Selection Results

This has been the third time that I have acted as a judge for this competition and by far and away the most difficult for me.

I was very moved at the amount of responses to the recent terrible tragedy that hit Japan and destroyed so many lives but it is ecouraging to see how creativity can come from out of adversity. I must also apologise to those artists I did not select. In all catagories I wished to select many more than I was allowed to and I feel bad about perhaps discouraging people, so I would please say - keep working hard, be true to yourselves, judges can often make wrong decisions and are motivated by their own prejudices.

If I did not select you it does not mean your work is bad...and had I made this selection at another time I would surely have taken some different decisions. All of you have my deepest admiration, whether your work was selected or not.

My selection includes an enormous range of approaches by the artists - from works which have been carefully researched and created with great attention to detail and technical expertise, to images created out of a more spontaneous, even improvisatory aesthetic - an approach which requires no less skill in its handling of material and delicacy of execution. The range also includes images which are entirely contemporary - they employ media and processess which were unheard of until comparatively recently - and works which are timeless in spirit and method.

The common denominator is excellence - all of these works in their different ways are the result of great concentration and focus, an ability to select from an infinite range of possibilities, and a love of the process of making pictures.

My personal favourite Top 7 (Photography Category):

Overall, very strong entries, making the selection of finalists not an easy task. In fact, all of the entries were accomplished in either creativity or execution or both.

PH-114037
Exceptional combination of timing, framing and composition combined with a fine sense of the strangeness of the ordinary.
PH-114026
Very accomplished and thoughtful imagery of interior spaces that propels them beyond the genre of interior photography, as well explained by the artist’s statement
PH-114073
Oddly powerful and unsettling use of what is normally straightforward flash night photography
PH-114012
Simple and clean execution of a nice idea, perhaps more art than photography
PH-114086
Accomplished fashion photography, but in particular I like the well thought through mosaic treatment which gives the work a pleasing editorial sense.
PH-114080
Dramatic.
PH-114041
Cool and reflective, with an acceptable use of Photoshop intervention; technically accomplished also.

I thought the standard of work to be very high and making the slection was much more difficult than I thought at first. I know I have not chosen work by some artists I can see to be very worthwhile.

I am very sorry to do this; but I have tried to present a range of work, and some times I have had to choose just one work to embody a whole set of ideas. Several works have a simplicity and a purity I admire, but had I chosen all of those I should have not been able to achieve the diversity I thought appropriate. I questioned whether one artist would have been better placed in the'Contemporary' category - but eventually accepted it. Another I thought to be very inventive as an artist, but not as three dimensional as I should want to see here.

On a personal level I should like to have seen one or two applications which had more scale and physical presence as sculptures, but that does not detract from the range of skills, media commitment shown in this section. This is the choice I have made, some other person might make a different one, so no artist should be downhearted if they are not in the final seven.

Many more comments coming soon.