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Author Topic: Alain Briot's two recent essays …...  (Read 2163 times)

Krug

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Alain Briot's two recent essays …...
« on: October 21, 2014, 11:27:44 am »


…….. should be compulsory reading in every Camera Cub there is.

Only joking in that I abhor compulsion - but wouldn't it be good if that were to happen voluntarily ?

The whole concept of judging art to fractions of a point is both ridiculous but also intensely discouraging to many neophytes trying to find their feet … and often misleading because of the poor quality of a process which so often does not respect the sort of principles outlined in the first essay. I think that the thing that I say most often to younger photographers who have been confused about judging is not to be over concerned because changing just one judge from a panel would generally produce significantly different "results" .

Like Alain Briot a lot of us have won awards only to be puzzled, or worse, on later refection. Critiques by experienced and respected people are what we can learn from rather than competitions - especially those, which I hear about not infrequently, where the 'judges' refuse to enter any discussion, individual or general, about their decisions.

Two excellent essays, methinks, that deserve widespread consideration - thank you Alain Briot and Lula for them.
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NancyP

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Re: Alain Briot's two recent essays …...
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2014, 04:12:54 pm »

I find the sort of judging at one of the local camera clubs rather useless. The judge plays through a slideshow of about 20 to 40 entries, throws out about half without comment, plays through the winnowed slides, throws out half of those, usually with minimal comment, and then goes through the 5 to 10 surviving slides and ranks 1, 2, 3, with one or two comments a slide, if one is lucky. I found this most uninformative. I did like looking at the images, but after 90 minutes and 60 to 90 entries, it all gets tiresome. The camera club (Missouri Nature and Environmental Photographers - MONEP) that I participate in does not have competitions. Members just show images of their choice, and something about the subject or the technique involved. This doesn't provide much useful critique, but it does provide some information, often of the sort "if you want to photograph x insect, look for it on y bush" useful tips.
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LesPalenik

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Re: Alain Briot's two recent essays …...
« Reply #2 on: October 22, 2014, 02:14:34 am »

At the last meeting of my local camera club, over 350 submitted images in two categories were presented with comments and scores.
They need two sets of judges (3 judges in each group) and half night to go through all the images. There are 6 competitions each year.
It takes a special kind of person to do the judging.
 
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NancyP

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Re: Alain Briot's two recent essays …...
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2014, 11:00:39 am »

Are the comments interesting and useful?
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LesPalenik

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Re: Alain Briot's two recent essays …...
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2014, 11:54:34 am »

Some of the comments may be useful for beginners. Others are useless or plain stupid, i.e. :
I don't like this genre, foreground is out of focus, great idea, interesting concept, nice colors, colors good, more or less foreground would help, like composition, like diagonal, nicely handled, try it again, person in center good, remove jet trails (in the sky), more dynamic image would score higher, etc.

But on the other hand, these people put in a lot of their free time, and they do it for free. And sometimes it makes for good entertainment.
   
 
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stamper

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Re: Alain Briot's two recent essays …...
« Reply #5 on: October 23, 2014, 04:30:26 am »

The ones who judge need to be thick skinned. I was in a club for six years and got a good insight to the ins and outs of judging though I would never attempt it myself in a million years. The essay was very insightful imo and was a good take on the problems. As pointed out a lot depends on the audience and the quality of the submissions. One judge commented that the previous evening he had forty portrait images to comment on and had quickly run out of words. It is possible to win a competition with an entry and in another competition come nearly last. The main problem is that the entries are judged in relation to each other and a "poor" submission could end up a winner. At the end of the day it is a useful way of learning about photography and the pitfalls to avoid.

Jim Pascoe

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Re: Alain Briot's two recent essays …...
« Reply #6 on: October 23, 2014, 05:19:47 am »

Camera Clubs are a great place for people to get together, socialise and share their work.  And like all clubs they attract all kinds of people.  Many just want to learn to be better photographers, but many get sucked into the competition side of things and that becomes their main interest.  So much so that their whole way of appreciating pictures becomes skewed to what a 'judge' might like.

I became a camera club 'judge' about two years ago because I was disillusioned with many of the judges we had visit our club.  Some were very good, but many were well past their sell-by date and made pointless and cliched comments.  At the time I decided I would have a go and see if I liked it.  Our local federation ran a judging workshop which gave us a framework for appraising pictures and common mistakes to avoid when discussing peoples submissions.

The comments a judge can make can really help beginners to understand the process of producing good pictures - the problem being that as a 'judge' I only have perhaps 60-90 seconds on each picture in which to evaluate it.  In the end I will give my feelings about each picture, give helpful advice if I can see it's probably from a beginner, and then unfortunately usually have to give a score out of ten.  I think scoring for club photography is pointless, especially as it is deemed counter-productive to mark lower than about six, with many judges rarely going lower than seven.  The appreciation of an image is so subjective that giving marks in my opinion helps nobody.

Our club experimented with not having scores for a season, but then reverted because many members felt their pictures were not valued without a score!

The reason I put the word 'judge' in quotes several times is that I hate the word as applied to this sort of thing.  I'm appraising pictures and giving my opinion.  Judgement smacks of absolutes with rights and wrongs.

Finally - I now really enjoy the process.  Being put on the spot and having to appraise a picture in such a short time really focusses the mind!

Jim
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David Watson

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Re: Alain Briot's two recent essays …...
« Reply #7 on: November 14, 2014, 02:05:39 pm »

Camera Clubs are a great place for people to get together, socialise and share their work.  And like all clubs they attract all kinds of people.  Many just want to learn to be better photographers, but many get sucked into the competition side of things and that becomes their main interest.  So much so that their whole way of appreciating pictures becomes skewed to what a 'judge' might like.

I became a camera club 'judge' about two years ago because I was disillusioned with many of the judges we had visit our club.  Some were very good, but many were well past their sell-by date and made pointless and cliched comments.  At the time I decided I would have a go and see if I liked it.  Our local federation ran a judging workshop which gave us a framework for appraising pictures and common mistakes to avoid when discussing peoples submissions.

The comments a judge can make can really help beginners to understand the process of producing good pictures - the problem being that as a 'judge' I only have perhaps 60-90 seconds on each picture in which to evaluate it.  In the end I will give my feelings about each picture, give helpful advice if I can see it's probably from a beginner, and then unfortunately usually have to give a score out of ten.  I think scoring for club photography is pointless, especially as it is deemed counter-productive to mark lower than about six, with many judges rarely going lower than seven.  The appreciation of an image is so subjective that giving marks in my opinion helps nobody.

Our club experimented with not having scores for a season, but then reverted because many members felt their pictures were not valued without a score!

The reason I put the word 'judge' in quotes several times is that I hate the word as applied to this sort of thing.  I'm appraising pictures and giving my opinion.  Judgement smacks of absolutes with rights and wrongs.

Finally - I now really enjoy the process.  Being put on the spot and having to appraise a picture in such a short time really focusses the mind!

Jim

Well I liked and appreciated this article.  I also completely agree that art is not something that can be "scored".  Just take the very recent NYC contemporary art auction as an example of extreme "scoring".

I agree that an evaluation of the craft skills inherent in a photograph is a useful exercise particularly for novices but scoring the "artistic" content is a nonsense.

Well done Alain!
« Last Edit: November 16, 2014, 04:50:58 pm by David Watson »
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Alain Briot's two recent essays …...
« Reply #8 on: November 14, 2014, 02:54:25 pm »

Yawn.

It's subjective. Enough said.

The process of judging is not the time for "helpful" comments. You want to learn? Pay for one-on-one tutoring or find a bored soul to do it for free. Those who expect an "absolute, objective" measure of their work from competitions should seek help of a different kind of professional. It is not competitions' or judges' fault that people have false expectations.

We compete, score and get scored from the dawn of the mankind. You walk down the street, you get scored. You go to a job interview, you get scored. You come to work in the morning, you get scored. Quickly, within seconds. Fair? Probably not. Get used to it and get over it. Get better and you'll eventually get scored higher. Quit whining.

NancyP

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Re: Alain Briot's two recent essays …...
« Reply #9 on: November 14, 2014, 03:16:54 pm »

Gee, tell us how you really feel, Slobodan....  :)

In some ways, small group work might be a good way for similar-level amateurs to learn from each other. Writers often get together in groups of 4 to 8 and read and discuss each others' works. Part of the benefit is just getting an audience and seeing whether or not you have succeeded in conveying what you thought you were trying to say. Some of the reactions might be very useful, other reactions might be full of it, you participate and later sort out useful from not so useful pointers and comments. You see other peoples' mistakes and learn from the observation, as well as having your own mistakes pointed out to you. If you pick something to show to the group, you have to think about why you picked it, what questions you might have for the group, and so forth.  Monthly print review, followed by the group's favorite ethanol-containing refreshments and snacks? Make mine stout.  ;)

Yes, it is great to learn from experts, and well worth the money, but one does benefit from other methods of learning as well. And if one can't manage to learn some things on one's own, well... time to do some other activity.
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