John, you won the contest, for goodness sake <g>, and I would have
expected more pride in your own work than your note in response to
Jeff exhibits. Myself, I am hardly qualified to even load film, but my
reaction to this year's winners was . . . HOLY WABASH CANNONBALL! My
only criticism of the judging was that the photo from China was
dynamite and should have won. But then, someone out there would have
awarded the five stars to any of those, and that's an important point
I want to make. I judge magazine contests all the time--writing, in
this instance, but no matter. What I observe is that there is no piece
of s--- entered that some nitwit screener or judge won't champion, nor
no piece of brilliant reporting and writing that one or more judges
won't trash. I was perfectly happy with the results this year. I
admired all the winners, and oohed and aahed at most of them. So
there.
Fred Frailey
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Subject: Re: SPORRS: TRAINS Photo Contest
Author: MIME:[EMAIL PROTECTED] at INTERNET
Date: 3/4/98 10:06 AM
In response to Jeff Schultz' comments about the TRAINS photo contest I like
to offer my point of view; not in defense of TRAINS or to criticize Jeff.
I think that there are probably only half a dozen folks at TRAINS who do
the judging. I might be off by plus or minus a body. In the past, they
have projected every entry on the first pass, saving the "oooohs and ahhhs"
for another go round. I'm not sure how long this process lasts before
they are down to the finalists. Then, the real judging begins with
arguments for and against each entry. Finally, you (we) see the results..
This is somewhat time-consuming for a group of people who have other tasks
to perform on jobs that require deadlines. My point here is that maybe
they can't spend as much time judging all the good material that they would
like to. Another, and very important point is that each of the judges like
particular types of shots and/or subjects. So, the basis for selection is
highly subjective with a very small population doing the selecting. (Dave
Cohen knows all about that!) Imagine if TRAINS published their selections
of finalists and asked readers to do the final voting. Only a small
percentage of readers would probably bother, but I'd be willing to bet that
the results would be different just because there is a larger population of
subjective voters. And when all is said and done, there would still be
many with views that the wrong photo won, or all entries were weak,
or.....and the list goes on.
JCL
-> SPORRS: 'Serious Photographers Of Railroad Related Subjects'
-> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/
-> Message R 1998 SPORRS« - All Rights Reserved
-> SPORRS: 'Serious Photographers Of Railroad Related Subjects'
-> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/
-> Message © 1998 SPORRS® - All Rights Reserved
