But there are only 99 slots available for viewing at a time. You can believe I'll be dropping in whenever possible, and dropping a comment or two as things progress, which is almost as much fun as listening to and seeing the judging.

Fingers are crossed for the people I helped edit entries.

See you there.

And World Press judging is going on. You can hear comments by the panel chairs about the first round of judging last week here.

Gerd Ludwig talks at Syracuse University and Brenda Ann Kennealy talks at RIT.

Gerd came to Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communication - which happens to be where my wife teaches interactive design - and showed a compelling selection of his work from the land that once was the Soviet Union. Gerd and I worked on two stories together at National Geographic. We got to catch up.

Brenda gave a talk at Rochester Institute of Technology just last night, showing a broad swath of her work, talking about what motivates her and more. Her work is a jigsaw of a myriad of complex relationships. Our paths have crossed several times, the best time was to teach a workshop in The Dominican Republic that was created by Lelen Robert and Loup Langton.

Proximity to New York and Washington, D.C. is a bonus to living in Syracuse. Here's to friends.

By X factor, I’m taking the meaning to be a superb photograph. Knowing when a picture is phenomenal is tough, especially if you made it and you’re using non-standard processing.

Photographers definitely don’t accurately perceive the quality of their work consistently enough to use that as a measure of quality. Some photographers put forth mediocre work as if it were God’s gift to the planet; other photographers sheepishly offer amazing photographs.

I’ve found that offering a neutral impression of your work is most effective, when you’re dealing with editors. Don’t put it down or elevate it beyond what’s there. Saying: “It is what it is, I’ll be eager to hear what you think,” is what I like to hear. That way it doesn’t set me up to expect a lot or a little; I can come to the work with fresh impressions.

But that doesn’t help determine when a photo is great. You would think that if the color, light, moment and composition are all exceptional, then the photo should be great, especially if the subject matter is engaging. But if there is limited perception/impression on the photographer’s part and the photographer didn’t set out to do more than make those four things work, then it still wouldn’t be a great photograph.

I do know that when a variety of people are choosing from a set of pictures - such as judging a contest - the top image in a group rises to the top universally, or nearly so. In other words, in a contest setting, the first place image is the easiest to agree upon, while third brings the most argument. So there must be universal aspects to successful photographs.

Some people say great photography is like pornography: You know it when you see it.

Maybe you could ask a series of questions about a given photograph: Do I feel something from it, does my eye travel from point to point of the frame down to the smallest of elements that still engages somehow, do those four aspects work, would I hang this on my wall, do I care about what was photographed because of the way the photograph was made.

And maybe you could ask a bunch of people. I used to that in publishing environments. It’s also educational to see which pictures people respond to and to learn what draws a response.

I see that there’s now software to determine which are the best pictures in a set of similar images. How helpful. If only it worked. Rather, thank God it doesn’t work.

A poobah at the White House once told me to never make a major decision quickly. Time does help determine if a photograph has that magical quality. Removing the emotional layer connected to the making of a picture and the significance you might see that others don’t gets easier over time. But who can wait 20 years.

A bunch of people send me pictures asking if I think they’re good. That’s another option.

Silly reaction, no?

Then I got to thinking: Wouldn’t it be nice if there were universal agreement about how much post production application to images is acceptable, especially as it applies to contest entries?

That’s like saying, wouldn’t it be nice if we all agreed about who makes the best car? There are people who don’t think we should be driving cars, those who are emphatic about a particular brand being the best, others who are oblivious of the nuance of cars and yet others who could care less what they drive, as long as it drives.

And so it is with post production of images. Some people think there’s a line in the sand that can’t be crossed, others don’t see the line, others think there shouldn’t be a line and others yet think the line swerves here and there depending on where you cross it.

There are so many layers to the issue that it’s like trying to hold a swarm of worms in your hands when all you want to do is put one worm on a hook and go fish.

Those in the art and commercial and advertising worlds must think this a paltry, pointless discussion. And yet, even in those worlds, the further the path strays from some form of reality, the less likely the message falls on willing ears.

The core principles in the story telling realm seem to be tied to the notion of altering physical reality, falsifying the truth, presenting a situation not as it appeared to be.

But these days, most debate noise comes from adjustment of images and it’s a negative action mostly if the adjustment happens after the image was made. I’ve heard many an argument against instagram and hipstamatic images from the iPhone because they alter saturation, shadow density, exposure and such things after the image was made. It is post production and therefore changes the real image. That argument is absurd.

The core determinant, for me, is whether objects were moved, people’s faces were changed, images were combined in a way that altered what anyone would have seen in the setting, or if things were removed from the frame. The Washington Post has run a few HDR images of scenes, which by their nature combine multiple exposures into one frame to get a higher range of detail than cameras can now record. I’m ok with HDR.

The degree to which people get pissed off about this issue is astounding. It’s as if clinging to an extreme set of rules that say never do this/always do that somehow elevates their work and protects them from innovation and evolution. Having rules in photography is like trying to rigidly control traffic in a Rome traffic circle.

I’d rather follow principles than rules. Forget rules such as: You cannot alter the saturation beyond 5 percent of the original capture; you can’t put frames around photos, their is no post production allowed that presents an extreme of the actual setting.

Instead, follow guidelines or principles and practices that seek to accurately reflect your impression of what you’ve photographed. That impression is ideally formed through your connection with and understanding of the subject. The goal is to elicit responses from photographs that convey a quality of the subject photographed.

There isn’t a set of rules that could contain the breadth of what’s possible in the photographic medium. So why put them out there, except at the extreme end of what happens - adding elements that were not in the scene, changing the physical structure of elements.

Then it’s up to the individual setting to determine if a given set of photos is appropriately handled. If that’s a scary proposition, then loosen your sphincter.

I'd never met her but her pictures touched me in an unexpted way. During her travels to produce "In America", Eve Arnold stopped in Craig, Nebraska, which happened to be holding its annual town picnic that day. Two photos from the picnic are in the book. The pictures show people that I once knew.

Craig was then a town of about 250 people. It's where my parents grew up and 7 miles from where I grew up, in a much larger town of 1,800. My uncle and two cousins still farm in the Craig area. 

I bought Eve's book a long time ago, early in my photographic life, not knowing that she had been to Craig. Turning the pages for the first time and landing on the photos from Craig was like getting a present from the past. It made me remember the outfits my mom would make for us to wear in the Craig Picnic Parade. My favorite was when my brother, sister and I dressed as pioneers and our red wagon became a Conestoga. Memories.

Some people in Craig told me a few years ago that they still remembered the famous photographer who passed through so long ago.

That's one of the powers of photography, I guess: To create connections and enliven the past. Thank you Eve Arnold.

And to you all I wish a prosperous year, an ever expanding eye, mind and heart.

Retro/vintage iPhone photo apps - why does a wrong color palate make crappy photos look "interesting"?

Let’s see. Factors involved:

• Photography is a gizmo-driven enterprise. And a lot of us like the gizmo layer of the profession. So along comes a new gizmo to spit out pictures, why not use it. The assumption being that different/new is interesting.

• The business is crowded so we all strive to be perceived as unique. Using a new technique helps in that pursuit, unless it’s a bandwagon everyone rides. Style as a pull down menu doesn’t go far, especially if there’s no substance to the resulting pictures.

• There’s a nostalgic feel to those pictures. Most of us are nostalgic, if we have some years behind us, and the younger set may be latching onto the retro feel, without having experienced it the first time around. Either way, these pictures can trigger a favorable emotion because they connect to pictures from the past.

But are the pictures interesting? I’ll speak to that after the next quesiton.

Film grain emulation software - is it really honest to make a digital photo look like it was made on an analog camera loaded with Ilford Delta 400? And why is digital grain so badly considered? Is it really an aesthetic issue or people unconsciously associate it with low sensor performance, hence the negative impression?

On making digital images look like they were made with film, same response as the first question. And, I’d add, yes, it’s honest. Unless it’s dishonest to convert a raw file to black and white or any other manner of change that doesn’t involve changing the physical elements of a scene - if you practice reality based photography.

About digital grain, I think the pursuit for the past 20 years has been to get digital cameras to be as good as film cameras. And now the goal is to produce cameras that see as the eye sees, or better. The early digital cameras were so “grainy” that their image quality was perceived as being inadequate. I’m guessing that there is latent perception from those days.

I find digital grain to be no more, or less, offensive than film grain. There was something lovely about Tri-x processed at 3200 and ISO 128,000 images out of a digital camera can be captivating. Or not.

And that last sentiment is the rub in all of this. Techniques applied alone don’t make pictures interesting, compelling, engaging, or anything beyond an expression of the technique. There has to be intent on the photographer’s part to say something, there has to be depth of seeing and complexity of compositional approach, at least, for a photograph to go beyond technique, regardless of the mechanics of the image making.

It’s also ironic that at a time when we can use gizmos that are more sophisticated than they’ve ever been, the trend is backward, to making images that have an old feel to them, either by using digital imprinting or by reverting to old cameras and techniques.

A French philosopher posited that it is on the verge of great change that we most look backward - change such as the iron age and the renaissance. Stay tuned.

Does it make sense that one of the primary things that keeps people modest is the fear of failure? There are other factors, for sure. But if we don’t put ourselves out there, we won’t get rejected, nobody will say no. It’s a safe stance, one that I fully understand.

Ironically, failure is the best teacher and an important element on the path forward. We can certainly learn from successes but without failures now and then, we won’t know the other extreme of how things work.

Getting over this fear is not easy. And maybe that’s not the goal anyway. The fear will likely always be there, and it can be a motivating factor. You can take steps to overcome the symptoms, though. Inaction is the most prominent symptom. 

Action, then, would be the solution, the path forward. Do things to get the word out about how amazing you are, like spreading a scent.

Start by creating a community of friends where you are, if you don’t have one, expanding it if you do. Learn about the photography resources in your town: Is ASMP/NPPA/PPA/PSP strong and who runs that, is there a museum with a photography curator and group you can join, are there galleries that support photography, who are the strongest photographers in town, what educational settings are there, who teaches, where can you rent gear and who runs that, who retired to your town who may be great to know? And on and on.

Then there’s the process of getting your work out there. It would be a mistake to try and tap the top tier of your market, or one that is way beyond where you are right now. But if you don’t stretch, you won’t know what your level is. So try and show your work to people you think you should be working for, but aren’t. Do it slowly, one person at a time. And learn from each encounter. Watch how people look at your work, if you get a chance to present it in person. See which pictures they rush by and on which they linger. Ask them questions about their needs and appear to be a person who could help them meet those needs. Speak well of your work but don’t either put it down or bloat it. Tell them what matters to you and hope that it matches what matters to them. You’ll know if you’ve done your research about who they are and what their organization/company/publication is about.

Then there’s the matter of improving your work. Set out to replace or expand something in your portfolio every week. Know where the weaknesses are, and the strengths. Learn a new skill, see a new way, try to say something you haven’t said with a photograph, go somewhere you’ve never been and see the trodden path in a new way.

If a week has gone by and you haven’t met someone new, put your work out there in a new way or made a picture you wouldn’t have a week ago, then get to work.

Yet, an astounding ego can propel meager work to greater heights, while too humble a self impression can prevent work from achieving its potential. Quandary.

Do you have a sense of where you fall in this spectrum? Probably not. Giant egos self-inflate, modest folks don’t have a pump. And like vampires, neither archetype can see him or her self in a mirror. 

You probably fall somewhere in between the walking ego and the modest shadow. After all, there can only be so many giant egos on the planet, otherwise it would implode. So if the extremes of self impression are not driving your opinion of your work, how do you know if you’re any good?

If you’re getting work that you enjoy, have a job making pictures that you don’t hate, at least place in some reputable contests, your latest project landed a gallery show or publisher, then that’s one set of measures, and by golly, pat yourself on the back.

But what if the work you’re getting isn’t what you’d really like to be doing and most of the assignments at your job are demeaning and you never even place in contests you enter, your projects don’t get shows or published? And what if you don’t seem to be able to change any of the negative stuff?

Maybe you aren’t that good at making pictures. Maybe you should be doing something else for a living.

But, wait. If Bill Clinton can define what sex is, maybe you can define what good is, to you. I’m not saying that you should lower the bar to make yourself feel better about your work, though that’s a well worn path.  Pointing out the ineptitude of those who reject you is another path: “Those judges sucked; my boss has no clue; that publisher doesn’t know diddle.” If you hear yourself blaming things outside of yourself for your lack of success/unhappiness, chances are it’s your lacking - you may well suck.

Even within the most horrid of situations, it’s possible to produce rewarding (good) work, if you’re disciplined about it.

So what is good? To you?

Having a fabulous job and winning contests and all that stuff is great. No question. A different set of measures of good is whether the work you do makes a difference, whether you can say one day to the next that you learned something new, whether the photographs that you make give you a better sense of who you are and of who the people around you are, whether you stop time and leave a trail of visual bread crumbs of your life. In other words, don’t expect people outside of you to validate your work as the only measure of its value.

If you can make a living from making pictures, that’s a gift from high - even if the circumstance or pictures suck. If you can’t find reward in that setting, then create a setting where you can.

But don’t fool yourself either.

Conflict will come if you try to compare your work to the greats, the best out there, when it really doesn’t play in that ballpark.