Photo Series

The jury is assembled by Stockholm Fotomaraton and consists of people with extensive knowledge, creativity, and a feel for visual storytelling.

The main task of the jury is to review all photo series and identify the photographer who performed best with all their images throughout Stockholm Fotomaraton.

The Process

The jury evaluates the photo series on printed contact sheets, where each contact sheet displays all of a participant’s images.

Step 1
The jury begins by receiving a stack of contact sheets along with a sheet of gold stars. They then go through their stack, placing a gold star on the ones they want to advance to the next phase, or passing the sheets along if they feel they don’t qualify for the next step.
All contact sheets that receive a gold star are pulled from the stack and set aside, while those that were not given a gold star are passed on to the next jury member. This process continues until every member of the jury has seen all of the contact sheets.

Step 2
All sheets that have not received a gold star are now removed, and the same procedure is repeated with the sheets that did receive a gold star. Jury members are now given only 5 gold stars each to award, which means that after Step 2, we are down to a top 25.
During this step, the jury typically goes through their stack, keeping the sheets they like and passing the rest on to the next person. Each jury member nominates at their own pace, going through all the sheets individually until they have each selected their top 5.
All sheets that do not receive a new gold star are then eliminated.

Step 3
We now lay out all 25 remaining sheets on a long table and the jury walks around to view all the photo series. Each jury member notes down their favourites, after which the group goes through the sheets one by one to nominate a top 10. Some discussion typically arises, but the jury ultimately determines which entries will receive a third gold star and become this year’s top 10 in Stockholm Fotomaraton.

Step 4
Now it’s time to choose the winner!
We lay out the remaining 10 sheets on the table, and the jury begins discussing among themselves to determine the top three of this year’s Stockholm Fotomaraton.
There are usually many discussions and sheets being moved back and forth before the jury settles on which photo series will make up the top 3. First, second, and third place are decided by the jury.

Jury Work for Themes

Each theme is judged by a separate jury comprising a mix of people from different backgrounds and with varying areas of expertise. In some cases, a partner organisation may appoint a subject matter expert to evaluate a theme, while in others, Stockholm Fotomaraton’s leadership selects someone they feel is well-suited for the task.

The goal of this is to create as diverse an assessment as possible across the different themes, allowing us to recognise a wide range of visual styles and photographers.
The individual themes are judged digitally, with images reviewed individually on screen.