I spent yesterday afternoon in a room with 13 others judging the Bird Photographer of the Year entries.
Our wise decisions will be partly revealed at the end of this month and then fully revealed at the Bird Fair.
I felt a bit of a fraud being on the panel as a ‘I don’t know much about photography but I know what I like’ type of person but it was fascinating people-watching, and learning and enjoying a feast of great images across many different categories. And the banter was quite witty and we went to the pub afterwards.
Some images were liked or disliked by almost all of us but others divided the panel – that is, of course, natural but it was interesting to be a part of it. Some of my favourite images did very well but others, equally liked by me, bombed with the other judges.
There were some real differences in approach between those who knew more about photography than birds and those whose expertise was skewed the other way around.
And to give one’s eyes a rest one could look out of the window of the 17th floor of the News Building by The Shard and look out over the Thames and London.
I wonder what you’ll all think of our choices.
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Are we referring to Birdguides PICTURE OF THE YEAR, if so why is th he final result not being done until Birdsall? Traditionally it’s early January
Douglas – no, different thing. Follow the link.
Somehow I missed the link lol
Douglas – never mind! Happy New Year!
As someone who has some pretensions to be a photographer let me assure Mark that having someone on a panel of judges who isn’t a photographer, but who knows a lot about birds, is a good thing. As long as there are other experienced photographers on the panel, it is good to have a few outsiders so to speak as well, for balance.
Photographs are meant for general audiences, and not just photographers. Photographers, or more serious ones tend to be very analytical about what makes a good photograph. They tend to be perfectionists, and hypercritical. So they’ll want everything absolutely perfect, focus perfect on the eye, perfect composition the highest image quality in the circumstances etc. Whereas to the chagrin of photographers, often the general viewer prefers their less than perfect photographs. To a photographer this can be a bit uncomfortable. To them the faults stand out like a sore thumb, and you are often embarrassed you didn’t get it a bit better.
I dare say whoever picked this panel of judges was well aware of this, and it is why it is best that panels of judges contain a few none photographers to produce some balance. After all as quality photographs are meant for general audiences, you do need some representatives of this general audience to judge photos on the general audience, and not specialist photographer criteria.
Having said all this, in reality it is a bit arbitrary to judge one photo as better than the other in a pool of outstanding photographs. Rather them than me making this decision.
SteB1 – thank you again for this comment. I think you are probably right.