CameraPro On The Couch with Darren Jew and Stephen Finkel

Darren Jew’s affinity for nature, wildlife and underwater photography has seen him build an outstanding professional career spanning over three decades. During that time, he has become a Canon Australia Master, Ambassador for Rainforest Rescue and six-time Australian Professional Nature Photographer of the Year. He has been a judge in many local and international competitions, including our own Explorer’s Grant. Stephen Finkel is a freelance photographer with a love of street and travel photography, a producer for several podcasts, and a Community Manager for the Canon Collective Facebook group. We recently welcomed Darren and Stephen back to the couch to discuss a joint project, the Clique Awards.

As a lifelong photography enthusiast, Stephen had an idea for the Canon Collective group to have an annual photographic competition that would provide genuine and constructive feedback for furthering participants’ photographic growth. Stephen knew Darren had a lot of experience in that space, so he shared his idea and together, they finessed the concept and came up with the Clique Awards. From Darren’s years of competition involvement, he knew that bringing rigour and transparency to the adjudication process would be essential in offering real value to all entrants.

Competitions can be a great way to test your photography skills against others, but they typically offer little in the form of helpful critique. A few entries win, most don’t, and there’s no indication as to why. With the Clique Awards, Stephen and Darren wanted to introduce a Report Card component that would give all entrants some feedback on each of their entries. The review stage is the first stage of the competition. Three highly experienced judges look at each picture and score it across six photographic pillars - Impact, Technique, Composition, Subject, Storytelling, and Innovation. Entrants receive a report card for each submission which shows how the image performed in each criterion, indicating areas for improvement, where they are achieving solidly, and where they are exceeding so they can apply this to further their photography development. 

“What I love about photography is that you never stop improving. And if anybody says they're at the top of their game, then that's a shame because it means they've lost the passion for sure. I hope to be taking better pictures until I physically can't take another picture. I don't want to be living on pictures that were taken 20 years ago.” - Darren Jew

Average scores are generated from the review stage and used to determine the shortlist of entries progressing to the judging stage. The second round becomes the competitive stage. A new set of judges are presented with the shortlist and appoint the winners of each category. Darren notes that stand-out images score well across all criteria and exceptionally in at least one of the pillars.

It can be particularly daunting for those new to photography to enter their work in competitions and go up against seasoned professionals. For this reason, the Clique Awards are split into two divisions: ‘Novice’ for photographers with less than two years of shooting experience and ‘Experienced’ for all other entrants. Through the first round, all images are scored the same way, with the judges unaware of the entrant’s experience level. In the second round, which is competing for category titles, submissions are separated into the appropriate group. This way, the playing field is levelled, and entrants will only contend against others of similar expertise for the prizes.

“It's blind judging, so the judges actually don't know who the photographer is. The report card is sent personally to the photographer, so it's not publicly seen. People have the ability to share that information if they want to share it or just stay completely in the shadows. I think that's good and gives people that comfort, so they don’t feel like they have to expose themselves.” - Stephen Finkel

For both the Novice and Experienced divisions, there is a Processed-Only stream and an Edited stream. Stephen and Darren recognise that some photographers prefer to minimise post-processing and present a photo that reflects the captured moment. Others enjoy flexing their editing skills to create the image they imagined when pressing the button; many like to do both, depending on the situation. 

For eligibility in the Process-Only stream, images must be single-capture photographs, with accepted processing alterations strictly limited to cropping, sharpening, noise reduction and removal of chromatic aberration, dust, and scratches. Globalised and localised adjustments are allowed for colour, saturation, tone, and contrast; essentially, nothing changes the moment's content or alters the photograph's authenticity. Categories in this stream include People, Places, Nature and Wildlife, and Action, which is a new category for this year based on entries and feedback from last year.

On the other hand, the Edited stream accepts photos with any of the adjustments allowed in the Process-Only stream but also includes composite and stacked images and those that have had elements added, such as skies or distracting features removed. Categories for the Edited stream include Plants and Animals, and Scapes.

‘For the first couple of years, we're not limiting how old pictures can be … as time goes on, we would like to evolve into a contemporary photography competition with pictures that have been shot in the last couple of years. Once that starts to happen, what you'll start to see is this year's winners become next year's runners-up. Because there's always this evolution of improvement and the way to get better is to be original and improve technique.” - Darren Jew

Of course, scene interpretation is subjective, so selecting the most appropriate category to enter can be challenging. A photograph of a show jumper could easily be classed as an Action image or a People image. Stephen and Darren offer some insight to help select the most appropriate category. If the image is a relatively tight shot, emphasising human emotion, it will lend itself more to the People category. However, if the photo is wider and more about horse jumping, it’s probably a better fit for the Action category.