This category had roughly 80 entries with a handful being multiple photos. We found the vast majority of photos to be odd choices to enter. A lot of images fell flat or were just plain perplexing due to composition and content. We chose our top three with a lot of conversation and wanted to share some hopefully helpful comments:First place was the only photo to really stand out. It has solid news value as well as being an emotion filled moment that can take some fortitude to photograph. We did feel the composition could have been stronger by slight movement of the photographer's body to clean up the background and bring the viewer more quickly to the key subjects.Second place was more uniquely composed than the other entries which caused us to linger on it. Third place is a 5 photo multiple, but could have still been a tighter edit. Any weak photos that didn't have to be shown causes the set to sink. One casket image (the older couple has some motion blur and no id's, would be fine to leave out) one strong emotion, and one artistic image would have created a stronger impression.
Judges:
Melissa Sue Gerrits/The Fayetteville Observer, Andrew Craft/The Fayetteville Observer
Judges Comments
This category had roughly 80 entries with a handful being multiple photos. We found the vast majority of photos to be odd choices to enter. A lot of images fell flat or were just plain perplexing due to composition and content. We chose our top three with a lot of conversation and wanted to share some hopefully helpful comments:First place was the only photo to really stand out. It has solid news value as well as being an emotion filled moment that can take some fortitude to photograph. We did feel the composition could have been stronger by slight movement of the photographer's body to clean up the background and bring the viewer more quickly to the key subjects.Second place was more uniquely composed than the other entries which caused us to linger on it. Third place is a 5 photo multiple, but could have still been a tighter edit. Any weak photos that didn't have to be shown causes the set to sink. One casket image (the older couple has some motion blur and no id's, would be fine to leave out) one strong emotion, and one artistic image would have created a stronger impression.