This was the fourth round and the final one of the season. This round had “Open” for the first theme and “Portrait” for the second.
Participants have to submit images that have a roughly defined “genre” as part of the nominated “theme” with the added condition that each submitted image must have a different “genre”.
The two print divisions are now combined into just one for judging.
Grabbing lunch
While I waited for silhouetted people to walk across the bridge above us I noticed a bench with a row of people eating…
I selected “Street” as the genre . . .
Summary of judge’s comments
… [] I think that had I been looking at this before the interval, I would have said yes I can see personality there, I can see an interesting face, I can see is grabbing lunch,
… I think that she has just spotted that she is being photographed, that you have caught her really well, background nicely out of focus, but giving some information about her environment,
… the bag is not very exciting , but it is there []
… I actually think that this is a pretty good portrait, and the monochrome conversion has been well handled
… and probably in this case one of the reasons is that there might have been bright colours in the background
…
Its the hat
The Colour Walk at Old Spitalfields Market is a wonderful opportunity to practise portraiture.
I selected “Portrait” as the genre.
Summary of judge’s comments
… it is quite an interesting hat, here we do have some personality coming across,
… the woman looks pretty happy with life, quite a smile coming across, she looks as though she is wearing what she is wearing, so I think it scores reasonably high on personality
… it is interesting that the photographer has chosen a very wide aperture [] , look at how out of focus that necklace is, , theyes are crucially sharp but it is already going out by the time you get to her ear, , it is a perfectly valid artistic choice []and concentrate our attention on the face as the photographer has done which is the important thing
… the one reservation that I have about this is that she doesn’t look comfortable , she looks happy but it looks like it is rather an artificial position she has adopted
… maybe that is being a little bit cruel but I do think that it is effective portrait , I just wonder if she is leaning just a little too much for it to be a natural frame
…
The scores
There were 16 images in the open theme and 15 in the portrait theme of this Print Trophy round. “Grabbing lunch” scored 8.5 and “Its the hat” scored 8.5.
The Original Images
Its the hat
Grabbing lunch
