This Wednesday will be our first of two competitions for the year. Over the years I’ve been in the club, I’ve made my peace with the process. I used to get rather anxious about choosing images to submit and then waiting to hear the esteemed judges pronounce a score. The low numbers really stung. But I persisted in hopes not so much of doing better than my colleagues but simply of upping my scores; more like competing with myself. Little by little my scores got better. But then I had to ask myself, was my photography getting better or was I just learning what judges like? I don’t know. What I know now is that it doesn’t matter. I like my work enough to enter it. What the judges think is just AN OPINION. Presumably an educated opinion but still it’s simply a subjective pronouncement. We don’t have to agree with the judges. We do have to be happy with our own work. So why bother with competitions? Curiosity. I want to know what others think of my work. Have I communicated the emotion I feel when I look at my image? Have I made a technical error that weakens the image? Low scores make me reassess images; I may like it but what could I have done to make others see what I saw and liked when I made the image? Sometimes there is no answer. Sometimes it is just a difference of opinion. Love your work, be proud to show it off, be open to other opinions.
See you at competition night.
Maryann
See you at competition night.
Maryann
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