Because of the restrictions placed upon us as a result of the Covid-19 virus, the Topshot competition this year was run as a digital competition, judged remotely by Judges from different areas in Australia. The entries in the different sections were compiled and distributed to the Judges who scored them remotely. The scores from the 3 judges in each section were then added together to get an overall score for each image. Once this was done the Judges for each section met together via a Zoom meeting to select the overall winners from the top scoring images.

 Because the judging was not done in a central location, which has occurred in the past, the Committee as a whole was not able to vet the entries to confirm that all the images complied with the definitions for the sections for which they were entered,  before judging.

When the online Topshot presentation was shown on Sunday the 14th of June, there were many questions about whether some of the entries, entered in the Australian Landscape section, that received acceptances or better, complied with the definition listed on the FCC Topshot Entry website for that section.

The definition for AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE that is listed is as follows, “A photograph of a NATURAL landscape or coastal scenery which may include people, buildings or other objects, provided that these elements do not dominate the photograph. Seascapes with no land do not fit this section.

After receiving a number of emails and communications on this matter, the FCC Committee convened an extraordinary committee meeting on Thursday night the 18th of June, to consider these concerns. As a result a number of images that received acceptances or better have been rescored.

The reasons that these images were rescored was that,–

  1. The landscape was not an Australian landscapes, but was a landscape or features in another county.
  2. The subjects were Cityscapes/ urbanscapes, and not NATURAL landscapes
  3. The image had a building, man-made structure, or people as the dominant feature in the image.

Because of the unusual circumstances under which the Topshot Competition was judged, I hope that the Topshot entrants affected understand that this action was necessary, and we apologise for any disappointment that this may have caused.

These decisions were made and approved by all Committee Members, and no correspondence will be entered into.

The Topshot results are now being published on the Topshot Entry Website.

Kerry Boytell
President
Federation of Camera Clubs (NSW)