Beauty and Nature

Hi guys, we were told of the results after 10.30pm. It was a long wait. I arrived a few minutes after 6pm. There were 10 of us.

I want to share my experience being judged by the judges today. I was the first to be judged because I asked for it. I figured, just get it over and done with. I get what I asked for.

So, here is the gist.

The judges’ comments of the first picture.

My image was out of focus. I should have taken a closer shot. I should have just focused on 4 subjects. They were not sure which one was my subject. I should have used a smaller aperture. I should have worked on the composition. That florescent light!! On the other hand, my image shows the culture of Brunei.

On the second image.

The story of the image was not completed. I should have taken it horizontally. I should have waited for the right moment then snapped my shot. I should have moved a little bit so there was no distraction in the image.

This second image puzzled one of the judges. He was asking how was that image relates to the theme. I mentioned that my understanding of the colors of brunei was its characters. Family is a big thing in Brunei. Hence the image except without the lady,as she presented her back at the time of shooting.

I did joke about this image though. I stated that if the colour of the table cloth was red, then I have all the four colours of our national flag.

On the third image.

They agreed that the image was not sharp. A few of them suggested that I should have use a better lens. I should have underexposed the image by 1 or 2 stops. That might help with the unsharpness of the image. In addition, they complemented the colours, the composition of the image and the drama of the clouds in the sky.

And lastly, one of the judges commented that there was no continuity in the three images that I presented. He even further insulted by saying “The first image is ugly and the last image is outrageous”.

At first, that comment took me by surprised. I guess the first image was ugly because of a small part of a fluorescent lamp was in the image. I guess that just destroys the whole image. However, I could not help but chuckled when I heard that my last image was outrageous. Are you kidding me?

And I ended up by pulling a “diva act” (as my husband described it) by stating that the producers themselves were blur about the themes. I may have offended the producers by saying that. I did apologize to them afterwards. To be honest, pulling a “diva act” was the furthest thing on my mind. It would be better for “disabled” photographers like me if I knew precisely what the producers wanted out of the competition as well as the participants.

To the all 6 finalists, congratulations! You guys deserve to be the finalists. Well done and good luck in the competition.

PS Those images are straight from my camera. One of the rules stated that the images are not to be digitally modified. Just to let you guys know, I no longer hold the copyright of these images.