The following comments are by Nancy L Ford:
Before I list winners and why I picked them, I wanted to offer some advice on entering contests.
Presentation: Most likely, the photo you choose to enter is one you are proud of. If this is so, then you should go the extra mile and enter your piece in a state of “perfect presentation.” You could have captured the best image in the world, but if you send it off to a drug store for a generic machine, glossy print, you are not doing your photography justice. All great photographers custom print their images. ALL prints need some burning and dodging as well as color balance and contrast. (And for the record, I personally do not like glossy for enlargements, especially for exhibition. I feel the shine and glare takes away from the photo.)
The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: If you’re not proud of it, or don’t think it’s worthy, DO NOT ENTER IT! You will only discredit yourself as an artist. I often hear, “I didn’t have anything else to enter so I just threw this in.”
Cropping: A good crop can make all the difference in the world to communicating the emotional content of your photo and improving the composition. It will also give some elements more importance and get rid of unneeded elements or space.
Make it Special: Sunsets. Flowers. Cute puppy photos. The difference between the winners and the non-winners? Something special. It’s not enough to photograph a pretty sunset, but find something special to add to the photo, like something to silhouette against it, or geese walking in the road in front of stormy clouds. Challenge yourself. Where you are standing when you first get a photographic vision is not the best place to shoot it 90% of the time. Take your safe photo then move around and see if there is another angle that will make the photo unlike anything anyone has seen before. Try very “tight” then try far away. If there are 2 great sunset photos, the judges will pick the one that is different, special and creative. They will pick the one that the photographer went the extra mile for, or dared to be different.
The Waiting Game: If you see something nice to take a photo of, but it needs something else, something special, camp out and wait for something to happen to make a photo that will make the viewer say, “Wow!” When I worked at the OD, I spent 2 years, whenever it rained, parked across the street from Shepard Paint on Columbia Street, waiting for someone to walk by with an umbrella. (http://tinyurl.com/2hnb5x) To my frustration, there’s not a lot of foot traffic there. And being a photojournalist I could not set it up, only wait. That might have been a bit extreme, and I don’t know if it was worth it, but I would have never known otherwise.
Emotion: A great photo evokes emotion, and that emotion should start with your own. We’re all familiar with that special moment when we see something unfolding in front of us, we lift the camera, feel a little flutter of excitement in our heart, click the shutter and we know we (possibly) captured something amazing, portfolio worthy. It only happens once in a while, but when it does, we hold our breath until we can see it came out OK, it’s in focus, and it’s as good as we “felt it.” You picked that camera up and put it to your face because your vision evoked an emotion in your soul. And because of that, most likely that emotion will be communicated to the viewer. Now “THAT” is the photo to enter in competitions.
The Unfortunate Judge: Photography is subjective. Although I’ve never experienced it first hand, I hear horror stories about judges being verbally attacked for their choices. Don’t be a baby. You will never come across being dissatisfied at the judge’s decision, you will only come across as being a sore loser. What one judge may feel is the best photo, may not be the same one for another judge. Talk to them. Learn from them. You may not agree with their reasoning, but seeing art from another’s point of view is always educational and interesting. And no, I am not afraid of anyone being dissatisfied with my choices. I am only writing this because of recent discussions with some local judges who felt they were forced to ‘defend’ instead of explain their decisions.
For this contest, Forest Hill Superintendent Gerard Waterman chose “Wildlife” as this year’s theme. Before I judged, Gerard and I had a discussion of what the winning photos should convey. We agreed the photo should be a visual representation of the uniqueness of Forest Hill Cemetery, so that if anyone looks at the photo, they would say, “I know where that was taken, Forest Hill Cemetery!” (FYI, I am very familiar with Forest Hill. I had been walking through there since grade school and know every inch of it like the back of my hand.)
At the same time, the photo should have all the aesthetic qualities of an exhibition-worthy photo, such as and not limited to: Composition, presentation, proper exposure, creativity, proper use of color / black and white, etc.
Based on those guidelines, here are my choices with a brief “why.”
1st Dave Scranton: “Deer & Hydrangeas”
Exemplifies what the cemetery is: Deer, Headstones & Hydrangeas, all of which are familiar to anyone who visits. The photo was well composed, nice saturated color, and the deer’s eye contact with the viewer draws you in. The reddish/umber color of the deer centered in the frame, and surrounded by green foliage, white hydrangeas and soft grey stones made this one my favorite. (One slight negative observation, there appeared to be a slight bit of pixalization, over sharpening, or some sort of digital disturbance.)
2nd Jennifer DeVenezia: “Walking Geese”
One problem with this competition was that there were mostly Canada Geese photos. Because of that, I had a hard time not judging them against each other as a classification. Of all the geese photos, second stood out to me because of its romanticizing, dream-like quality lighting. The placement of the big geese against the baby geese was symmetrical. (Advice: I am assuming it is a digital image and needed a slight bit of Photoshop’s unsharp mask to add a little more crispiness (contrast) to the pixels.)
3rd Alison Sinnot “A Quiet Moment”
I loved this photo. It had great use of “depth of field,” having the chipmunk in focus and the background, with all the beautiful, yellow buttercups slightly out of focus. How many times did I sit and watch the chipmunks hunt for acorns and loved admiring the buttercups in the green grass among the pale grey tombstones? The placement of the chipmunk in the lower left with the yellow buttercups centered showed a natural sense of composition on the part of the photographer.
HM Paula Czaja: “Frog and Lily Pads”
This was also nicely composed and the ponds are an important part of what makes Forest Hill so special. I thought the frog had a slight bit of comical personality to his face. Technically it was perfect with vibrant color. One pet peeve: Turn the date / time stamp off!!!! If you forget, Photoshop it out. If you don’t know how, pay someone to do it for you. That does not belong on an exhibition print.
Supervisor’s Choice: Ryan McGrogan “Geese on the Pond”
I also liked this one because it’s an image in my mind that will stay with me forever, no matter where I am or how long it has been since I have been in Forest Hill. It has a nice composition, with the geese in the foreground and the pond and tall evergreen trees in the background. In addition, some gravestones slightly dotted the landscape. It’s very pretty! But, I felt it had some technical problems that custom, professional printing may have helped. One is the blown out sky at the top draws your eye away from the important elements in the photo. I am not sure if there is enough detail to burn the sky down a bit, or if cropping would ruin the use of the trees. Oddly, with that said, for some reason, I seem to like it better with it cropped from the bottom, half way between the edge and the geese.
Other Comments:
Constance Watkins entered a nice photo of a Blue Bird– Could have greatly benefited from custom, professional printing. The one side of stone was too hot and needed to be burned. It took away from the photo.
Cheri Sassman took a wonderful photo of a Sparrow and Jeff Hart’s photo of a frog peeking out from a group of lily pads was cute.
Jim Calocerino’s photo would have been awesome if he had cropped the bottom half the photo off. The lower half of the photo, which was all lawn, was not needed and dominated the image.
Well, I am hoping to make it to the reception on Tuesday. Hope to see you all there!
