Judges Comments

OVERALL COMMENTS FOR ALL CATEGORIES IN JUDGING: It’s always a pleasure and an honor to judge the national clips and see what is rising to the top of the work in each region of NPPA. Exceptional storytelling and visioning was observed in each category. You all “wow’ed” us. Beautiful work and well done. We should point out that the increasing absence of picture editors in the various news organizations was duly noticed in the material here – with some misadventure in cropping and inclusion of too many images impeding many of the entries. We’d certainly encourage all competing photographers to spend a little extra time in rigorous and critical editing of your own work. Also, be reminded that there are many great freelance photo editors easily reachable out there who are eager to help! COMMENTS on Feature/Single: The Kincade fire feature, in first place, was surreal and an elegantly unique image. We’ve never seen an image like that before. The second place pedestrian at Riverside City College was just great “seeing” and using light and form to elevate the commonplace. The flu shot clinic in third place was simply a great execution with a composition offing various connection points through the image (but could have been cropped just a little, to accentuate the image’s flow). The reflection of the barber with the protests in Santiago, Chile was a stirring image (and was picked as an alternate), but again, needed a much more decisive crop. Other strong images that are worthy of mention included the umbrella feature in Charleston, the light/smoke machine feature in Wenatchee Valley, and all the birds around the truck in Alaska.