Wrapping up a great year, here are the smoking, screaming, shooting results from the 4th quarter contest.
Using the system where each 1st place award receives 3 points, 2nd place receives 2 points and 3rd place receives 1 point, here are the top scorers from 2012 (complete standings below):
- Parker Michels-Boyce (24 pts)
- Kyle Green (23 pts)
- Ross Taylor (12 pts)
Big thanks to our judges this round from the Concord Monitor, photographers John Tully, Andrea Morales and Samantha Goresh.
ILLUSTRATION
- Kyle Green/Roanoke Times – The color, the lighting, and the concept was well executed.
- Ross Taylor/The Virginian-Pilot - The humor and subtle details were emphasized by the organized and well-lit frame. Organized chaos.
- Ross Taylor/The Virginian-Pilot – Nice light and interesting concept that connects back to the story. We understood the hand coming in the frame on the left, but could have done without it.
Comments: Mixed and interesting entries overall. The ones that rose to the top were executed the best. Colors and organization in the frame also helped.
FEATURE
- Rebecca Barnett/The Roanoke Times – Uses light really well and conveys a level of intimacy.
- Bob Martin/Free Lance-Star - Nice seeing. The lighting, the color, and composition all line up and work together.
- Ross Taylor/The Virginian-Pilot – Couldn’t figure out what the dog is doing, but we awarded this because of a level of commitment to the story. We would have liked to a little more of a connection to the people, but the ritual and idea of hunting as a family came across in the photo.
Comments: The category was fairly weak, with the award-winners rising quickly to the top. Most of the images feel like straight-forward event coverage or shoot-and-scoot mentality. We didn’t feel like the photographers brought much to the situations to tell a story.
PORTRAIT
- Parker Michels-Boyce/The News & Advance – Works alright with space framing the artist’s head.
Comments:We had a tough time awarding images in the category because the portraits seemed like more fleeting moments that didn’t give enough sense of who the subject was.
SPORTS
- Kyle Green/The Roanoke Times – Great moment, nice light, with a clean enough background. Other emotions add to the excitement.
- Sam O’Keefe/The News & Advance - This is a common photo we see from cross country meets, but the frame was well-done and unusual. The light was used well and it was a well composed frame.
- Sabrina Schaeffer/The Daily Progress – Great moment. The eyes made it.
- (HM) Ross Taylor/The Virginian-Pilot – Sweet story but we wished it was composed a little better.
Comments: The category had a lot of nice images to choose from. The feature photos definitely stood out more than the action photos.
NEWS
- Ross Taylor/The Virginian-Pilot – Nice composition that draws us in to an emotional moment.
- Andrew Shurtleff/Daily Progress - We awarded this because it was an interesting take on a news event. Went beyond the obvious photos we often see from spot-news events.
- (tie)P. Kevin Morley/Richmond Times-Dispatch – Pretty funny moment in a sea of chaos from an overly-staged event.
- (tie)Ross Taylor/The Virginian-Pilot – Hilarious moment from an annual, often treated mundane, assignment.
Comments: The photos that rose to the top did so because the photographer was able to step away from the obvious, yet still doing justice to the subject.
MULTIPLE
- Parker Michels-Boyce/The News & Advance – Found an interesting character and stuck with it to get a little bit beyond the surface. A few nice images with some minor redundancies.
- Rebecca Barnett/The Roanoke Times - Nice photos in a tight edit. Follows the process with a few surprises. Really liked the photo of J.D. kissing Jillian while outside.
- Kyle Green/The Roanoke Times – Some nice visual photos and details. Strong beginning, but a stronger narrative with a tighter edit would have carried this story in the category.
Comments: We liked a lot of photos throughout the entries, but we like to see more emphasis on telling a story rather than just a collection of images. Some entries would have benefited from a tighter, more thoughtful edits.
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All scorers from 2012:
- Parker Michels-Boyce (24 pts)
- Kyle Green (23 pts)
- Ross Taylor (12 pts)
- Sam O’Keefe (8 pts)
- Rebecca Barnett (8 pts)
- Andrew Shurtleff (8 pts)
- Jay Diem (7 pts)
- Sangjib Min (5 pts)
- Rob Ostermaier (5 pts)
- Jill Nance (4 pts)
- P. Kevin Morley (4 pts)
- Bob Martin (4 pts)
- Earl Neikirk (4 pts)
- Ryan Kelly (3 pts)
- Jeff Mankie (2 pts)
- Stephanie Klein-Davis (2 pts)
- Sabrina Schaeffer (1 pts)