Seeing Great Photography and A Chance To Prove It

In the next few weeks, a triumvirate of judges (Dave Horne, Rick Meyers & myself) will converge on West Regional Library (Apex, Cary off  55) to award prizes to exceptional images in a Teen Photo Contest. The library is accepting teen entries through July 31. Call the Library for entry details – 919-463-8500.



I’ve been a part of this contest for some time and each year the judging gets more and more difficult. My eyes are not failing and the prints are not that different, but there is another dynamic at play:


The young people are learning to see more deeply into their world and they are getting what they see onto their prints.


Each year the library has held a workshop on photography or photo manipulation prior to the contest. We generally tell the young people what we are looking for in the images. At the awards gathering we also meet with interested entrants and share pointers on how to improve their images.


Then, they have several weeks to go and get the pictures they think will win.


Some contestants have entered the contest for 3 or 4 years.


Good photographs are not made from better equipment. Good tech does not hurt, but it is not the main thing.


Two years ago, we three old photographic heads really struggled over presenting the Best In Show or Best In Group prize to a young lady who had made a 28 k image by using her cell phone camera. Yes, it really was that good.


Two of our regular contestants are the offspring of professional photographers. Some have really elaborate equipment. None of that matters when the photographs are laid out side-by-side and comparisons and judgments are made.


The Golden Mean and Rule Of Thirds, as in all art, applies to photography. Primarily, our eyes and hearts must be drawn to the piece. Is it balanced? Do we LIKE it? Does it have a VOICE? Does the photographer deliberately eliminate as much as possible from the image so that the viewer can immediately seize on the SUBJECT?


The library is working hard to serve the community and this donated time is our way of helping encourage young people to engage in creative work. I would suggest they carry with them advice for a sage photographer who continues to inspire me.


Try for a record of emotion rather than a piece of topography. Wait till the building makes you feel intensely in some part of it or other; then try and analyze what gives you that feeling, see if it is due to the isolation of some particular aspect or effect and see what your camera can do towards reproducing that effect, that subject. Try and try again until you find that your print shall give not only yourself, but also others who have not your intimate knowledge of the original, some measure of the feeling originally inspired in you – greater or less, according to the success you have attained. This will be “cathedral picture taking” something beyond mere photography, the result to the critic shall be, not merely “what a clever bit of photography” but “what a noble, beautiful, fascinating building that must be and how priceless is that sort of photography that can so record one’s emotional union to it.” Frederick Evans, March 12, 1904


Mr. Evans was known for his platinum prints of the great cathedrals of England and France


© Tim www.timjohnsonphoto.com