It started with bad news for Nikon users as we have purchased a Canon projector which obviously will only show Canon cameras at their best.

I was a bit disappointed by our judge. He made a bit of a Rickket (excuse the pun) of judging my prints. But that was not a problem.

However, it caused me to write to the Master Adjudicator of Judges (Photography). Her Majesty the Queen.

Here is the copy of the letter.

Dear Maj. 

We have just had one of your judges at our club to judge two of our most important competitions.  

Several times he alluded to the fact that he attended judges seminars. I believe that he turned up registered had a free cup of coffee and biscuits then went home. As it was obvious he had not kept up with the latest trends in what makes a good photograph.

The first comment was that he liked black mounts. This was very disappointing as our members have spent a lot of money over the last few years buying up supplies of white, off white and cream mounts, in case of a nationwide shortage. 

Forget about negative space, crop everything down.

He wondered why key lines were going out of fashion, if only he had attended those meetings.

White blobs/marks on the edge or anywhere on the image was not a problem, no disparaging remarks of it drags my eye to that spot, so even if you have not noticed it or it had not dragged your eye to it you would now. In fact he gave second place to an image that was covered in white spots, splodges etc.

When talking about an image and how to improve it he did not spend the required 90% of the time how to improve it in Photoshop.

All the above is refreshing and forgiving.However, when he said about one print that the bug in the picture was too big in the frame, well that was unforgivable, did he not know that the person whose print it was has written the book  “Too Big in The Frame” He has also written about people and other animals walking into the picture. Personally I think the bug was walking out of the frame.

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter, hopefully you will ensure your judges do attend courses in the future so that us photographers know in the future what pictures we should be taking.

Yours Faithfully

etc