Well, how many soft focus images are in the PEG? So that doesn't seem to figure in at all.
More seriously:
Seems I have missed an interesting discussion here. I like the idea of a formalized set of criteria as suggested by Tess. The deliberately defocussed moody piece would still have the focus 'right' (we have to assume that the judges are able to recognize that).
But all that feedback on submissions could be solved by the users. How's about a separate thread 'Brutally honest critique of PEG rejections'? If you are not up for brutal honesty then don't submit there and if you do all the other members should try their hardest to find fault with the image and write it down. It might have been the original intention of this thread.
I'm a member of a small group of people that are doing exactly that (and some of you know well what I'm referring to). I submit what at the time I think is a wonderful image and it gets torn to shreds (a little exaggeration here) in many cases. If I look back at the criticism after some weeks or months I easily can see the points that have been made (in most cases
). That way I can improve this picture (in PP) or the next one keeping the mute points in mind when shooting similar things) and thus also improve my level of photography.
It only works well when all parties have a mutual respect for their photography and take the criticism as criticism of that piece of work rather than criticism on them as a person.
The second precondition (and a hard one to meet) is that there are sufficient numbers of people taking the time to look at an image in depth and voice their opinion on what is wrong with it. So you have to spend some time looking on other peoples images and think and write about it. Time that could be spent taking photos...
I'm one of the regular whiners here about rejections but I do appreciate that the judges have the final say about what images are accepted. It would be nice if the feedback could be a bit more coherent (and a formal appraisal would help with that) but if the judges are not able to do that we can do it ourselves.
Having said that, if the judges are not able to do it then it probably doesn't make sense to interpret anything into their decisions or comments, it would just show that they don't have enough time for a proper appraisal (and I got very swift rejections in some cases). I would understand that but it would mean that the PEG is not what it says on the label...
Prieni