Part 7 – The “Combination” Elements

• Creativity & Style

• Centre of Interest

• Story Telling & Subject Matter

These are elements, which when coupled with the more powerful emotive factors can affect a score in both a positive and negative manner. These are in place to ensure that images that contain a high degree of technical excellence, even though the genre may have been seen a thousand times before, or indeed become labelled with descriptions such as “Classical”, “Old School”, “Dated” or other perceived negatives, are judged and scored with the respect and reverence they deserve as true examples of the art and craft of photography.

The “Technical” Elements

• Technical Excellence

• Photographic Technique

• Colour Balance

• Image or Print Presentation

These ‘Technical’ elements really speak for themselves and all are essential to the fine workmanship that must go into every ‘successful’ image. As discussed earlier, Image presentation, particularly in digital projection must have a degree of latitude and understanding by the Judging Panel. The remaining elements are essentially, camera craft and retouching technique and suitably qualified Jurors must have themselves demonstrated a good degree of understanding in these factors.

A Juror that says “Sorry, I am not very technical and don’t understand XYZ” is not a good choice as pointless discussion that is best reserved for the bar may ensue during a judging session.