Who Am I to Judge?

"I know it's extremely short notice, but is there any chance you could step in? One of our judges can't make it up from London due to transport disruptions."

Dumfries and Galloway Fine Art Society (DAGFAS for short) launched it's 99th Summer Exhibition last Friday at Gracefield Arts Centre, but first they had to decide which of the submissions would be accepted.

This year, for the first time since it was founded over a century ago, they are accepting Photography (gasp!) into the exhibition.

Despite being widely accepted as an art form for over 120 years in the USA, here in the UK, it has only really been in the past couple of decades that there has been enough of a cultural shift for some of the more elite art establishments to start seeing it as anything more than a tool for documenting.

But even within DAGFAS, there were, apparently, voices of dissent at allowing this base medium to be given space on the walls.

To try and reassure, and hopefully bring round a few hardliners, earlier this year I was invited by the chair and the events coordinator to give a talk to DAGFAS about my creative photography and how it is very firmly rooted in artistic styles, influences and techniques.

I carefully selected my images, worked out the narrative arc of my presentation, and was well prepared for any questions (curious or hostile) that could be thrown at me.

8 people turned up for it, which included the chair, the events coordinator and 2 photographers.

In what must have been one of the strangest coincidences in the 104 year history of the society, every other member had some kind of family emergency or crisis or holiday or had completely forgotten they had accidentally double booked something that evening…

So when I was asked if I would step in at short notice to be one of the 3 judges for their Summer Exhibition, I have to admit there was a degree of hesitation before I agreed.

Once I gave it some thought, I understood there are people in DAGFAS who are genuinely trying to move the attitudes of some of their members into the 21st Century (or even 20th), and that by bringing me in as a judge added to the sense of legitimising photography as an art form.

Hopefully this would make it harder for those who would object to be the dominant voices, and make it easier for the creative photographers of the future to be a part of a fine art society if they wished.

The attitudes in some, though, may never shift.

Even on the day of the judging, when we stopped for lunch, I was sitting on the wall just outside the main entrance munching on my sandwich when one of artists who was helping out, happily declared to the person she was chatting with that she often used photography as part of her process (much like doing thumbnail sketches) to record objects, colours and ideas, but she would never dream of using it as a completed piece of art.

But it helped me realise I'd made the right decision.

The judging process itself felt quite intense. There was a huge variety of styles and media and we didn't have much time with each of the artworks before we had to make a decision.

Often my fellow judges - President of the society, Elizabeth Gilbey, and ceramic artist, Ruth Jones - and I were in complete agreement. Sometimes one of us felt quite differently to the others. Sometimes one of us would feel uncertain and defer to the opinions of the others.

But all of us struggled with rejecting works - knowing what it feels like to be on the receiving end.

There were far more entries than there were spaces, so not everything could be included - and that's why we were there - to make those decisions.

But how do you go about making a decision?

A while back I was asked to judge a camera club competition, and one of their management committee was proud to tell me that he had the perfect system for judging - “Would I hang it on my wall?” he said as though that really was all that counted.

But art and creativity are infinitely broader than one person's preference.

From still life to portraits to landscapes to abstract to sculpture - art comes in all genres, shapes, sizes and colours - and each piece is going to have those who see in it something they like, and those who are completely disinterested.

So judging isn't just about whether I would personally hang it on my wall - it has to be about how the artist has approached their work - their intention, their skill, their expression, their experimentation, regardless of my personal taste

And each piece is judged on a unique combination of these things - where one could be all about the colour combinations, another could be dominated by the texture, and yet another by an ethereal sense of being transported to another world.

When people send photos to my podcast for feedback and critique, my first thoughts are what is it they are trying to communicate, and how well have they succeeded?

Are there elements that distract us? Does our eye get immediately drawn to something other than the key subject? Do we find ourselves thinking about the fact it's focused in the wrong place rather than just being able to enjoy the story presented in the image?

If they have managed to express what they wanted in a way that didn't need “fixing”, then job done! But if there were things they could have done that would have improved the depth, strength or quality of communicating their narrative, then I can make suggestions on how they might have approached it differently, or changed the way they might have edited it to achieve those ends.

But when we were making our decisions our purpose was to decide whether it would be a good fit for the Summer Exhibition, and there was no opportunity to explain to a submitter why we might not have chosen their artwork for it.

And because that didn't feel comfortable, it ended up dominating most of the discussions between us. Frequently each of us felt we couldn't just say “no” and move on to the next piece - we felt we had to justify why we reluctantly had to say no.

One of the things it really did bring home to me was the reinforcement of the idea that just because your work might be rejected, doesn't mean it's bad.

Every selection has an agenda and a set of criteria - so if it doesn't fit in with those things then it doesn't get accepted.

The analogy is if you write a crime novel and then it gets rejected from a publisher who specialises in printing books about wildlife, then it doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad author and should give up writing forever.

Perhaps it seems obvious when you say it, but it doesn't always feel obvious when you're on the receiving end of the rejection.

So over the course of a few hours we viewed all the submissions and gave our verdicts.

We also had to offer our suggestions for the winners of particular categories, and I was pleased that in the landscape/seascape option, the 3 of us agreed that an award should go to a particularly beautiful, almost minimalist photo of haaf nets at low tide on the Solway coast.

Justification, if ever there was a need, for why photography should be accepted into the fine art society exhibition.

Although I'm in no doubt there will have been mutterings of disagreement from some.

If you are in Dumfries before it ends on 15th August 2026, I would recommend going along.

And if you see one that you would hang on your wall, then many of them are for sale.