Yes, judging in general is very personal. I judge visual arts for a pageantry circuit locally so am in tune with how *we* do it, and those individuals involved with adjudication. We are experts in our field, and I would expect no less from a contest ran by a reputable organization in our visual medium. Criteria is key, and any contest on the up-and-up would have such for the judges to use
as a base for their commentary. But, realistically, judges are human and subject to their experience when looking at *anything* much less ranking something esoteric like photos. I like to think most, if not all, adjudicators have a sense of responsibility toward their task and are serious about their judgment(s)...and I think that's all you can ask for. But an advantage would be to know what the criteria is any given event, neh? In our marching band shows tailoring our shows to the judges criteria (AKA "writing to the sheets") is bottom line...if you don't it becomes even more of a dice shoot.

Thank you for the additional comments. It appears no matter how factual our responses might be without disparaging these guys it is a waste of our time. Dennis and Rac seem to just standby and wait all day to try to bully their way through facts. It is their way, or the highway. If you disagree, you have to be a liberal. Most of us I would think have better things to do than sit on your butt and throw verbal stones at others.

The sad thing here is that I've previously posted that 70% of Americans don't want either Trump or Biden - I'm one of them. I think both are too old and have too much baggage. I was an executive before I retired and had indirect contact with both of them. Biden is a typical blowhard politician, who road the train from Wilmington to Washington daily - colleagues advised he was full of it then and still is.

But I dealt with Trump through clients when he was in Atlantic City and knew of him when he was in NY. He was and is an immoral, self-entitled person that will go down in history as one of the worst, if not the worst, President in our nation's history. He is, at his heart a salesman, selling "his brand." He is the worse kind though, unable or unwilling to accept his mistakes and blunders - he cannot tell anyone bad news, if he does, it is someone else's fault. I dealt with guys like him at a senior level for 40+ years and had generally had the task of straightening out the wake of destruction they left behind. Unfortunately, if elected again, we will see an unprecedented screw up of this nation.

What is sad is that all of Trump's supporters that support his agenda don't realize is that behind their backs, Trump is laughing at the "suckers" who believe his line of BS. General Kelly's remarks that "President Trump “is the most flawed person he's ever known," should give anyone paused. He worked with Trump daily.

My 2cents - I'm sure that the misguided, ill educated, ill informed and ill mannered duo will continue their rants - we should just consider the source. For the rest of you have a good day - I have work to do.