Infatisari

CPOY has announced the 63rd edition winners. I’m happy that August Kryger got a well deserved award of excellence and there are a few Missouri grad students to look up to: Amanda Lucier, Katie Barnes, Ben Fredman, Joon Hyoung Kim.

As a Fundamentals student I had to write a paper about the contest. It might seem boring but here is part of it. Enjoy!

College Photographer of the Year competition is one of the three things I decided not to miss during the photojournalism program. The other two are Missouri Photo Workshop and Photographer of the Year judging. Each of these has a great value and offers a lot of information over a short period of time.

Beside some of the winning images, the discussions were the ones that kept me in the Tucker Forum, day in and day out the last week. I was interested to see what the judges think about the images and how they explain their choice. Here are a few things I picked up along the way.

For the sports categories the sport displayed is not very important as long as the competition is translated into images. Composition, as in any other category plays an essential role. In sports features it is important to take the viewer into other areas, to present things that they do not or cannot see, to explore more than the obvious. In the picture story it is important to keep a tight edit and not let redundancy occur. Do not let week images to divert the attention from the story, or take the attention to things that are not relevant. It is also important to provide a sense of place, to offer transitions and powerful captions. There was an interesting discussion about the style some photographer’s use, about style without a reason versus style with a reason.

The multimedia section was maybe the most debated after the judging. I personally do not agree with the judge’s decision to award the first place in the Individual Still Image/Audio Story or Essay to the piece “Kids with guns”. No matter how interesting the effort of the photographer was, the result did not have in my opinion the strength of the second best. As it turned out in the end the sound was completely manipulated and I think this raises a very important ethic question regarding multimedia. If images cannot be altered in image editing software, do we apply the same rule for the sound of multimedia pieces?

Another conclusion of the judges was that interactive multimedia pieces do not explore enough the possibilities of the web. There where several arguments to sustain this opinion and among them are: sometimes there are not enough strong images to sustain the audio; the sites do not offer multiplatform type of files (download for Iphone for example); usage of Google map, statistics or time laps; the size of the movies displayed. For me the most interesting point was related to the quality of the interview shot. If a photographer would not use a bad portrait in a photo story than he or she should apply the same principle to the interview for a multimedia or video story.  It has to be shot tight, with a good light and a clean background. Many times the video beginners tend to use wide shots, and crowded backgrounds. The audio plays a key role, and it has to be adapted to the story. The ambient sound it is very important and can brake up a monotonous interview. It is difficult to get strong audio but it has to be just as good as any picture. All these things are meant to create a crescendo in the story and the photographer must make sure that he offers that peak moment that he builds up for.

There were many more things that made a big impact on the way I look at pictures. I feel like I have to underline the importance of the first shot, the opener, for all multiple images categories. The portfolio was maybe the one that made a big difference between photographers with week openers and the ones with strong ones. I was also surprised to see how photographers with extraordinary picture stories included on their portfolio very week images. I realize now that many of the images I considered as being good are in fact very week in terms of technique and value of information.