POY Judging - Issue Reporting Picture Story

After spending a few hours watching the POYi judging this year I was as surprised as always to see what sorts of pictures and subjects the judges chose to award. I certainly don’t envy them the difficult job of sorting through the mounds of material to find the real gems, but many of the selections in this year’s Issue Reporting category seemed mediocre at best.

The first place winner, “Love Me,” was pretty good, but the second place winner really seemed pretty average to me. “For Better or Worse” tells the story of an elderly couple in rural Ohio and, while it is touching to see the husband taking care of his Alzheimer-inflicted wife, the story just seemed very tired to me. It didn’t break any new ground visually or even seem particularly effective upon repeated viewings. It is not my intention to tear down the project as I am sure the photographer worked very hard on it, but I was just puzzled that out of all the hundreds of topics submitted, the judges chose to recognize that story so highly.

I was even more taken aback by the choice of the third place winner: “Moldova - The Outsiders.” Again, I have no doubt that a lot of work went into the project, but in my opinion it represented the definition of “a parking lot of pictures.” There were several nice frames, but no storyline at all, not even a compelling explanation of why we were being shown certain things. It reminded me of the video we watched in class that talked about Eugene Smith’s project on Pittsburg. The photographer could have strengthened the piece considerably by focusing on one noteworthy aspect of the culture rather than showing an array of disparate images.

A couple of the award of excellence winners were nice, though the one entitled “Faded Tulips” about the aftermath of a revolution in Kyrgyzstan seemed very similar to the Moldova story, and in my opinion should have taken third in its place.

Visit the POY site to view the gallery of winners.