Due to conflicts with class schedule and unfortunately having to leave town for a wedding in Chicago, I was unable to attend the picture story or multimedia categories. I was extremely bummed to miss out on those categories and had such a busy week that I rarely made it to CPOY outside of class time, sad. With that being said, I did get to witness a majority of the feature and sports feature categories, which were awesome! I truly enjoyed Genaro’s separation between photo stories and photo essays. He said that photo stories are like writing short stories and photo essays are like novels. He also made a funny comment about a collection of photos being like a family. Some photos you love and our attached to and others you want to send away to boarding school. The judges worked quickly but I loved their interaction with us, it felt sincere and was truly useful. Another moment of interesting discussion was over the quinceañera photograph. It was nice to hear a discussion about what makes a photograph a feature and what makes it a portrait. I often can get the two confused when a feature is simply a photo of someone doing something. Additionally, I like the discussion over the garage concert photo. They really took the time to recognize the strengths of the photo. They dissected what made it work and even though it was different than other features it spoke to them. Finally, I really enjoyed Adriana’s ability to make the room feel small and connect with everyone. At one point she even came over to chat one on one about my skateboarding project and reaffirmed that it was a story that was worth doing and had value. I can honestly say that even though I didn’t get to view as many sections as I would have liked to, that the judges this year may have been my favorite yet!