As a longstanding member of Ausphoto, I have slowly become disillusioned by what can only be described as second rate judging on the weekly and monthly competitions.

Photography is an art and art requires real critics, not rank amateurs. Sadly Ausphotography is filled with beginners and allowing beginners to judge competitions is a really bad decision.

Rational thinking dictates that letting people judge on competitions that they aren’t qualified to judge can only result in competition outcomes that are skewed in favour of entries which look good rather than entries which require real skill and talent. How are beginners supposed to judge when they don’t even understand the basic rules of composition and when it’s okay to break them.

I know that some people think it’s in the interests of helping beginners, but providing outcomes which are wrong distort the beginners view of what creates a good photo and only results in a false sense of achievement for those who win.

Leaving the judging up to beginners is unfortunately not the right solution. Beginners are beginners, they shouldn’t be judges if they don’t know what constitutes a good photo.

Frankly, I’m getting to a point where I think that beginners should be limited to only judging beginner comps and perhaps we should limit the beginners to only entering one competition per month so users on the site can focus their attention on judging real photos and not snapshots that look more at home on Facebook.

Outcomes of competitions will always continue to skewed by this poor judging if we continue in this way and I think Ausphotography has to deal with this reality sooner rather than later.

On the surface, involving the beginners may seem like a good idea, but poor judging deprives the quality photographers like myself of the wins we so richly deserve.

Let’s leave the photography to real photographer and let the beginners stick to forums for feedback until they get better and learn how to get out of P mode. Find out what that M means on your camera and then come speak to me.

Sorry about my rant but it’s just 1 of those days.