Role of the Judge
I view the first and foremost role of a judge to be an educator.
- For novices, the educational experience will hopefully be an increased awareness of the basic issues that comprise good photography.
- For advanced photographers, the educational experience will be to further their understanding of how others (who perhaps are peers) view their work, as opposed to learning the basics.
Criteria for Judging
My views on this have evolved. I now look for the four things that make a great photograph:
- Great subject (or feeling you get from an abstract)
- Great light
- Great composition
- Great colors (or tonal range in black and white photos)
All four must be present for the photo to really shine. And I look for the photo to have avoided a long list of detractors, such as having a white sky, being out of focus, having a distracting background.
Biography
Roy Sewall is one of the leading photographers of the Potomac River and Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal. Although Roy spent most of his youth in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines, his State Department family’s home base was the Washington, D.C., area. Roy has a BS in Physics from Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland and a MS in Engineering Science from Penn State. He returned permanently to the Washington area in 1969 and worked for several major technology corporations for over 30 years.
Roy’s interest in photography evolved from extensive travel in six continents. In 2001, he started his transition to full-time photographer. He always found the Washington area to be one of the most photogenic locations in the world. Roy’s first photography book, Our Potomac, from Great Falls through Washington, D.C., was published in 2005; it was inspired by his affection for hiking and bicycling along the river and the adjacent C&O Canal. The book has led to numerous lecture and slide show engagements with local organizations.
In 2007, Roy became the first Chair of the Board of Directors for the C&O Canal Trust, a non-profit friends group for the National Park Service. Roy has done extensive photography work for river- and C&O Canal-related government and non-profit organizations, as well as private and commercial clients.
Roy’s second book, Great Falls and Mather Gorge, was published in 2009. In addition, he was a guest on WETA’s TV program Great Views of Washington D.C., the lead photographer in the Best of D.C. 2009 publication, in a feature article in the 2009/2010 Where Guestbook, Washington, D.C., and the lead still photographer in The Nature Conservancy’s 2011 video The Potomac Gorge.
After completing Great Falls and Mather Gorge, Roy turned to the creation of large fine art prints. He has developed diverse bodies of work for exhibitions that include mystery/fantasy, nature, unusual foreign and domestic sites, historical re-enactment, old steam locomotives, and church organ pipes.
More recently, Roy has been providing both group and private instruction to local photography enthusiasts.
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