in some way as we form opinions on someone else's work. However saying whether you like a photo is one thing. A judge has to more than a blind critic, but also needs to communicate a reason for their decision. The best judges are also teachers and mentors, offering practical advice on how the photographer can improve. Did I have the skills to do that?

Also being a judge you have to fairly self-confident and thick skinned. In the past on this very blog, I have heavily criticized judges. (evidence for the prosecution here, here and here). Did I want to put myself in that same position? It is one thing to pass opinions between friend and family, but did I want to do it in front of a group of photography enthusiasts

On the other hand, I am a strong believer in that you should only criticise if you are prepared to try and do better. Also I would be paid to go and view a set of photos, which sounded like a good gig. Also I felt that as an avid scholar of the art and history of photography I had enough in my locker to give something back. 

In truth I only spent a couple of minutes deliberating before replying back that I would do it.

The Learned Judge

 I had only 4 days to before the event, so I thought it would be a good idea to

a) get some practice in
b) maybe actually learn a bit about judging.

Practice was pretty easy. There are loads of photo-sharing sites almost begging you to critic them. Rather than make snap judgements, I deliberately slowed down and created a monologue in my head about my thoughts about the image. I found it was often to easier to find faults in an image, than positives. Poor cropping, artifacts, shadows and blown highlights were often in evidence, and it was easy to see where an image could be improved. However I didn't want to be the kind of judge who only picked out faults, so I tried to find  positive things to say. This was not always easy and I hoped the standard on the day would be higher.

It also forced me to think about my judging philosophy.  One of my criticisms about judges in the past is that they often concentrate on the minutiae and rarely on the image itself. My local association guidelines indicate that 50% of the weighting should be based on the image story, or how well the subject expressed itself to the viewer, but in the past I have found this is rarely the case and most marks are lost by artifacts the judge found distracting. I was determined not to be like that and judge based on the artistic as well as the technical merits.

On my locally association webpage I found some useful advice and information on judging. This one on the PAGB site was especially interesting. The advice was actually pretty good, but at the end of the day you are using your own values to judge and therefore I was determined that I stay true to myself

1) Be positive as well as critical
2) Don't be afraid to indicate personal preferences and biases. After all I am not a robot
3) Judge on the impact as well as the technical aspects

The competition

I must admit I had been expecting and gearing up to a pretty standard competition. 2 sets of images and prints, marked out of 20, with some held back and an overall winner.

However I was informed the day before that the competition was something called "Mix and match" which was a new one on me. However some questioning of some elder members of my club indicated that it was something that used to be more common in the days of slide projectors.

The rules were as follows (read carefully, there maybe questions)

1. Club A chooses an image. For this they get 5 points
2. I judge the image out of 5 for quality
3. Club B chooses an image that has to in some way match Club A image. The criteria for the  matching is up to Club B. It could be a myriad of attributes such as colour, shape, subject or something totally different. The important thing is to pick an attribute that is obvious to me as a judge.
4. I judge that image for quality out of 5, then I can an additional mark from 1 to 5 for how well that image matches Club A image.

After 3 images, the clubs switch around in terms of lead.

It sounds very subjective, and it is, but so is all judging. However unlike normally judging which is done in silence, audience participation is actively encouraged both in comments on quality and the reasoning behind the match.

There are a few other things that stood out from that. Firstly quality is only 5 marks. This got me out of a bind, since I have never understood why although club photos are in theory marked between 1 and 20, the lowest mark I have ever seen is 13. What are the other 12 marks for? I have been tempted over the years to see how bad an image has to be to break the 13 barrier. However in a competition, would I be brave enough as a judge to use the full mark range? Fortunately I did not need to find out. 5 marks gave me plenty of latitude to use the full mark set

Secondly, how do you measure matching quality? There is no advice for that, so i had to go with my gut instinct.

Judgement Day

So how did it go?  Well firstly, I quite enjoyed the interaction element, and while sometimes I had to fight against undue influence from the audience, it did make me feel that all competitions should encourage such feedback.

Judging the quality of the image was not that hard, and I felt I gave some reasonable feedback. Assessing the quality of the match was more subjective and difficult. However I felt I joined in the spirit of the game and no one seem to complain to much or accuse me as unqualified to judge.

So would I do it again? It is probably a big step up from this to say a inter-club competition where  the stakes are higher and therefore the demands on the judging more. However I think it is something I would still consider doing in the future

But don't judge me on that.....