I hate this part of a photography competition campaign - the cull. Yesterday I shortlisted about 80 photographs from the last year or so (I try to cut off each year at competition time and then start a fresh batch, there is a little overlap but not too much). This morning I have taken that 80 down to 40 and over the next couple of weeks I need to take that 40 down to a final 20.
Without adding too many more in.
The hard part is putting all emotional connection to the photograph aside, whether that is the place, the time… whatever…. and try to judge it purely as someone else would. So the photograph needs to tell something of a story to pull the viewer in and hold their attention long enough for it to be passed on to the next round of judging. Last year I felt I had put forward a pretty strong batch and got nowhere much with it as I think I failed to distance myself from the individual shots enough, but I have learned more about the whole process since then so fingers crossed! The knowledge of how these things are assessed is pretty fresh though so I plan to shoot more relevant material over the coming months which will also make my landscape photography stronger and fits in with the projects I am working on just now too!
