SANP Club Meeting

How Judges View Images in a Contest

Tuesday June 27, 2023

7:00 pm

Questions arise before and after every Salon on how the judges consider each image or print. Our June meeting will answer many of those questions. This will be a presentation that should answer all your questions about issues such as composition, cropping, and what makes an image Best of Show.  While this presentation will focus on how judges reach their decision on Salon images, it will also help you in developing your images for posting on social media or printing. 

The panel of judges will be looking at images the same way they do in judging a salon. Their first exposure to the images will be the night of the presentation.  Their comments will be very candid, which should help everyone understand how judges view image.

Every year when a Salon is judged, there are usually critical comments about the judging. Sometimes those comments are deserved as one judge’s decision may skew the outcome regarding an image.  Judges are human and come into any contest they are judging by their biases and their experience. Sometimes that results in a judge skewing a contest without any intention to skew it. Sometimes it results in the judge picking the same photographer as the winning photographer, not because they know that photographer but because the presentation by that photographer stands out. 

The panel for our June presentation is Kendall Chiles, Ron McConathy, and Jerry Whaley.  All three of these gentlemen have years of experience in nature photography in addition to judging various contests in East Tennessee. They served as the judges for the recent print salon for SANP. It was one of the few times that we have used members of SANP to be the entire panel for judging a Salon. Their first experience seeing the prints in the Salon was the morning they were judging as the images were presented. Their judging of the print Salon was one of the best as we had some of the best images overall, but there was no grumbling about the results compared to some of the previous digital and print Salons.

They have all agreed to give you a chance to understand how they think as a judge.  You will discover that while they may have similar scores about an image, that they are very independent in how they reach their decisions and factors they consider appropriate in scoring. Having helped with several Salons and seem several judges judging the Salons over the years, if these gentlemen judged every salon, you would fine that they are consistent and do an excellent job in how they view and score the images presented. 

If you are entering images in any contest whether online, at another photographer club, a county fair or state fair, or the SANP Salons, this is a must attend event for you, as you will get to ask all those questions you have wanted to and did not have the chance to. You will find that the information they share with you will be very valuable. 

If you have an image you want to see how they will evaluate it, you can email it to me at dalepotter55@gmail.com.  The image needs to be the size as described in the digital salon in jpg format. Your image may or may not be used, as there is a limit as to how many they will be able to view and comment on.

See you at our June meeting.