This was a shockingly weak category. Features are usually much stronger. The three were chosen as the best of a set of poor options.
What we would like to express is that not a single photograph in the 80 had timing and composition. There were a handful of possible moments if photographers had the patience to wait for people to interact. When there was an obvious moment, the photographers were not framing for composition. Captions of the three winning images are also very poor. First place does not tell the reader which name is left or right. Second place is poorly written and tells no story of the subject. Third place uses the verb "kickoff" which does not describe the specific action in the photo and the rest is mostly a cut and paste of hand out information. First was chosen as the quickest reaction of humor due to setting. Second was chosen over the third because it seemed intentional, but the caption would have offered some meat to the nice moment. What was the subject thinking or feeling? Third at least had some emotion. So definitely work on these things...
Judges:
Melissa Sue Gerrits/The Fayetteville Observer, Andrew Craft/The Fayetteville Observer
Judges Comments
This was a shockingly weak category. Features are usually much stronger. The three were chosen as the best of a set of poor options. What we would like to express is that not a single photograph in the 80 had timing and composition. There were a handful of possible moments if photographers had the patience to wait for people to interact. When there was an obvious moment, the photographers were not framing for composition. Captions of the three winning images are also very poor. First place does not tell the reader which name is left or right. Second place is poorly written and tells no story of the subject. Third place uses the verb "kickoff" which does not describe the specific action in the photo and the rest is mostly a cut and paste of hand out information. First was chosen as the quickest reaction of humor due to setting. Second was chosen over the third because it seemed intentional, but the caption would have offered some meat to the nice moment. What was the subject thinking or feeling? Third at least had some emotion. So definitely work on these things...