Mid-Atlantic – January 2020 – Photo Story/Essay

Judges Comments

Accepting that we live in an era where papers rarely give the time, or the space, for much in the way of long-term, or even short-term, documentary work, the judges have to apply something of a different standard when looking at entries in this category. 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. Too many entries here were of the general news coverage variety with too many weak images to hold up as a group. The exotic dancer story was unusual in its story, the images were largely interesting with decent variety and use of the light. We were universally disappointed to see a photo of the exterior of the building included, since it tells us nothing about the event or the participants. We gave second, begrudgingly to the evangelical pastor series, the tight edit and good variety of images allowed it to squeak into placing. There were two collections of photos from a Trump rally, we found enough images between the two of them to make one third place entry, but each, as edited and presented, did not merit recognition.

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