There has been some ill informed comment lately about certain aspects of the Focus Awards Photography competition so I thought I would fill you in on how it is run and give you some insight into the judging.
The competition is run by a Sub Committee of 3 comprising Bruce Hood, Douwe Dijkstra (Dex) and I. This is the second year that we have undertaken this task.
Whilst we can submit entries for judging in the competition we cannot compete for the prizes. This decision was made to ensure the competition was squeaky clean and to allow us to make a contribution to Focus as the competition is the principal fund raiser for the group.
The Sub Committee determines the rules and conditions and also the allocation of prizes for the categories. We also liaise with the competition web site, judges and sponsors – the images for the Image Of The Year had to be provided to created for life prior to the Awards Night to enable the prints to be made and framed. Note that the results were not revealed to any of the finalist prior to the Awards Night, they were simply advised they were in the running for an award and asked to provide an image for proofing.
Once the competition is underway, the committee is only advised about the number of entries lodged. All other matters are handled solely by the Awards Sub Committee.
The Sub Committee has access to the backend of the competition website which allows us to see the images entered by individuals and the scores of the 3 judges as they occur.
The judges enter their scores independently of each other and do not collude or discuss the overall results. This year Christian Fletcher was in Cambodia, David Oliver was in Pennant Hills and Tony Hewitt in the North West of Australia for their judging.
The judges are required to allocate a score to an image as it is presented. They do not see all the images beforehand to pick a winner and scale all the remaining entries which I believed occurred so it is a very difficult task.
Based solely on some of Tony Hewitt’s judges comments, I would assume that he was able to see the scores of the other 2 judges, but David Oliver wasn’t able to see the scores entered by Christian Fletcher and vice versa.
Note that the judges cannot go back and change their scores or comments once entered.
Once the chief judge has entered his score, the competition website calculates an average score by adding the 3 judges scores together and dividing the result by 3. The score is then advised to the contestant by email.
The competition website provides a top ten and a top 50 scores for each category to the Sub Committee. The scores are provided to 3 decimal points but are rounded to whole numbers for purposes of the certificates etc.
The Photographer of the Year POTY is calculated by adding the highest scoring image for each of the 5 categories for each entrant and the result is divided by 5.
With the POTY, a tied score was decided by the entrant with the highest scoring image in the most categories whilst the category places were determined by the highest judges score for the images.
Only the Sub Committee are privy to the results prior to the Awards Night. The committee are not advised.
The comment has been made on a number of occasions that the committee was well represented at the Awards Night.
This is true and I can only suggest that is because the committee are good photographers… and aren’t we all thankful for that. Check their results in other competitions and you will see a similar good representation of these entrants at the top of those competitions also.
The question as to whether they should be allowed to enter has been discussed at committee level but since they play no part in running the competition there was not a convincing argument to deny their entry. As has been stated previously, the Sub Committee is permitted to enter images for judging but are not allowed to enter the prize round.
Just imagine the difficulty the group would have attracting committee members if they were denied the opportunity to compete in the competition. This current committee is one of the hardest working committees that I have been involved with. The time that each committee member invests in this group is incredible and there are absolutely no holidays for committee members.
The other conclusion that could be derived from the comment is that the Sub Committee somehow rigs the awards to look after their fellow committee members. I can assure you that this does not happen period and I take great offence at the mere suggestion.
There has also been the suggestion that the judges favour the images of some contestants. Admittedly, if you enter an image in a number of competitions that are judged by the same judges then they may recognise the image as being from an individual. But is that favouring an individual? In my view that is the judges simply being consistent and favouring an image that they obviously like irrespective of what competition that its entered in. We will however continue with the policy of rotating judges that was commenced this year.
In conclusion let me assure you the Focus Photography competition is as fair and equitable in spite of those who wish to sow doubt for their own purposes.
Ray Jennings
for The Focus Awards Sub-Committee