Canteen Magazine's Naked Judging

We were delighted and honored to be asked to judge the first round of Canteen Magazine's Naked Judging Photo Contest. The live judging with Brooklyn Museum's Arnold Lehman, curator Susan Bright, photographer Amy Stein and moderator/photographer Anthony Goicolea is tomorrow night and free and open to the public. If you've ever wanted to know what goes down behind the scenes, this is your best bet!

Also, judging comments for all entries have been published on Canteen's site. The Lenscratch blog has responses from both judges and entrants that didn't make the first round.

Some insight on our first judging experience :

Can anyone really answer what makes a great photograph? It’s all relative to personal experience and preference. One can argue that trends in art can influence how one views work, whether it be a photograph or an object. And therein lies the seemingly ongoing debate of photography’s justification as art. A photograph is not an object, at least not in the same way as a painting or a sculpture. It has reproductive and very democratic values. While we do not wholeheartedly agree with Walter Benjamin’s theory of the “aura” of a work, and its absence in a reproduction, we did however search for that “aura” when deciding what a great photograph was, for us.

So to try and answer our own question in relation to judging a photo contest, we were simply offering up our opinions based on our experiential knowledge of the medium of photography, both with our frustrations and utmost admiration for it, and hope those who have entered work can walk away with something, whether it’s advice--take it or leave it--or insight that may be completely personal and socially or politically biased. Lifting the veil of what happens is important, transparency prevails. Although I’m not sure they can fully experience all the coffee and food we went through while conducting these judging rounds. As image makers, what does a photograph mean to you, and how much has that changed for you in the last 10, 15, 20 years?

Canteen's Naked Judging Exposed - Live!
Thursday, 21FEB, 7pm
NYU-Polytechnic Auditorium
5 Metro Tech Center
Brooklyn, NY
Please RSVP