THE ROLE OF A JUDGE

Judging of artistic endeavors is an exercise fraught with subjectivity. Every participant in a camera club competition needs to be continually reminded of this, Neenan’s “Immutable First Law of Judging”.

Why? Because. Our very personal efforts are assessed for worthiness and then compared to our peers’ works by someone who does not know us; who does not know our feelings, thoughts,

and especially the amount of work that went into the images they are judging.

Based on the Immutable First Law of Judging, all judges should be required to have the following technical and artistic capabilities:

• An excellent grasp of the mechanics of photography as well as the subtleties of composition and message. • For printed images, a knowledge of printing technologies, paper qualities and types, mats, backing boards, and mounting.
• Fairness; the capacity to suppress her/his personal biases in art and photography.
• The ability to effectively and succinctly communicate concepts and assessments.
• Compassion totally absent of any real or perceived condescension when making critical
comments.
• The ability to recognize subtle nuances in images and communicate those nuances as a
positive or a negative.
• A resilience to bullying by camera club hierarchy when asked to judge to specific parameters,
(i.e., macro vs. not really macro).
• A knack for injecting appropriate humor into tense judging scenarios (i.e., final selection
process for the “keepers”).