Message From the Surrey Photographic Association

[Mike Farley]

The following message, which is posted full, has been received from the Surrey Photographic Association regarding judging standards which will be applied from the strat of the new season starting in September:

Dear SPA Secretary / SPA Rep,

Earlier this year, I asked you all for topics to include in the judge's seminar and, by a vast majority, the one thing you wanted judges to do was to award a wider range of marks.

During the meeting, held in April, this subject was discussed and the following changes were agreed, to be implemented from the beginning of September.

Please can you ensure that this information is made available to your club members in September so everyone is aware of what range of marks is likely to be used.

Advanced Class:
A normal range to be used is marks from 5 - 10.
The lowest mark may deviate either way from this depending on the quality and range of work on the night. Using this range a competent image should expect to receive 7 - 7.5.

Club/Intermediate Classes:
Bearing in mind the encouragement we want to provide to new members and less experienced photographers judges prefer to be kinder, using a slightly smaller range of marks.

Other points for your club committee and members to consider:

The most important part of any competition is the critique, not the mark. There are advantages and disadvantages of marks and we are aware that many clubs have trophies to award. If marking is taking place it is recognised that it is very important it reflects the critique.

A request from the Judges.
A difficulty exists for judges when a club has just one class for competitions. It is easy to recognise work of a very high standard and to mark accordingly but, when the work is of a less high standard, the dilemma for the judge is to decide whether it’s from an experienced photographer or an inexperienced one as the subsequent critique is usually based on the perceived level of experience of the photographer.

The judges wish to encourage all clubs to have 2 or 3 classes in each medium, so that the critique can be appropriate to the level of experience, also wishing normally to allocate more time to these less experienced members. It can reasonably be assumed that Advanced Class members have full intent and understanding of how they have chosen to present an image and the criteria for critique are therefore very different.

To allow time for a significant critique of every image clubs should aim for 60-80 images on the night. If numbers are high please ensure the administration of the event, notice and time for a break are appropriately managed.

- 0 -

Applying this to the club's marking system, where images are scored out of 12 rather than 10, a low mark will be 6, with a competent image achieving in the region of 8.5 - 9.

It remains to be seen whether this represents a significant change in the way images are assessed. It is unclear if the guidance to judges has changed other than in the use of a wider range of marks and a greater emphasis of matching the score to the critique, but the main effect would appear to be that a substandard image is more likely to receive a lower mark than previously. For understandable reasons, historically many judges have preferred not to mark too low which often results in a cluster of images scoring 7 - 8 in our club competitions. Based on the remarks about "kinder" judging for less experienced workers, it would seem that this situation will continue to pertain in the the Standard Class.

Being located close to the Kent border, the club does not draw its judges exclusively from the SPA area, which might lead to some variations during the season. The club will attempt to minimise this by briefing all judges that the normal range of marks is 6 - 12, with the mid-point falling at 9. In any event, all the images presented in an evening will always be assessed by the same individual, so any differences in approach should not have a bearing on the overall results.

The club does have some competitions which are judged as a single class and visiting judges will be briefed accordingly, as has always occurred. If recent experience is anything to go by, those in the Standard Class have an equal chance of success as those who have achieved Advanced Class status.

I will raise this formally at our opening meeting on 3 September, but members are welcome to add their observations to this thread.

[walterconquy]

I have always thought that we do need a longer gamut of points. To me we shouldn't be too soft about it. Members would be pampered and not properly learn the process of making a print, such as composition, true colour rendition (if it applies) the basics, and then understanding what goes on in your head while taking a picture, control if you like. Of course most of the method is subliminal while taking the picture, but the critique and the point should take you to another level of understanding
The secret to me is not to take it personally when they give you a low point, after all the judge doesn't know you from adam, but to learn from it. I always tell people I once got a 2 point score for a slide, and I believed it was a correct score. But it was funny i laughed all the way home that night.
My point in this missal is to say don't take the score too seriously in the sense that it is aimed at you, but take it as information.
Good luck all Wally

[davidc]

I agree with Wally and also wonder if their "new guidelines" are representing any change at all? The lowest score I've ever seen awarded was 4, for one of my own images, and though I DIDN'T agree I at least thought it was good the judge was using more of the scale. More often than not 7 is the minimum.

What's the point of scoring out of 10 if you're really only scoring 5-10? You might as well score 1-5. It's a joke, they are too frightened they offend people and don't get invited back (or get a less than glowing review). Feels like a middle-England "must not offend" paranoia rather than a system designed to give a relative standing for each image shown on the night in that class My personal preference would be for judges that award from 1-10 but it should be stressed the marking is RELATIVE, and that the extreme ends of the spectrum should come with the best feedback, critique and comments to improve they can get. In other words, award 1 and 2 where it's merited BUT make damn well sure that those images get more time to explain why they scored that and how they can improve.

And as members, though it's easy to type and less easy to actually do, we need to develop thicker skins - we're putting images up for both positive & negative feedback and we need to listen to both - even if we listen and ignore the negative feedback, the important thing is to listen And yes I 100% acknowledge I get very exasperated with judges but it's more because of the nonsensical comments and "nit picking" than anything else. If you don't like an image, TELL ME, rather than make claims about flaws that don't exists. Judges shouldn't be afraid to say "technically it's fine, I'm just not interested in the subject". That's a perfectly valid commentary!

Perhaps suggest this scale and emphasizing that the this is relative to the other images seen in that class, on that evening

1/2 - images that are technically deficient, lacking a clear subject, many areas for significant improvement.
3/4 - images where the subject is apparent but there are still a number of flaws/errors that detract
5/6 - a technically sound image with a clear subject and minimal flaws, but one that lacks impact or outstanding attributes. In other words, the very definition of average
7/8 - a good image, with few flaws but compared to it's peers on the evening, not quite as strong. In other words this could achieve 9 or 10 perhaps, but against tonight's competition it hasn't quite cut it.
9/10 - very good images, few - if any - flaws with a really powerful impact/story. Worthy of recognition.

I would also mandate that any pictures of a duck get instantly awarded 3/10

One thing I was always curious about is why the club awards 11 and 12, I've not seen anywhere else that does that and never heard the history behind it? Would sticking to 10 not be less confusing for judges used to that system then allowing the judge two Commended and one Highly Commended awards for what would otherwise have been 11 and 12 respectively? It would also make the competition aspect over a season closer for longer and more interesting to watch - right now, a high scoring judge can easily give out a number of 12s whereas a different judge might not award as many, meaning the person who "lucked out" getting twelves is already half a week ahead in terms of points. If the system was to be the same as elsewhere it'd be closer and the impact of generous judges would be minimised rather than amplified.

[davidb]

I would also mandate that any pictures of a duck get instantly awarded 3/10

Remind me not to enter any of my wildfowl shots when Davidc is judging!!!

[walterconquy]

David, I agree with all you have said in your last post. You mentioned about the 11 and 12 scores. We originally wanted to use those figures for pictures that were exceptional. The 10 figure was thought to be the score for competent and well composed, that sort of thing. The 11 and 12 scores were for exceptional images that the judges really thought were good or that touched them in some way. I suppose judges are only human and need to be liked but to me they are doing a disservice to the photographic industry. Going on to the nit picking, it seems to me they have to do that because how do you differentiate the good from the exceptional without the showing the mistakes.
Regards Wally

[Rose]

I agree wholeheartedly with David's comments. I believe our 12 point scoring system is an anachronism which I don't think serves us particularly well. In fact I think it works against us. I think it's time to move to a 10 point system and I like David's suggested scoring outline, which if communicated to both judges and members at the beginning of each competition evening, would make expectations clear to all.

[Mike Farley]

I agree wholeheartedly with David's comments. I believe our 12 point scoring system is an anachronism which I don't think serves us particularly well. In fact I think it works against us. I think it's time to move to a 10 point system and I like David's suggested scoring outline, which if communicated to both judges and members at the beginning of each competition evening, would make expectations clear to all.

This was discussed at the AGM when there was overwhelming support to retain the current scoring system. It was introduced to allow an extra degree of shading and there are five* marks at 10 or above which can earn their authors certificates, whereas in other schemes which mark out of 10 or 20 there will usually only be three or four. Based on equivalents to the new SPA Marking scheme, we get:

• 5 = 6
• 5.5 = 6.5
• 6 = 7
• 6.5 = 8
• 7 = 8.5
• 7.5 = 9
• 8 = 9.5
• 8.5 = 10
• 9 = 11
• 9.5 = 11.5
• 10 = 12

This means that we get a couple of extra gradations at 7.5 and 10.5, but still allows the possibility for a lower mark. This is largely academic, as we rarely see images at the club which have no redeeming features.

As I said in my initial remarks, it remains to be seen whether there will be an overall lowering of marks by SPA judges, or simply that the lower marks will be given more often.

In response to Davidc, I suspect that the reason why the full range of marks is not used is to avoid discouraging people. After all, we are mainly doing this for fun and awarding a very low mark would be discouraging for some, beginners especially. With the exception of the two image of the year competitions, judges are advised that we are not looking for the best shot of the evening and that they should mark each photo as they see fit. Normally this works out well, with just one or two shots in each class getting the top mark. Occasionally there have been evenings when no 12s are given and sometimes, as happened in the last Nature competition, there is a surfeit. While there is still a ranking of the shots which are presented on the night, it does mean that the score for a good image is not artificially reduced due to the need to have an overall winner.

Some external competitions where there are three judges are marked out of five, with two being the lowest score and the highest overall combined mark is 15. In this scheme:

• 2 = Poor
• 3 = Average
• 4 = Good
• 5 = Outstanding

I would argue that this is all which is actually needed, although it would be unlikely to provide sufficient differentiation for identifying overall winners and the awarding of trophies.

Where I do agree with Davidc is about judges who nit pick, especially when they invent non existent faults to justify reducing the mark. A judge stating that the subject or genre does not interest them is not acceptable in my book if that becomes an excuse for a low mark when a shot deserves better. A good judge should be able to assess any type of image, although admittedly that is a skill which many do not have.

* EDIT - Poor maths on my part initially, now amended to the correct figure.

[walterconquy]

PEOPLE, I tend to agree with Mike on this I won't reiterate my remarks but from the 10-12 marks I like Mike's analogy of shading, that is the overiding factor for those marks.
Hope we don't go on forever talking about this, we had already decided at the AGM what we were going to do.
I suppose, though, we do talk to each other this way.
Love and Peace to All
Wally ?