Print Competitions and procedures - opinion requested

[Roy Sletcher]

Looking for some information, and I will try to be succinct.

I love printing, and as the print competitions at my club have been in decline for some time, I foolishly volunteered as Print Chair at the beginning of this year. Two controversies have arisen, and I need some input from disinterested parties. References on print competition procedures seem hard to come by, and any references I could consult would be appreciated.

Controversy #1 - Where possible we use three judges, and have a policy that if the point spread exceeds two points the judges are allowed to converse, and then re-score the image and that figure stands. Questions - is there any literature or accepted best practice on this ruling? I am getting a lot of controversial comments about its implementation.

Controversy #2 - Should the judges be allowed to preview the images before the scoring starts?  Judges make the argument it allows them to internally calibrate high and low levels and score more accurately. Some entrants argue it is unfair.

Any guidance, even anecdotal, would be appreciated.


Roy Sletcher

[Redcrown]

My camera club went through a few variations of the print competition over 20+ years before the quantity of prints entered dropped so low that I quit going. The digital competition is still going strong, but I have no interest in that as I can view thousands of high-quality digital images any time, anywhere.

For a long time, our print competition was as follows:

Prints were displayed 1 at a time in a light box. Three judges sitting 6 to 8 feet in front of the light box, audience behind. Judges gave each print 3 scores, on a range of 1 to 5, for technical, composition, and interest. One judge would give comments. Scores were tallied and a tie-breaker round followed. There was always a tie-breaker because of the limited 1 to 5 scale. Most judges were incapable of making coherent comments (fear of public speaking). No discussion between judges, no change to preview all prints before judging. 90% of the scores were a 4 or 5. A print had to be complete garbage to get a 3. Never saw a 1 or 2.

This method was a mess, and I hated it. I lobbied for years to change it. It was slow, boring, and controversial. Finally, my suggestion was tried. All prints were first put on display. Audience and judges could wander the room for about 1/2 hour. Judges turned in their scores, but using a 1 to 10 scale. Scores were tabulated and winners announced. The 1 to 10 scale drastically reduced ties. And then ties were ignored. If 2 prints tied for 1st place, they both got a blue ribbon.

So, judges could see all prints before voting if they wanted. And judges were free to talk to each other if they wanted, but that rarely happened. A couple regular judges were close friends, so they walked about together, arguing. They were our best and most respected judges.

Unfortunately, this experiment started as the decline in prints and shift to digital happened. The last meeting I went to there were only 3 prints entered in the "master" category, and 2 of them were mine.

I've never seen a competition were judges did a re-vote when initial votes varied too much. Olympics, dog shows, talent shows, boxing, etc. I think that would be a bad idea. I'm familiar with dog shows and horse shows, and those judges get to wander about and see all the animals they want before the voting. As a judge, I like that freedom, and I think it gives better results. Of course, most animal contests have only 1 judge.

[Roy Sletcher]

My camera club went through a few variations of the print competition over 20+ years before the quantity of prints entered dropped so low that I quit going. The digital competition is still going strong, but I have no interest in that as I can view thousands of high-quality digital images any time, anywhere.

For a long time, our print competition was as follows:

Prints were displayed 1 at a time in a light box. Three judges sitting 6 to 8 feet in front of the light box, audience behind. Judges gave each print 3 scores, on a range of 1 to 5, for technical, composition, and interest. One judge would give comments. Scores were tallied and a tie-breaker round followed. There was always a tie-breaker because of the limited 1 to 5 scale. Most judges were incapable of making coherent comments (fear of public speaking). No discussion between judges, no change to preview all prints before judging. 90% of the scores were a 4 or 5. A print had to be complete garbage to get a 3. Never saw a 1 or 2.

This method was a mess, and I hated it. I lobbied for years to change it. It was slow, boring, and controversial. Finally, my suggestion was tried. All prints were first put on display. Audience and judges could wander the room for about 1/2 hour. Judges turned in their scores, but using a 1 to 10 scale. Scores were tabulated and winners announced. The 1 to 10 scale drastically reduced ties. And then ties were ignored. If 2 prints tied for 1st place, they both got a blue ribbon.

So, judges could see all prints before voting if they wanted. And judges were free to talk to each other if they wanted, but that rarely happened. A couple regular judges were close friends, so they walked about together, arguing. They were our best and most respected judges.

Unfortunately, this experiment started as the decline in prints and shift to digital happened. The last meeting I went to there were only 3 prints entered in the "master" category, and 2 of them were mine.

I've never seen a competition were judges did a re-vote when initial votes varied too much. Olympics, dog shows, talent shows, boxing, etc. I think that would be a bad idea. I'm familiar with dog shows and horse shows, and those judges get to wander about and see all the animals they want before the voting. As a judge, I like that freedom, and I think it gives better results. Of course, most animal contests have only 1 judge.

Thanks for your comments. Most enlightening. Three days ago, we held our first print competition in nearly a year. In my judgment, it was successful. With 64 entries from 19 entrants.

Because of Covid social spacing requirements, we used 2 judges using a scale 1 to 10 and all ran smoothly. Our system is to judge a few days before presenting the results to the club, when the judges return to give a critique. Easier to administer, but it is clear the judges are critiquing more from memory than the actual prints. Also, it tends to encourage the judge to be rather timid with the critique and overly praise the images rather than explain the facts why a particular image scored low.

Your comments were very helpful as this is my first gig running a club competition. I am amazed at the pettiness some members suddenly display when competing.

-Roy Sletcher-

[langier]

I've had my work judged, juried and have been both a judge and juror in professional, amateur, club shows and judgings for many decades, one time having to find a judge for a local show that I had entered since I could not/would not judge my own work as the judge didn't show at the last minute due to food poisoning and I managed to save the day for the show. I judged the amateur and a friend judged the professional so things were objectively covered. BTW, I didn't do well overall with my friend as a judged ;-), but we both agreed on the best of show picks each of us did. It was a tag-team affair!

Each competition has been unique and each has had different criteria for entry, judging, points & scores.

My preference is to look at the show as a whole before getting down to the actual judging. I want to see the range of work and the overall quality as I will judge according to the overall quality. If I were simply to judge print-by-print without seeing the overall work, my opinion of the work may be too harsh for the body overall or I may find that the quality is quite good and then have problems later when choosing some of the winners.

As I always preface my judging is that this is my opinion based upon my experience and possible daily demeanor. Maybe I had a bad day and now taking it out or maybe things are rosy and I'm generous on the awards of the day, but with someone else taking a look, things may be different.

I've judged both closed and open and I prefer the later as I can make constructive comments to the audience to improve their viewing and crafting skills and ask questions about the work if the creator is present if there is something of doubt or of interest.

In my opinion, one-size-fits-all judging is not a good plan. I do have some standards as to good craft and presentation that usually weed out the weaker pieces but other than that, I can give some slack or set a higher bar once I have a chance to take a look at the overall work.

[Roy Sletcher]

Thanks Larry,

Very inciteful and valuable to me. Especially your flexible approach. In my, admittedly unscientific, evaluation I have found judges with your approach admitting a judge's evaluation can be somewhat flexible is better received at the amateur level of printmakers where I participate.

I appreciate your comments, which give me a better perspective for dealing with judges.

Roy Sletcher

[Alan Klein]

In our photo competition for electronic display, our club picks one judge.  They like to quickly go through the entire batch first to get an idea of the range of quality.  Otherwise, they might overrate or underrate the earlier photos they judge.  Or they might score it in the middle only to realize later that it was the best. 

We also divide our photos into two groups: Advanced and Beginner (we're a 55+ community).  The judge scores accordingly for each group which has similar rewards of win, place, show for each group.