2020 Judges’ Comments

Our judges were …

Peter Gennard

Many of the projected images were over processed and too saturated. The creative pictures were often too complicated and sometimes devoid of a background relating to the main subject matter. Pictures of dogs, jet skis, athletics, dominated the Colour DPI Section. Trying to get a varied exhibition was compromised by the large amount of portraits and posed re-enactors. The Mono DPI section was very good.  Generally in our experience this section is normally the weakest. This wasn’t the case in this exhibition. Overall, as with all exhibitions, the high scoring pictures were of excellent quality. The selection of awards was amicable, the judges found this process quite easy. The efficiency of the exhibition team and software made the judging days a pleasure. Many thanks to all team.

Diane Seddon

I would like to congratulate the Solihull organisers for their excellent exhibition, which was so efficiently organised. Also, my thanks to the other two judges who were professional with a touch of humour.It was great to see so many well presented prints.  To see them in mounts was much nicer than having them presented loose. The standard of images was generally good, with the exception of the digitally projected Nature images. There was a lot of over processing, and cropping to the point that some images did appear pixilated, which was a shame. In the open rounds, we saw a lot of images taken at the same type of event – very similar points of view, and in some cases, almost identical shots with the same ‘character’ – this meant there was a lot of repetition.Overall though, there was a good range of creativity across a wide range of subjects, including some excellent sports pictures and portraits. My congratulations go to all the award winners, and those who received acceptances – they were of an exceptionally high standard. I do hope that the organisers have a successful exhibition with lots of visitors.

Ralph Duckett

I wish to thank all the Solihull Exhibition team for a very enjoyable weekend which ran like clockwork.  Your hospitality was second to none and served with lots of humour. I am a very strong believer in print exhibitions and the standard of the prints was very good and wish that more people would view the photographs to see the standard that can be achieved. There was a good range of subject matter but as trends go we do see a lot of photographs from the same event all be it with a slight change in the point of view, depending on where the photographer was stood.  This was more evident in the Colour and Nature projected sections, which was a shame. Overall the standard was high with the exception being the Nature projected.  Here a lot of the images looked to be over processed and over-sharpened resulting in lower scores. The winners in all the classes are to be congratulated for the very high standard. Many thanks again for inviting me and wish you a successful and busy exhibition