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| Judged at the Fort Smith, Arkansas Southwest Times Record |
| Judges: Carrol Copeland, Photo Editor; Kaia Larsen, Photographer; Corey Krasko, Photographer; Joel Rafkin, Photographer |
General comments |
| Cropping could have helped several photos, too much wasted space.
Several photos suffered from either bad exposure or bad printing. We know
reproduction in a lot of papers is not that great, but prints should be.
Some photos looked like not much thought went into the process before the
shutter was snapped. All in all, some really outstanding work. |
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News |
| General news had some interesting photos. |
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Sports |
| The best category was by far and away sports. There were some really great
photos that were not chosen simply because there were not more places. Not
only great action, like the football player flying over the goal line, but
emotional photos of players reacting to events. |
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Feature Single |
| Features was a good category also. A lot of good angles, not just
"snapshots". Some thought had to go into these photos. |
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Picture Story |
| The weakest category was multiple [picture story]. The biggest criticism was too many photos
submitted. They possibly have more room for photos than a lot of newspapers,
but we all felt it would be better to go with 4 or 5 really good photos
instead of a few good ones and several not so good ones. |
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| Judged at the Evansville Courier & Press, Evansville, Indiana |
| Judges: Cecelia Hanley, picture editor; Bob Gwaltney, photographer; Justin Rumbach, photographer; Denny Simmons, photographer (judging chair); Vincent Pugliese, photographer |
General comments |
First off, we thank you for the chance to look at and judge your pictures. Overall, we were impressed by the level of work we saw. I think the winners (and losers) will learn something from this quarter's contest. The biggest thing we noticed while judging was the absence of content in many of the images. Some of you have amazing eyes and see light extremely well. Unfortunately, we judged this contest from a photojournalism perspective, so many of these pictures that would look great hanging on your wall didn't make the cut. The winners were images that not only had content, but also good use of light, moments, graphics, composition and color (or absence of color). Photojournalism is more than just making pretty pictures... it's communicating through pictures. Hopefully, as you and I continue to grow as photojournalists, we'll learn to incorporate all of these elements together to make some truly great images.
Oh, and one other thing. As journalists we need to be precise with our reporting. Both visually AND with the written word. Some of the captions we read had misspellings and even had incorrect information. You have got to double-check your writing and then check it again. Many times photojournalists (even us old folks) tend to think only of the picture and write our captions as an after-thought. We really enjoyed those captions that included quotes to reinforce the images. A good caption won't help a mediocre picture win a contest, but a bad caption can definitely hurt a picture's chances. |
News |
| 1st place, simply put, kicks butt. Literally. Besides great action, composition, moment, etc., etc., you can look around the picture and pick up little extra surprises
(like the guy's bent glasses in the right-hand corner). Great picture. Great job. 2nd and 3rd places are both fire pictures, both have very different feels to them,
but both work well. 2nd place got the edge because of the drama the firefighters' faces created. The photographer got in close and used the natural light extremely well.
The picture is also layered nicely. 3rd place, although not as layered, is successful for it's pictorial quality. This image is fun to look at with it's flying, trailing
embers. The ladder leading from the light to the dark creates an ominous feel as well. |
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Sports |
| 1st place came out ahead of the second place picture due to the emotional response the picture created. Both were great pictures, but it just goes to show you
how emotion, whether angry, sad, befuddled, etc., can create a connection with the viewer, and hopefully a feeling. The subject's dad, although a sweet gesture, can't
take away the hurt of losing a big game. We thought this was conveyed well by the photographer. 2nd place was a nice action shot. The use of a wide angle, the perfect
composition of the players all around the frame really added to the great action. 3rd place stood out because of the out-of-the-ordinary posture of the guy going for
the loose ball. It was also lit well (whether it was strobed or just a super bright gym). Some of the judges were taken by the Denver player's eyes on the ball. |
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Feature Single |
| This was a tough category to come to a top three. There were 10 or so images that fought it out until the bitter end. First place was another one of those pictures
that had a great moment. It was a clean, well-lit slice-of-life picture. 2nd place was a picture that had lots of great lines, textures and, thankfully, a human element.
This was a picture that kept growing on us and made the jump from no-place to 2nd place when we were really getting down to the nitty-gritty. 3rd place was one of those
bizarre situations photographers can only dream about finding themselves in the middle of. Although the hunters' faces are obscured, the novelty of flinging of goose decoys,
not to mention the wide-open feel of the picture, earned the picture 3rd place. |
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Picture Story |
| 1st place was a pretty nice story of a young woman's struggle with an unplanned pregnancy. There are some nice moments and light is used well, too. Looks like an
ongoing story (hint, hint). 2nd place had a nice variety of images and the photographer obviously spent some time working on the story. The one thing that hurt it for us
was a few too many pictures and, in our opinion, the wrong pictures used as dominants. 3rd place was really a different way to tell a story. The pictures were all strong,
but perhaps redundant? We all loved the opening image and it probably would have given the news category winners a run for their money if it had been entered there. We
thought the picture that would have really helped this group of pictures would have been something to give us a sense of place. I don't always advocate the use of overall,
establishing shots, but in this case I think it would be helpful. |
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| Judged at the San Antonio Express-News |
| Judges: Anita Baca, Photo Editor; Bahram Mark Sobhani, Staff Photographer |
News |
| First place was a good and timely response to spot news. The distraught women on the side really made this image a better than average house fire photo.
Despite the technical problems, we thought second place had intimacy going for it with the grimace of the homeless man with a toothache.
One judge also appreciated the off-center composition. We struggled with 3rd place. However we appreciated the rebellious spirit in the shirtless
graduate. Kudos to Melanie Blanding for her awesome cutline writing. It shows that she spends time talking to the people she photographs. |
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Sports |
| There were many quiet moments in this category that had more of a feature feel but we went for the high impact action. First place had all the elements that make a classic baseball picture; face, collision, dust, the ball and it's sharp. Nice job! We liked the moment captured by the second place winner but wondered if the picture would have benefited from a crop on the left to intensify the pileup.
Third place was just another really nice moment of a play at the plate. |
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Feature Single |
| WOW Threepeat. Yes, we were just as surprised when we turned the photos over to identify the owner. Each image is unique in content and style so we never anticipated that any were made by the same photographer.
All images are nice slices of life. |
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Picture Story |
| We were really disappointed in this category. Only three entries. Two did not even come close to meeting our standards.
The church feature was a nice try but we felt that it did not warrant a place.
The feature in Vatican City really needed some editing as well as attention to detail in the preparation of the entry.
But mostly the Vatican entry needed a focus and purpose. Just being in Vatican City does not a photo essay make.
The essay on the trolley car looks as if it has potential but the photographer needs to work on developing the story beyond the surface. |
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| Judged at the Journal Times |
| Judges: Mark Hertzbert, Director of Photography; Scott Anderson and Gregory Shaver, Staff Photographers; Charles S. Vallone, Assistant Photo Editor (ret.) |
General comments |
| There was some impressive entries, some of which were more impressive than the entries in some state contests we have judged. We also compliment some of the caption writing, which was outstanding. That is an important, and overlooked, part of photojournalism. Some prints were exquisite, but we tried to imagine everything on newsprint, to put it on an equal plane. |
News |
- Good reaction by the photographer, but the photo could have been cropped a bit tighter
- We wrestled whether some of the photos from Africa were feature photos or news photos (the category they were entered in). We felt this not only was a strong photo - well composed and lit - but it has a news peg in the caption.
- A moment like this is more compelling than another photo of bent metal
- The photographer nailed the moment with the glee of one graduate among, presumably, several hundred.
- What a sad, haunting portrait...
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Sports |
- Action, nice backlighting, an unexpected moment, and a very complete caption = First Place
- The faces make the photo. It is well cropped, as well.
- Nice eye, nice photo, but we bet it would have neither run nor reproduced well in most newspapers.
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Feature Single |
- This was a difficult assignment to conceptualize, and was well done.
- A strong standalone feature photo, with complete caption information.
- A hilarious moment, caught by an alert photographer
- These are tough shots to make.
- The high angle and lighting are effective
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Picture Story |
- This is a complex and difficult topic to tackle. The photographer gained the trust of her subjects, and gives her readers a variety of haunting photos to look at.
- How does one judge two strong sets of pictures from horrific situations half a world away? The rape story got the nod because it told more of a story about a single aspect of the peoples' lives.
- There were some good pictures, but there was some repetition, as well. We were looking for a photo of someone who trains with Dell in a competitive match. Where did those trophies on the wall (last photo) come from?
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