Each month, Houston Photographic Society (HPS) conducts a monthly print competition and has a guest professional photographer from various studios and media organizations that acts as judge and commentator. Each judge evaluates the quality of images and reviews the features that they like and dislike in each of the submissions. They examine the technical skill of the images as well as the their impact, style and creativity, composition, and storytelling traits. They also comment on the steps taken to prepare the prints for competition, including paper choice, mounting, and cropping. The great thing about this is the diversity of the judges and their unique perspectives based on their own bodies of work and photographic styles.
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HPS February Print Competition, Silver/Bronze Combined Level, Category “Color” – 1st Place

There’s so much more to photography than just taking your camera out to a great location with awesome subjects and properly composing and exposing the image. If you can’t properly process, print, and display your images, then the effort on the front in can be for nothing. One of my photographic goals this year was to participate in competitions and submit to participate in at least one juried competition or gallery showing. To do this, I knew I needed a better grasp of a number of skills from printing to mounting and displaying printed work. I also felt I would improve and achieve greater success if I could be measured or evaluated in some way. I’ve competed twice now in HPS’s monthly print competition and I’ve learned a great deal at each one.

Even though there are no cash awards, and it’s definitely not a place where there aren’t any negative comments, the judges so far have spent as much time talking about the things done right as the areas that need improving. They also have provided ideas for compositional improvements and alternative processing and cropping suggestions to consider. I’ve been forced to grow my photographic and post processing vocabulary just to keep up.

There are some very skilled photographers in HPS and even though I’ve received recognition in each of the competitions so far, I continue to be anxious. There are three different competition levels (Gold, Silver, and Bronze) and I am in the entry level because I am new to the group this year. But I find that in the end I am actually competing against myself each month in an effort to become a better photographer. Seeing the work of the Gold and Silver level members and listening to what the judges find successful and not so successful among those levels’ submissions is especially enlightening and creates even more healthy anxiety and desire to improve.

Another result of competing is that I’ve become much better at selecting and showing only the best of my images online. I still take a large number of shots and I still have a tendency to want to show many versions of similar subjects, but I am much more selective than I was a year ago.

In February, I submitted two images for the Houston Photographic Society print competition and received First Place in the Color category at the combined Silver/Bronze competition level. In the special assignment category (“Small Town USA”) I received second place. The guest judge this month was Hugh Hargrave and I appreciate the time and effort he spent to share his insight and experience with us. I have to believe it is at least as much stress judging as it is submitting for competition.
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HPS February Print Competition, Special Assignment (“Small Town USA”) – 2nd Place

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