Cream of the Crop, 1st Place Sports

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Judges
Thanks for giving us the opportunity to judge this contest. We were impressed with the overall quality of the work — especially news and sports — and the digital judging format (our first time judging this way) worked great. Judged at the Concord (NH) Monitor by staff photographers Lori Duff, Preston Gannaway and Ken Williams, photo intern Kim Walker and photo editor Dan Habib.

Feature
1st Matt Detrich/The Indianapolis St
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This was a disappointing category. We saw photo in other categories that should have been entered here. Overall, a lack of photos that were either very artfully composed or contained strong moments. There was a split decision on first place, but we thought this was the most interesting photo, given the burst of wind on the robes and the angle taken by the photographer.

2nd Charlie Nye, The Indianapolis St
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A good way to illustrate the cold day for baseball. The photographer did a good job of getting up close and not relying on a long lens to capture the bench scene.

3rd Rob Goebel
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Some judges thought this was the strongest shot visually, but we also thought it was a fairly easy shot to get, and didn’t give the readers much beyond what they would have scene if they were there in the audience.

General_News
1st Denny Simmons
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This was a solid category. The first two shots were easy picks, the third grew on us. First place had the most interesting composition. The angle and content immediately caught our attention.

2nd Charlie Nye, The Indianapolis St
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Strong courtroom photography is a combination of being ready and having good luck. The photographer had both, and had the right position to boot to capture the emotional moment.

3rd Matt Detrich/The Indianapolis St
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The expressions on these women, plus the juxtaposition of the statue and flag made this a quirky photo that put some human context on a church fire news story.

Sports
1st | Cream of the Crop AJ Mast, Freelance
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We saw a lot of sports photos we liked in this category, which was the strongest in the contest. All of these photos were in contention until the end. But first place was unanimous — we all wish we had taken this shot. Right place, right time, right framing, right focus. Great action shot.

2nd Justin Rumbach, The Herald
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Though this was a practice shot, we are glad the photographer thought to take it. The clothing, the body language and the juxtaposition of the houses behind him just made it interesting to look at.

3rd Justin Rumbach, The Herald
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Similar comments to first place; another classic action shot, caught perfectly.

HM JOSEPH C. GARZA
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Nothing spectacular, but we really liked the body language of the runner.

HM Rob Goebel
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Silouhettes are still overdone, but this one worked and was visually
appealing.

HM Jeremy Hogan
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Looks a little back-focused and the background looks over-burned, but strong action nonetheless.

Spot_News
1st Denny Simmons
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We were surprised at how few entries there were in spot news, but the quality was strong. First place was a clear winner. A difficult photo to take because of the graphic nature of the scene. But this is life, and we need to photograph. We were interested as to whether it was published (we assume it had to be to be in the contest) and whether there was public reaction. This was the runner-up to the biking shot for cream of the crop.

2nd Rob Goebel
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There was nothing fancy to the composition here, but it read well as a tableau of destruction.

3rd Rodney A. Margison / Brown Count
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We see lot of fire shots, but the tall plume of fire here was pretty dramatic, and the context of the picnic table, etc.. gave it a sense of place.

Multiple
1st Matt Detrich/The Indianapolis Star
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This was another fairly weak category. We had hoped to see more medium or long-term photo stories on human, social issue oriented stories. Most of the entries were more photo packages than stories. First place was a very well shot essay on a news event, a church fire. Looks like the photographer worked really hard to get a variety of angles and content. We loved the shot of the broken church window with icycles; it probably would have placed in spot news.

2nd Joseph C. Garza, Tribune-Star
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This was the closest to a traditional project photographed over a period of time. Some really nice moments and the photographer seemed to blend in well, but we felt it was not as visually sophisticated and there was too much redundancy and an over-reliance on the prom.

3rd Charlie Nye, The Indianapolis St
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Like first place, this is more of a well-worked assignment than a true photo story. But there were some solid photos and it was well shot.

Cream of the Crop, 1st Place Sports

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Judges
Contest judged by staff of The Commercial Appeal:
Michael McMullan, David Darnell, Mark Weber, John Sale and Claude Jones.
We judge a few contest each year amongst the staff. This was one of the better ones.

Feature
1st Jim Rider
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Judges liked the spontaneous feel of this photo. It’s the kind of thing a shooter would just find while driving in search of a picture. Therefore it jumped out as one of the purest features of the bunch. From a visual aspect we liked the nice graphic nature of it.

2nd Chris Howell, The Herald-Times
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Judges liked that the photographer used the available light in a darkish situation to make an interesting picture and even capture the aura of the projection halo above the car. It was just a little more out of the ordinary from other entries.

3rd Joseph C. Garza, Tribune-Star
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This picture made us all laugh. So that’s why we chose it. Unlike the majority of the photos it elicited an emotion and a response from us. We did wonder if this was the funniest moment during the round of golf, but we still got a chuckle out of it.

HM Denny Simmons
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This was a different moment any shooter would like to come across on a feature hunt.
It has that pure feature find feel to it that we liked.

General_News
1st Joseph C. Garza, Tribune-Star
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There were several funeral and memorial images in this category. A few of widows clutching flags and things we’ve seen before. We always like to see different ways of covering assignments. This photo of just the hands reaching out to place flowers on the casket conveyed much about the story and did so with an image you wouldn’t expect to see.

2nd Jeri Reichanadter
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Just a nice quiet moment between family members as dad prepares for deployment to Iraq. We all felt the message here was between mother and child getting thru dad’s deployment together. Again a differnt image from an event we are seeing often in the news.

3rd Matt Detrich/The Indianapolis Star
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We like this for third because it was a quiet moment that conveyed strong emotion.
Not necessarily an unexpected moment, but a strong one.

S-Sports
1st Cream of the Crop Justin Rumbach, The Herald
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This picture pretty well summed up the event. Good effort capturing joy of victory and thoughful composition capturing the agony of defeat. We also chose this image as cream of the crop because if one photo out of all the entries had everything to it that made it special, this one did.

2nd Rob Goebel Indianapolis Star
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We like seeing different ways of looking at ordinary events. We felt photographer put on his artistic thinking cap to make this picture. We appreciated their effort with a second place.

3rd AJ Mast, Freelance
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A couple of us saw this event on TV when it happened. I guess we just thought it nicely captured a person’s joy. And the fact that person is a movie star whom you wouldn’t normally find standing out in a pouring rainstorm supporting a loved one made it even more unusual.

Spot_News
1st Jon L. Hendricks/The Times
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This was the smallest category. Judges thought this moment had good story telling quality. How often is it at a routine house fire where you see this going on and can put it all in the same frame.

2nd John Terhune, Journal & Courier
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Judges felt this photo sumed it up as well. In addition photographer had the luck of having the home owner wander into debris.

3rd Jon L. Hendricks/The Times
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A pure spot news moment in a shallow category. But still, of all the fires we’ve been to judges would all have liked to have come away with an image like this.

Multi
1st Matt Detrich/The Indianapolis Star
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Judges felt that all round this was just a good clean set of well done story telling photos. Perhaps the light was what gave it a different look, but the photographer certainly made good use of it with creative images. From the expression on the young girls face, to the reflection cast from a program to light an officer’s face, to the gloved honor guard at the rear door, all combined to make this a solid photo story.

2nd Denny Simmons
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Judges like this story because it was unique to the category and had a nice diverse selection of images to tell this boxer’s story. Could have maybe used a tighter edit on some of the family pix, but we expecially liked Ray and his young son boxing, and the ending photo after the fight was great.

3rd Chris Howell
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There were a couple of drive-in stories in this category that contains many similar images. Judges like this one over the other because photographer worked more using the darkness to his advantage and the story had more of a nighttime mood and feel. No doubt shooter overcame some technical obstacles in getting the images. We especially like the first one with two people huddled in the rear of their station wagon and the projection light glowign over the top of their car. A nice image.

Through March, including April and May entry points