Does My Image Belong in Regular or Open Mind?

WPS holds Regular and Open Mind competitions for our members. It is considered highly unsporting to enter Regular images into the Open Mind competitions and to enter Open Mind images into the Regular competitions. It is also impossible to write a competition rule that will clearly define the line separating Regular images from Open Mind images. To keep the competitions as fair as possible, we are asking our judges to downgrade their scores for inappropiately entered images. The judges' decisions are final and will not be overriden by our Competition chair.

If you are considering pushing the limits of what is acceptable in either competition, we suggest you consult with the Competition Chair before making your entries. He will give you his opinion but be warned that the judges' decision will not be overridden.

Below are exerts taken from the letter we send to our judges:

Guidelines for Judging Open Mind Competitions at WPS

Thank you for agreeing to judge our Open Mind competition at Westchester Photographic Society. As we do not inform our members of the judge's identity, we ask that you not inform any members that you will be judging. Please arrive before 8 PM; do not review or discuss any member's photos before the competition. You are invited to bring five samples of your work to show our members.

OPEN MIND competitions consist two categories: Prints and Digital Projector. Our OPEN MIND category is unique. We hope these guidelines will help you evaluate the images.
OPEN MIND photographs may include the following:
· Nonrepresentational and abstract images based on color, line, and form.
· Surrealistic, unreal, or fantasy imagery, representing ideas or stories that exist only in the photographer's mind.
· In-camera and post processing manipulation such as posterization, special effects filters, sketching or painting effects.
· Three-dimensional constructions.
· The meaning of the photograph is usually subjective.
· We highly discourage members from entering into OPEN MIND images that are little different from what could be captured with a camera and optimized for tone, color, etc. JUDGES ARE ASKED TO DOWN-RATE SUCH INAPPROPRIATE ENTRIES TO OPEN MIND .
DOs
· DO judge nonrepresentational pictures by the interplay of color, line, form and how well they make a pleasing and/or exciting composition.
· DO consider how well the photographer has handled a special effects technique.
· DO look for impact - if you think "WOW" when you see it, it deserves a high score.
· DO let yourself react emotionally to the humor, beauty fantasy, or distortion shown in the images.
· DO expect that elements in collage or montage should bear an aesthetic relationship to each other.
· DO expect that exposure and focus should be correct, unless a soft-focus or under/overexposure are necessary for the intended effect.
· DO relax, let your mind be playful and have fun!
DO NOTs
· DO NOT score on the basis of how "weird" or "wild" an image is, but on the aesthetic qualities of the image.
· DO NOT spend your time trying to figure out how the image was made.
· DO NOT try to necessarily read meaning into or even make sense of purely nonrepresentational and abstract photos.
· DO NOT be influenced solely by the unusualness of the effect or technique - consider the excellence of its execution.
· DO NOT favor conventional photography in the open-mind category.
· Please limit your comments to less than 30 seconds per entry.
· Score on a 70-100 basis, with one-point increments. (70s need improvement, 80s average images, low 90s very good, high 90s the winners). You may award a score of 101 if you have already given an image a 100 in that category.
· We award 1st, 2nd, 3rd and Honorable Mention for each category, but we do not resolve ties so try to spread out your scores.

Guidelines for Judging Regular Competitions at WPS

Thank you for agreeing to judge our monthly competitions at Westchester Photographic Society.
Please arrive before 8 PM. As we do not inform our members of the judge's identity, we ask that you not inform any members that you will be judging. Please do not review or discuss any member's photos before the competition. You are invited to bring five samples of your work to show our members.

For the 2008-09 competition season you will be judging the following categories:

BLACK & WHITE PRINTS: All levels combined.
COLOR PRINTS: Separate entries for B, A and Salon.
COLOR SLIDES: All levels combined.
BLACK & WHITE DIGITAL PROJECTOR: All levels combined.
COLOR DIGITAL PROJECTOR: Separate entries for B, A and Salon.

· WPS holds separate competitions for OPEN MIND. We highly discourage members from entering into the above categories images which have been manipulated or altered so much through processing that they are more appropriately entered in the OPEN MIND Category. That includes special effects filters, posterization, and sketching or painting effects among others. SUCH INAPPROPRIATELY ENTERED IMAGES SHOULD BE DOWN-RATED BY JUDGES.

· Because of the large number of entries, no run-throughs are possible.

· In the interest of time, comments should average 15 seconds.

· Score on a 70-100 basis, with steps of one.

· 70s = need improvement, 80s = average images, low 90s = very good, high 90s = the winners.

· You may award a score of 101 if you have given a previous image a 100 in that category.

· We award 1st, 2nd, 3rd and Honorable Mention for each category,

· We do not resolve ties so try to spread out your scores by using numbers such as 86, 87 and 88.

· We will have a laser pointer and a microphone for your use during the judging.

· Please ask the projectionist to refocus if an image appears fuzzy on the screen.