Watching this year’s POYi judging, I was reminded of how subjective photography can be. What I thought was a surefire “in” was “out” and vice versa. Sometimes, I actually got mad when I saw a good image get voted out. I saw some images I’d never seen before (different, unique) and then, all of the sudden, they were gone. But maybe the judges had seen them before. Maybe they were looking for something else this year. I had to remind myself that it was only my opinion.
A couple of years ago I judged CPOY, and when you judge you bring your experiences, your biases, and every image you’ve ever seen before. That’s a lot of competition.
So when viewing this year’s contest, it was only how I saw these images. Maybe we all need to remember this around contest time.
