2008 - 2009
Minox Historical Society
Photo Contest

Photo Contest 2008-2009 Juror’s Statement


It has been my honor to participate in judging the Minox Historical Society Photo Contests for several years. This year’s submissions were a delight to see: to my eye, high technical quality as well as a wonderful sense of aesthetics throughout the one hundred thirty-four entries.

Bravo, to everyone! I mean that sincerely: it’s tough to get high marks out of such tiny rectangles of film. Of course, it made my job harder...

The process of judging a contest is always challenging. Do I weight my selection on technical qualities (exposure, focus, grain, rendering) or do I weight my selection on aesthetics (a pleasing subject, interesting composition, good use of color, drama in black and white), or on adherence to category assignments? A bit of all of that is required. And it must be said that there is always some amount of caprice in the choosing. What will strike the fancy of a judge at any one time will change moment to moment. I’m no different from any other judge.

I went through my selections out of these submissions at least a dozen times ... and at least eight times out of that dozen, exactly which photos came up as first, second or honorable mention changed places here and there, although the body of these rankings stayed pretty consistent. Which says something that you should be proud of: any of the photos that made it into this ranking pool ... and a few that didn’t quite make it too! ... are winners and worthy of honors.

For the 2008-2009 MHS Contest, the categories were People, Still Life/ Landscape/Abstract Art, “007” Spy Style and Technical Merit.

People

The first place pick was Lance Borden’s environmental portrait of his grandson. I liked the modern look of the color ... a somewhat limited palette and lots of high notes ... but it resonated mostly due to the subtlety of the body expression he caught combined with the jaunty cant of the hat and graphic contrast with the wall.

Second place went to Michael Van Buskirk’s charming B&W “Schoolyard Negotiaions” ... a group of chidren in a playground setting that I found very evocative and archetypal. This is fine art!

Honorable Mentions went to David Champion’s “Towards St. Paul’s” view of people on the Millenium Bridge in London, Fernando Moreno Mielgo’s evocative B&W of a young girl on a path with flower in hand, and Jay E Wesselink’s excellent portrait of his brother in dramatic B&W.

Still Life/Landscape/Abstract Art

I struggled quite a lot with this category. It was perhaps the most popular category with the greatest diversity of subject ideas.

First Place goes to Paul Ringgenberg’s lovely sepia monochrome “Oak Grove, Ojai”. This photo truly is a high expression of pictorial landscape art to my eye.

Second Place goes to Steve Zimmerman’s fascinating “Slow Shutter” photograph of his cat. It’s hard to make photographs of pets that are not simplistic, catalog “cute and furry friends” snapshots, that transcend the literal in some way. In this photo I see an archetype in form, shadow and shape ... very recognizable as “Cat” through the motion blur, yet not just ‘my cat’. Very nicely done.

Honorable Mentions in this category are Robert FE Jones’ painterly shot of trees in silhouette, Anthony Kosky’s starkly contrasty composition of mailbox and fields in Alexander Valley, Fernando Moreno Mielgo’s excellent Citröen 2CVs, and Michael Van Buskirk’s “Cental Park in Winter”, a romantic scene of snow and paths and trees.

"007" Spy Style

This is a fun category, new this year, looking to showcase photographs made because the camera used was a Minox: it can get to places that cameras might not otherwise go, it can capture a moment when another camera might not be there.

First place goes to Frank Eulgem’s ironic “Wrong Opinion”, made at an exhibition about Radical Advertising in Düsseldorf, Germany. It is wry and delightful.

Second place goes to David Champion with “Brother And Sister”, a wonderful warm monochrome study of two young musicians captured in performance when cameras were disallowed. Brilliant!

Honorable Mentions go to Jay E. Wesselink’s portrait of three women friends at a nudist beach, Lance Borden’s very intriguing capture of two overlapping frames of a movie in progress, and Michael Van Buskirk’s “Merchandise” composition.

Technical Merit

In this category I was initally looking for “the most the camera can give” technically but as I surveyed the work it seemed that judging solely on merits of sharpness and fine grain didn’t reveal the best photos that were submitted. I decided to interpret “the most the camera can give” in the sense that the photograph transcended the format aesthetically while remaining in the format technically.

First place goes to Michael Van Buskirk’s superb “Woman in Central Park”. I could easily see this photograph being made with a large format camera, the composition and rendering is just superb.

Second place goes to Jay Rochlin’s wonderful color piece made in Santorini. It has an excellent painterly feel, beautiful sharpness and striking deep colors unusual for ultraminiature color work.

Honorable Mentions go to Jay E. Wesselink’s architectural photograph of Mazomanie Mill, Jack L. DeLisle’s capture of the Oklahoma City state capitol dome, and Steve Zimmerman’s “15th Street Market” capture which again echoes large format pictorialist work.

 

There were also a number of photographs submitted by six other people that didn’t make it into the rankings. I mention the photographers’ names as they should be honored for their effort and thanked for their participation: John Mennucci, Luciano-Nilo Blanco, Michael Levy, Nick Vlahadamis, Sean McEntee and William Meriwether.

A fine set of photos. It was a pleasure to see them, thank you all!

 

Godfrey DiGiorgi, 2009

Godfrey DiGiorgi is a fine art photographer based in Sunnyvale, CA with a commitment to photography reaching back to childhood days. His award-winning photography has been exhibited and sold in galleries both local and abroad, and has been used for book, editorial and advertising publication. A frequent contributor/participant in on-line photo critique forums, Godfrey has been a judge for the Minox Historical Society (www.minoxgallery.org) and The Mid-Peninsula Media Center (www.midpenmedia.org) photo contests. Learn more about Godfrey by following him on Twitter: twitter.com/godfreydigiorgi, or by visiting his website: www.gdgphoto.com.

 


Updated June 16, 2009