Mid-Atlantic – August 2017 – Spot News

Judges Comments

This category had about 20 entries with several being multiples.There were several fire images that didn't make any sense and we felt the scenes could have offered much better images. Namely, we didn't understand why firefighters backs were photographed instead of their faces. As for the 2 places we awarded, first place was the only strong emotion that was also well composed. Second place needed a much tighter edit. We had a lot of conversation over the image of the riot police with the shields. We feel the entry would have stood out with that image alone, really. We found a crop from the left, to the red banner, removing the guy in tan pants and a little from the top brought out the unique nature of the photo. The casual stance of the guy on the left removes a sense of urgency from the image and neuters it's visual impact.

Judges: Melissa Sue Gerrits/The Fayetteville Observer, Andrew Craft/The Fayetteville Observer