At the onset of our photography careers, earning money and doing what we enjoy are often our main concerns. No one sets out thinking: “I want to become a photographer so that I can win awards.” At least not me! In 2017… my first time sitting on an image competition judging panel brought back fond memories.
A dim, packed room filled with people fills this standing-only event, illuminated only by a light box surrounded by judges for viewing prints, while an overhead projector shows images to an onlooking audience. Proctor announces the next image as image handlers place prints in the lightbox. When she changes it on the projector for viewers to view… BOOM! I and some around me are taken aback at how stunningly beautiful it was compared with any others that we’d seen previously. It truly was truly stunning. At that moment, I probably exclaimed to myself “Jeez, that’s insane!” The judges moved gradually closer to the print to gain a better view. Some went back for second looks. After several moments of deliberation and scores were submitted by all of them, the proctor announced the overall score for that image… “76.”
“76! A seventy frickin’ six!” If you know me, that wasn’t quite how it went down; for this particular competition, 76 was considered average at best by the panel of judges; this image, one of my favorites from that competition at that time, was considered average by them; you can imagine my displeasure with myself at that moment! Needless to say, after leaving that competition I accepted that winning awards wasn’t part of my goal at that time; instead I was more concerned with making a living!
Unbeknownst to me at the time was that the score of 76 and other images I’d seen in competition subconsciously provided a shift in perspective. We’ve all encountered something in life which initially seems amazing but upon further inspection turns out not be what it seems; for instance shooting weddings for $1,000 might appear promising at first, but when examined closely we can discover flaws with this concept and ways of improving it so your $1,000 weddings become $2,500, $5,000 and 10,000 weddings and you are on your way to becoming an accomplished Cincotta photographer!
