The Recent Survey of judging requirements, asked for consistency in our judges. Judges must be consistent, be it consistently good (they like my pictures), or consistently bad (I never get a good mark). Given standard conditions for viewing pictures, most experienced judges would reach the same conclusions on work offered to them, but the standard conditions very rarely exist, there is no possibility of a level playing field when looking at pictures. The conditions during competitions show markedly different situations.
In Exhibitions, and the NCPF annual competitions, judges may be faced with viewing 2,000 images in one day. Pictures pass before them at a bewildering speed and heavy demands are made on the experience of the judge. Inevitably, pictures with an immediate impact will take precedence over those with gentler virtues seen normally by extended viewing.
Many Federations away from the Northern Counties expect their judges to visit a club and make their judgement on the night with no chance to view the pictures beforehand, and this approaches the condition of an exhibition shown above. Here in the Northern Counties, it is the norm for judges to be given the pictures some weeks in advance of the competition to make their assessment. Repeated viewing of a picture can change your opinion, either by revealing subtler qualities, or making apparent an imbalance of features. This can also happen if a picture is seen in a second competition, individual images are rarely forgotten, and a second look can change the opinion of the judge.
The conditions in which a picture is viewed can therefore provoke a different assessment from an individual judge.
We then come to the contentious business of marks, "he gave a full 30 in the club competition, but only 20 in the interclub". Let us make it quite clear, no picture can be given an accurate percentage mark, it has no empirical limits, too large, too heavy, of the wrong chemical composition, or some other physical attribute. All the judge can do is to rank the series of pictures, "this one is better than that, but worse than the other". Once the series have been ranked, a mark can be established within that company, but does the top picture deserve a full 100%? Some clubs state that top gets 100% mark, and the next two places only one mark less, with a bottom limit for the competition, others let the judge make the decision. Most certainly, the individual mark will depend on the company in which it is competing. Your picture, which got top marks in the club competition, is unlikely to attain 100% in the London Salon, or indeed in the next interclub.
A consistent judge therefore, can only be categorised as stated at the beginning, consistently good, or consistently bad, no matter whether your picture is first or last.
Vince Rooker, (for and on behalf of the Judges Sub-Committee)