It was a great one-week to witness all the great works done by college level students from all over the world. During the judging process, I could easily notice that those college photographers’ angles to the subjects were very unique and fresh. Their stories dealt with some undercovered aspects of the society. And their unique thoughts and angles were professionally portrayed on their frames. Those images were depressing me and motivating me at the same time. It was good opportunity to think about myself as a photographer. I regretted the fact that I was pressing a shutter release without having personal philosophy on my subject. I didn’t interact with my subject as intimate as awards winning photographers did. I learned again from this year’s COPY that I need to build up an intimate relationship first in order to carry out the story successfully. Subjects in those winning stories were acting naturally as if photographers were not with them. During a Domestic Picture Story, again, I realized that finding right subjects that reflect current social issues/conflicts is the most important part of the project. Winning photographers all dealt with current social issues: deviating teens, living under poverty and gay marriage. From their stories, I was able to know what conflicts those subjects are confronting and threatening their lives. Among the winning stories, August Kryger’s story on Potter is my favorite. I can easily notice what August was trying to say from the story, solitary. As a photographer, it is important to visualize the story by not relying on captions, and August did a great job telling the story with his compelling images. His story captured Potter’s abandoned life. While Domestic Picture Story and Document categories dealt with in-depth coverage with compelling images and appealing stories, a large number stories from International Picture Story didn’t show a close relationship with the subject. Most of them did not show beyond what the subjects were doing. (Some stories did a great job portraying local conflicts while the subject is involved into that conflict.) Many photographers ended up showing just outer aspect of their (subjects) lives. For example, Jana Asenbrennerova’s story on ‘Eye Bank’ in Nepal explored mostly showed the process of the surgery. The photographer didn’t capture the life change of Sabitri (main character in the story) after the surgery. This story is nothing but showing what’s happening at the clinic. It drew the attention since it was done in Nepal, but it failed to explore the inner conflicts of Sabitri.
During a multimedia session, I was wondering about the judging standard. I sometimes felt that it was not enough time to make IN/OUT decisions in 3 secs. I know an inverted pyramid type structure is critical, especially for web-oriented contents such as slideshow and multimedia, but I felt like some multimedia pieces were omitted too early before it started to show its visual lede. It was hard for them judging a couple hundred pieces within limited time, but it would have been better if they were more reasonable for their callings, because for some photographer, it might take more time to take the story to the climax. Let’s give more room for those photographers. It is equivalent to say that judges for Nobel Prize in Literature fail the piece even before they finish reading the introduction of the literature. In terms of contents, I was glad to see some pieces that reflected current social and environmental issues. I especially like “Spilling Over” and “Splitting Main Street” both done by a group of students from University of North Carolina. These two pieces dealt with the subjects that are already covered by other major news outlets, but rather than focusing on the core of the problem, both pieces focus on showing people’s lives that are heavily affected by their environment. UNC students used an audio, still image and video as devices to tell the story of people and it was very effective and well applied. And their web page ‘Powering a Nation’ worked great as a platform of the works. It bring synergy as the multimedia pieces are collaborated with other graphics and other related information regarding a main theme ‘energy.’ I liked to call it a real convergent journalism in this era.
