Professional Photographers of Canada 2021 Image Competition
This time a year ago I had just returned from Woodstock, Ontario after two days of judging. Little did I know it would be the last time I would travel for a LONG time. It was such a great time being with my photographer friends in person. I'm so glad to have had that time together.
I've been part of the national and regional judging panels for the past few years so it has been a long time since I have entered myself. If you are a judge you cannot win any major awards so most judges don't tend to also enter images.
This year I decided to go for it! One of the challenges with being a judge is that I nitpick my images extremely harshly and have a hard time selecting which to enter. This is also a great thing as it forces me to really evaluate my imagery and keep improving and growing. PPOC members are permitted to enter up to 4 images in this annual competition. If you have your MPA you can enter one more image in the Masters category. Last year I did enter just one image in the masters which was accepted into the Image Salon (the group of all accepted and higher images). Typically the accepted rate is about 50%. Images are judged at a very high level.
Here is my submission from the worst score to the best. All images are scored by a panel of 5 judges as Unaccepted, Accepted, Merit, or Excellent and averaged out to calculate the final score. I happened to get the 'royal flush' with one of each score! I joked that there should be a bonus prize for this.
The first image is titled 'Rose Coloured Glasses' (all images MUST be titled which can also be a challenge) was entered into the Fashion category. It scored 'not accepted'. Although I had created it purposefully with the 'rose' tone, the judges said that the tonality, posing, and lighting were issues. Tally was 2 Accepted 3 Unaccepted. I'm not mad about it :) Oh this is my daughter and favourite model!
This image titled "Google Maps, Nature Edition" was Accepted. Final tally from the judging panel was 2 merits, 2 accepted, 1 non accepted. Very happy with that!
"Til Death do us Part' This image sparked quite a bit of conversation. If a judge feels passionately that an image should be scored higher or lower they can challenge to try to convince the other judges to change their scores. This is where it is so interesting to watch and listen to the process. It was streamed on Facebook live. First score was 1 Excellent, 2 Merits, 2 Accepted. This was followed with a challenge which changed the score to 2 Excellent, 2 Merit, 1 Accepted. SOOOO CLOSE to an Excellent! Still getting an image accepted at all is a big deal so I was thrilled.
Lastly, saving the best for last. A portrait of my sweet kitty Pippin. He is a fabulous poser isn't he? Titled "Ya got TREATS?" First scored 2 Excellent, 2 Merit, 1 Accepted with a final score of Merit. After a challenge discussing the strengths including technical handling, lighting, sharpness, pose and such it was rescored with 4 Excellent and 1 Merit which gave me the ultimate score of Excellent. I watched this judging on the edge of my seat and may have screamed a little!
Entering image competition takes a lot of work and courage. Selecting your perceived best 4 images and putting them out to be scrutinized by your peers is nerve wracking but also rewarding. It is one of the best ways I have found to improve my work!
I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit about my experience with this years image competition!
Thanks for reading!
0 Comments