Skjermo School,
Divide County, North Dakota
I congratulated a co-worker on his recent success in being recognized for winning a prize at his photo club gathering. Then I asked if the event allowed only one image per photographer. He said that was the case. I understand the multitude of issues when there are many photographers to be evaluated. There has to be a limit to the number of images that can be reviewed at any one time before the juror (s) goes bonkers with image overload. The problem I see is that by submitting only one image, we do a disservice to photographers by training them to focus on making just a single image. I’ve stated before in this blog that good photographs don’t show up by themselves. They show up with friends, as part of a group of photographs of a single subject. Groups of photographs are the reflection of the concentrated effort of the photographer to fully explore a situation, a location or their feelings.
While not even close to a perfect analogy, I liken having a single photograph judged to having a writing contest where the contestants are evaluated on a single word. One needs more than a single word to evaluate an artist’s contribution just as one needs more than one photograph to evaluate a photographer’s vision.
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