[Leica] comments from one of the judges

[reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Brian Reid)]

I was pleased to see that 81 images had been submitted in April, the highest 
number ever. However, I found the overall quality of the images in the April 
contest below the level of previous months. In going through the images, I 
could only award one or two stars to most images, with just a few getting 3 
stars. In contrast, in previous months I have often given out 4 or 5 stars 
to the images I liked best.

I think that the theme "red" was interpreted too literally by many 
contestants. As a result, there are many mediocre images that I think were 
entered only because there was something red in them. I would encourage 
people to interpret the theme more broadly in the future, especially since 
Brian has instructed the judges to simply rate the images on their 
photographic merits and not on how closely they follow the theme.

On the positive side: the images that appear among the winners and honorable 
mentions were also my favorites, so I guess I was in synch with the other 
judges (and I do not know who they are). The winning image is a beautiful 
abstract, well lit and well composed, although the title seems a bit out of 
place, given the connotations of the phrase. I also gave 3 stars to "Hot 
Lips"--just a fun portrait, well photographed.

My overall favorite image of the contest, though, was the third-place image, 
"Kristy Prep". I like the light, the way the woman's face stands out, and 
one can interpret the image on many levels: is she an object being prepared 
for exhibition? The hands applying the make-up greatly add to the image, 
indeed they MAKE the image, for me at least. Personally, I would crop the 
image a bit tighter; there is a lot of dead space on the top and left sides 
of the image which detracts from the composition.