It is that time of year again… time for the Pictures of the Year International (POYi) judging. Once again, I am a coordinator for the contest and I will be spending the next three weeks in a very dark room watching some of the best photos in the world flash before my eyes. This year, we have moved the judging to the swanky, new, and very modern Fred W. Smith Auditorium. It’s nice, but I will always miss the old Tucker Auditorium where we have had the judging since the late 70’s / early 80’s. I probably won’t be blogging much as I will be spending most of my time at POYi. But, here are a couple of pictures from the first week of judging…
If you want to get in on the judging, you can watch it from anywhere in the world via our live judging link! And, you can see the winners which are updated daily on our website www.POYi.org
POYi director Rick Shaw (white shirt) prepares the judges for another round of judging. This will be my view for the next 3 weeks…
It takes 5 computers to run the Pictures of the Year judging process– 1 computer to run the slide show, 1 computer to mark the votes, 1 computer for the caption reader, 1 for moderating the live viewing online, and 1 for the In/Out machine.
This little box decides the fate of tens of thousands of photos every year. Originally designed in the 1970’s, the voting machine received a complete makeover this year. But, we kept the very non-ergometric design. I think these things could have launched nuclear missiles in the cold war…
Left to Right, week 1 judges Scott Strazzante (Chicago Tribune), Kathy Anderson (formerly New Orleans Times-Picayune, now freelance), Scott Mc Kiernan (founder ZUMA Press), and Pedro Ugarte (Agence France-Presse) do the “cool band” pose in the lobby of the Reynolds Journalism Institute.
Chicago Tribune photographer Scott Strazzante bathes himself in brilliant golden hour light during a break in the judging as ZUMA Press founder Scott Mc Kiernan adds an award-winning silhouette.
