Laurel Housden Photography Blog

As a Member of my local photography guild - PPNCF(Professional Photographers of North Central Florida) I took advantage of entering several of my photographs into our local print competition. Technically last night’s competition was an Informal Salon. Basically each Member chooses up to 6 pictures for judging and scoring and entries that get a 80 or more Merit or get points towards Photographer of the Year.  Traditionally  each entry is mounted onto a 16 x 20 mat board but last night’s competition was presented digitally for the first time.  This was a fantastic opportunity to get professional feedback on my photographs by some of the best photographers in the business. Since this was my first time both seeing and participating in one of these competitions I was expecting to fall flat on my face and score terrible…but I didn’t to half bad.  More on that later.

The set up is this:

• All of the entries are given to the panel on a cd
• The pictures are randomly placed in appropriate categories (Portrait, Social Portrait, Commercial, Illustrative, and Unclassfied)
• The pictures are sized to 8 x 10 and 125 dpi and shown on a screen at double the size or 16 x 20 - That is the traditional size that they would be seen if printed
• The 3 judges sit directly in front of the screen while the rest of us sit behind them and watch and listen as they score and critique each photo. There is NO talkin!! Only the judges get to talk.
• Once all of the photographs have been scored - the pictures that score 80 or above per category get shown again to the judges and they decide which ones place: First, Second, and Third for that category.
• The First Place Photographs from each category are shown again to the judges and they decide from that group which one is Best of Show
• After the judging - you get an opportunity to have your pictures critiqued by the judges so you can make them better if you would like to reenter them again

There are 12 Elements of Merit that the judges use to score the picture:

1. Impact
2. Creativity
3. Style
4. Composition
5. Presentation
6. Color Balance
7. Center of Interest
8. Lighting
9. Subject Matter
10. Print Quality
11. Technique
12. Story Telling

And the scoring is:

• 100-95 - Exceptional
• 94-90   - Superior
• 89-85- Excellent
• 84-80 - Very Good
• 79-76-Good
• 75-74- Average
• 73-70-Fair
• 68 - Unacceptable

The first photo of the night was one of mine - it took about 3 seconds for the judges to score it 75. I was a bit disappointed because I thought it was a great picture and I did not understand what faults they saw. I was like, man - that’s pretty low, I am so embarrassed. But you know, the majority of the prints scored between 73 and 79 - so I was average -which is great for me since this was my first time!

O.K, now for the exciting results! My entry entitled: First Light scored 81 (which is a merit) and won First Place in my category! It also was selected as second for Best of Show!  The judges loved it. The only problem they saw was that it needed to be cropped to cut out some of the foreground. 

First Light is a very special photograph of mine. It was taken at The Digital Landscape Workshop Series with Moose Peterson last October in Cape Cod. In fact, it was one of the very first pictures of the workshop that I took. It was also the fist time using Scott Kelby’s 7 Point System. I was editing this picture as Scott Kelby was giving our workshop a preview of the 7 point System - so I followed along using his points - and wella - I’ve got a competition print!

I’m gonna start off with the picture straight outta the camera: Notice the DLWS Van at  the back of the house and some kind of ladder truck to the left of the house - oh - and the camera to my right! There was about 50 photographers shooting this at the same time at about 6 a.m. on a cold morning!

Here is the picture again using Lightoom and the 7 point system for the raw conversion. I cropped the photo and enhanced the color:

From here I took the photo into PS CS3 and did some more of the 7 point system. I also  removed the trucks and the blocy patches in the sky. I also threw on Dfine for the sky and cropped the photo to fit the confines of the 10 x 8. Here is my First Place entry entitled: First Light:

 Here are the additional 5 pictures that I entered and their score. 

Portrait: You Lookin at Me? - 75 (Also taken at DLWS in Cape Cod - Chatham Beach) I love this photo.

Portrait: Light Keeper - 78

Commercial: Power to the People - 76

Portrait: Come on baby Light my Fire - 76

Portrait Social: Boys of Summer - 74

Here I am (second from left) with the rest of the winners of the evening!