This year I\u2019ve been honored to be asked to judge the photography competition at the Orange County Fair.\u00a0 It\u2019s been an amazing experience.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping that the experience can be as good for all the people that submitted photographs as it has been for me.\u00a0 It\u2019s not an easy assignment to sit in judgment of so many fine photographs.\u00a0 I\u2019m quite sure the other eight judges found the task as difficult as I did.<\/p>\n
(Read the first post in this series at<\/p>\n
http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/journal\/orange-county-fair-photography-judging\/<\/a>\u00a0)<\/p>\n Although I don\u2019t have official numbers, I guesimate there were about 4500 entries this year.\u00a0 Of those, between 900 and 1000 were accepted.\u00a0 So the competition was tighter than ever before.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how many photographs were actually brought in because there were a number of no shows.\u00a0 Again, these numbers are not official, just estimates.<\/p>\n Last night (Wednesday, 7\/13) we completed the final judging.\u00a0 I\u2019m very proud of the job we did and the selections we made.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure there will be disagreements with our choices but then art is subjective and as such disagreements are almost required.<\/p>\n Tomorrow the fair opens.\u00a0 I wonder how many of the participants will be there to see how their photograph fared.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure some will be disappointed.\u00a0 And I hope most are delighted, inspired and perhaps even surprised.<\/p>\n Going into the final judging I thought that the quality of light, strong composition and technical excellence would play the dominant role in our judging.\u00a0 And these were very important qualities that we definitely looked for.\u00a0 But it turned out the \u2018message\u2019 of the photograph could outshine these three.\u00a0 And while quality of light, strong composition and technical excellence have a lot to do with the way photographs speaks to us, there are other ways in which they speak and sometimes these other ways are the most important.<\/p>\n So the results are in.\u00a0 Of course I\u2019m not going to divulge what they are here.\u00a0 You\u2019ll just have to head on down to the fair to see the photographs for yourselves.\u00a0 They\u2019re all hanging with their ribbons waiting for the crowds to admire them.\u00a0 And they\u2019re all<\/span><\/strong> really very good and deserving of admiration.<\/p>\n Oh, this post was supposed to be about the walkthrough.\u00a0 Yes, that\u2019s right.\u00a0 It\u2019s this coming Thursday night, 7\/21, at 8:00 pm in the Visual Arts building.\u00a0 Come on out whether you have a photograph in the show or not.\u00a0 We have some comments to share about the photographs we judged that hopefully will be helpful for you in your own photography.\u00a0 That\u2019s Thursday, 7\/21 at 8:00 PM at the Orange County Fair (the Orange County in California, not Florida , Texas, New York, Virginia or North Carolina).<\/p>\n See you there.<\/p>\n