Lest Ye Be Judged

Judging photographs in the Poynter NewsU course revealed a startling fact – I have no clue how to judge photos.

I got every single dang one of them wrong.

This is sad for many reasons but the most important one is that I’m not able to best explain what a good photo is to my students or help them choose the best one for publication.

I have limped by for a couple of years just picking what I thought looked best without critically analyzing the photo’s components. I wasn’t taking into consideration preparation to get the photo, composition or lighting. All things the judges on the NewsU course explained actually make the photo.

Once I looked through their choices and kept their criteria in the back of my head, everything started to click. It’s still difficult but now with concrete reasoning I could rationalize their choices.

Perhaps outside the scope of this assignment but this triggered by desire to step up my photo game. Our state has a great photography group called the Association of Texas Photography Instructors (ATPI) that hosts all kinds of workshops and contests and I’ve not taken advantage of them like I should.

Even with this little bit of new judging knowledge, the key will be to continue practicing to fine tune a really squirrely art form.

Kelly Juntunen

Allen High School

Allen, Texas