Categories: Pictorial, Journalism, Creative, Nature

Judge Biography:
Dan is a long time photo judge with experience in local, regional, national, international competitions. He had been a professional fine art photographer specializing in large format work for large public space displays. His work is in the permanent collection of the National Park Service and of several large corporations including Kaiser Permanente. His images have appeared in national media and on book covers.
He has had the good fortune of being taught architectural, landscape, commercial tabletop and portrait photography by some excellent photographers.

Philosophy:
His judging philosophy starts with the idea that the primary focus of club judging should be on teaching. This starts with identifying what club members can learn from what is right with the image under discussion. A typical follow up is to offer ideas on how to take the image to the next level. Use of light and the emotional or storytelling aspects of an image should be discussed as much as composition. In cases where there are multiple technical faults with an image, he tries to focus on the one or two most important rather than enumerating all of the faults. This gives the beginning photographer a better chance to remember the comments and to put them in use the next time they are out photographing. Dan believes that photography is an artform that can be closely related to European painting and drawing and that the critique can be informed by appreciation of classical art.