Once you’ve submitted your best work as professionally as possible, you’ve done your part. Don’t worry so much about whether you win or lose.
Judging can be highly subjective. All judges view photographs through the prism of their own photographic experience, expertise and preferences.
For example, at a recent event two judges voiced passionate opinions about an image of a woman bathed in green light.
The first judge said the green light enhanced the picture.
The second judge said the light made the subject look as if she were very sick with a tropical disease.
At another competition, an image showing a large black space with a shadowy person in one corner of the print was presented. Most of the judges dismissed the image as a poorly constructed picture. But one judge liked it.
The judge, whose background was not as a photojournalist, declared: “This is the perfect editorial image — it has a lot of space so you can put text all over it.”
