Judge complaint, model not looking at Camera

Unfocussed Mike or "narrative", as Huw's pictures above illustrate.

MidgePhoto said

A picture of a duo I was told is stronger if the two are doing the same thing, looking in the same direction, for instance.

I'd extend it to if they are not, a reason needs to be apparent, of which many exist.

What if it's just possible that there might be a reason?

ClickMore 📷 said

I think Camera Clubs get a very bad press, particularly from people who have no experience of them. I learnt (and am still learning) so much from them. How to understand exposure, depth of field. D&P my Black and White film, to start with.

I would go to any camera club that taught a practical art like this, if it did not pollute that with competitions. There have been times when I'd totally join a shared darkroom and I've thought a lot about shared studios and maker spaces.

Years ago (more than a decade now) I was involved with an attempt to start up a club/society in the area where I live (there is not one super-locally, only some a few miles away) and there was a clear division among the potential founders between those with the idea that it should be a local society, a peer of a couple of other strong local art societies, more loosely interested in the art and practice of photography and its overlaps with other arts and history, and those with the idea that it should be a camera club within the PAGB: regular competitions, inter-club competition, touring judges, discount insurance offers, all that; a more local club where they could carry on the way they'd been before.

Over time in the meetings that latter group won out totally, it became about structures and really about compliance, and I lost interest. I had demands on my time and decided I wouldn't dedicate the time to something I felt was becoming hierarchy and chore-oriented. As I recall I was not the only one.

I don't know if there even is a club locally now. Fitting that this should happen in the home of the aforementioned Henry Peach Robinson: a man who wrote a lot about photography and at least one important book, but was quite obsessed with implicit rules (and Joshua Reynolds).

Sensual Art said

Unfocussed Mike or "narrative", as Huw's pictures above illustrate.

I have done some work with deliberate narrative in duos, and indeed one of my stronger duo sets is one with Sam and Rosamund, where they ran with the broad "setup" narrative I had in mind, and I ended up with photos that were both as I planned and had unplanned features.

Here they are not looking at the camera in a way that is deliberate and probably feels deliberate; it's borrowed from East German fashion photography (really).

Here they are, both looking at the camera, but with apparently different, unclear intent. Sam (an actor) methodically added that arm blocking gesture to that second shot, but he didn't explain his character's inner dynamic until after I'd taken it.

And I don't think he'd need to explain it for the photo to work. It's unclear. It only has to feel to some viewers that he may have a motive. It completely changes their relationship with each other and with the camera. I wonder if it would simply be marked down because the arm is too high, or too forced, or it's not clear why he's stood that way, or whatever.

There's a third photo from this set that is strong, and is one of the photos I mentioned that I think was subconsciously influenced by a Francesca Woodman duo shot; I should dig it out and post it.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

Looking back through my images I found this! One model looking at camera and one not. I think the strength in the expressions make it work for me. Is it typical Camera Club Competition material? Probably not but I entered it anyway because I like it. I don't enter to please judges, it is a place to share images with others. Judge liked it because it was someone trying to break with tradition.

Edited by ClickMore 📷

Edited by ClickMore 📷

ClickMore 📷 said

Looking back through my images I found this! One model looking at camera and one not. I think the strength in the expressions make it work for me. Is it typical Camera Club Competition material? Probably not but I entered it anyway because I like it. I don't enter to please judges, it is a place to share images with others. Judge liked it because it was someone trying to break with tradition.

https://purpleport.com/portfolio/clickmore/image/4403077/photographer/

Edited by ClickMore 📷

That is a strong shot on its own terms! But the idea that it succeeds at a camera club because it breaks with tradition (does "something different" to echo what Simon Pole said earlier of one of his judging experiences) rather underscores my point, right? There are implied rules for photos and this judge has decided those rules have been broken, but they have been broken unambiguously so it's OK. 

Whereas I think maybe the point Sam got across to me in the duo shoot I mention earlier is that his acting experience had taught him that people's ambiguities and motivations and back stories come out when you ask them to be in a photo?

It's normal for a group shot to contain some ambiguity. Someone is bored or feels compelled or just wants to be there slightly less than the others. Someone is jealous of the others. Someone is (poorly) hiding their feelings about one of the others. Someone knows something that will change the future of the grouping or their endeavour, etc.

It's always there. Which is why I think submitting to a framework where "they aren't both looking at the camera" is conventional critique is doing nothing for art.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

DMG Photography said

I’ve just taken the plunge and entered the 2025 SWPA.  They lifted the restrictions about having release forms for practically everything in your images.  I was going to submit entries into the Portrait category, but they stipulate that your subject has to look directly into the camera, so they can see the relationship between subject and photographer in their expression. 

Sheer comedy!

Unfocussed Mike indeed, Sam and Rosamund immediately caught on to the outline narrative I gave them and built on it together. It's great when a solo model does it, but to have a duo setup go the same way is definitely rather special.

The judge, along with one or two of the commentators here, was not looking at the girl's face. Or prejudging without a second glance. On this screen the black girl is looking me straight in the eye. Unless we take the highly improbable assumption that the camera's sensor was bent somehow, she must have been looking directly at the camera when the shot was taken.

Both girls look nervous. Probably not a shot for camera club competitions but the reasons are, to my mind at least, other than what the judge said.

My previous experience of camera judge decisions is that too many of them tell us little beyond their own prejudices. Mark that word. Prejudice. It has several possible interpretations. I cast no aspersions but raise the question. If that is controversial so be it.

Quite often judges' attempts to tell us what a person's, even wildlife, expressions are saying are, to use an appropriate pun, ill judged.

Your mistake, UkPics , was to take that judge's comment seriously. I won't advocate against joining cc comps but you do need a slightly thicker skin. Often difficult for somebody new to camera clubs. I remember being downright angry at some of the comments aimed in my direction. 'How dare these people criticise subjects of which they have very little if any understanding?' was my unspoken response. I was correct in their understanding, incorrect in my reaction.

Have you thought about taking @unfocussedmike's advice, stop joining camera clubs' comps? Peer comments are extremely helpful but not all judges are capable of reflecting that. Try meeting with a few other photographers to exchange notes and tips rather than relying on 'expert amateurs'?

IMHO, none of the models are looking directly at the camera.

It does not bother me as I have done whole 2/3 hours studio shoots without any eye contact.

My last camera club event was over 22 years ago, when the guest judge (From another nearby club) was informative about his decisions.  Some of us agreed, and some of us did not.

Timmee said

Well, it may just be a case of camera club judges and the old adage ‘Power corrupts, & Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ BTW - Nice image!

Camera clubs are a proof of something Douglas Adams wrote

those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.. [so] anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

As for the photo in question really this should be in single image critique, but it's not simply "people in pictures should stare straight down the lens"  If someone isn't looking at us, we need something to pull us in, they might doing something interesting, or we might think about what the story is/ what are they thinking  / feeling... this one doesn't pull me in.  

Unfocussed Mike said

MidgePhoto said

A picture of a duo I was told is stronger if the two are doing the same thing, looking in the same direction, for instance.

I'd extend it to if they are not, a reason needs to be apparent, of which many exist.

What if it's just possible that there might be a reason?...

Hmm, apparent, deliberate, as in your actor which is indeed forceful, not random.

In a still life, if two things are placed next to each other, the reason could be the colours or shapes, but if disparate things are plonked it may well be possible of improvement.

With people motivation or at least animation is expected (with, of course exceptions ranging from Ophelia to half the bodies in a grieving widow picture)

Two people might be facing exactly away from each other, holding pistols, and we expect they are about to step off counting to ten, a reason is apparent.

We have a large camera club, meeting now about 200 metres away, and with a print competition and a projected image competition each year.

The rest is people who like something about photography meeting to listen, look, and sometimes practice.  The club did once have a darkroom, it would be nice if it had a studio now, but it doesn't.  There are special interest groups for people who wish to group around a special interest, and they are mildly amusing.

It was rather good during the Plague years and lockdowns.

We would let Groucho Marx in, so of course have not.

Camera club judges are hard to book these days. The ones you do get are often very set in there ways or inexperienced.

There are of course exceptions who are excellent. But even these some times have to find or invent a reason to place a picture lower than another one being judged.

It's not that the picture is intrinsically bad but just not as good as another they may have already given a certain mark to.

The camera club I'm a member of has its own exhibition space. The club holds two members exhibitions per year. There are are prizes for first, second, and third places. Each person who has a picture in the exhibition picks a top three anonymously The exhibition organiser then coordinates these votes into an overall top three. The names of the photographers isn't displayed until after the results are announced. There's no mechanism for critiquing the images. Seems like a fair method to me

Edited by Neil7

Unfocussed Mike said

Tabitha Boydell said

Unfocussed Mike said

ThePictureCompany said

I could never work out the thinking of club judges sometimes, that why I stopped offering pictures to be looked at.  Just like here and FPI's sometimes I think thats amazing and it gets rejected and sometimes I see images and think my dog could do better.  Its all a mystery.  I would say that the lady on the right does not look comfortable in her expression and so its hard to say if she is looking at the camera as would be liked by a judge so I can see why it was marked down.

Maybe I am terribly cynical but I don't think it's a mystery, at all. But I do think it has very little to do with photography, which might be why it's so hard to grasp. It's a lot more to do with authority, competition, convention and hierarchy.

All things that shouldn't affect your photography, unless of course they are the subject of your photography.

Camera club judges mark people down because someone has to be marked down and because they are the judge and they can do it. 

Christ, I stay away for a couple of weeks and I've come back Che effing Guevara.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

IMHO, your comments are offensive to the thousands of photographers who enjoy entering their work in competitions and salons.

I love your work and admire it and you immensely, of course.

But on this point I really don't care. :-/

I know of several supportive photography groups and societies and friendship circles, but prizes and judges rule almost everything. I mean, look at how hard the Taylor Wessing Prize judges seem to be straining not to pick the redhead each year.

And that is the top tier; most prize competitions exist for the purposes of collecting entry fees.

But I say all of this just to support a contrary opinion about the process by which a photo like the OP's gets rejected. Who says that both the subjects of a portrait photo should be looking at the camera? Who says even one of them needs to be? Who says you even need their faces? Judges?

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

Not bothered either.

Camera clubs are like any club, full of politics.  And ive seen some very harsh reviews of peoples pictures just because the judge just doesnt like a certain style.

I think it was just a reason to likely decline your photo , the gazes from both models are not so different.