NY/International – January 2020 – Photo Story/Essay

Judges Comments

Judging this category, year after year, requires patience and understanding. Few papers give the time for much in the way of long-term, or even short-term, documentary work. Often entries in this category are clearly the product of aggressive live daily coverage (ie. Shooting the heck out of something) and then producing a collection of, hopefully, nice visuals. The rise of the web photo gallery has been a boon for all clips contest entrants, who’s favorite images are no longer lost to the whims of a print edition page editor. This makes the clips entrant much more responsible to be their own editor though. This category allows no more than 15 photos, and often that is too many. The refrain “this entry would have benefited from a tighter edit” could be pre-typed in every judging sheet and not often need to be deleted. This pool of entrants did not inspire the judges. Only five entries, and none of them stood out as exemplars of the category. All five are rife with redundant images, photos that stand-out as clearly not up to the visual standards we would prefer to uphold in the judging (or both), and subject matter that is not very compelling. The judges could not award any places in this category.

Judges: Sean D. Elliot/The Day, Peter Huoppi/The Day, Dana Jensen/The Day, Sarah Gordon/The Day