I don't get too bound up over how well they followed the subject. I try to give them some leeway as to how they interpreted the assignment. If they can convince me that they thought outside the box, as opposed to doing as they darn well pleased, so much the better.
I also don't get real wound up on rules of thirds, etc. Rules were made to be broken. Show me something new, not a textbook perfect picture. (When was the last time you read a textbook for fun?)
That being said, I start with a 5. 1-10, 5 is average. I don't weight one criteria over the other. So a strong original take can get higher than a 5, even though it may have technical problems. Usually I make three passes through all the pictures. The first pass is to find those that stand out at either end of the scale. The second, is to go through all the fives and take a second look to see if I missed something that should be a bit higher or lower. And finally I take a second close look near the end of the week at both ends of the scale to see if the ones I thought were so great are still holding up, and if the ones I hated weren't perhaps due to feelings at the time. |
