Over the course of my professional career as a photographer, Fellow, Judge and trainer I have spent a considerable amount of time writing, re-writing, developing, implementing and enhancing International Judging and Scoring Systems. In recent years in my position as a worldwide competition Jury Chairman and Judge in both Awards, Qualifications, Distinctions and Accreditations, I have seen a dire need to explain to all those enthusiastic entrants, those criteria used and applied that will give entries a fighting chance!

There are those in the industry that have taken, misinterpreted or simply plagiarised others hard and often innovative work so I must first pay tribute to my friend and colleague, Kevin Wilson who with other distinguished Fellows has done much to set and improve standards. Of course I must acknowledge the root of all credible systems in the work undertaken many years award by those distinguished Judges and Chairmen of Professional Photographers of America.

Before going on to serialise the processes, operational methodology and explanations of criteria, it is vital that I stress the importance of fairness, clarity and transparency in any Awards programme or competition. To create and maintain maximum integrity it is essential that any panel of judges are able to arrive at a clear end result to which they are all able to, with impunity and honour be able to extol and defend that final result. This series will go a long way to describe ‘best practice’ so enjoy!