The judging took place in two stages:

Stage 1

The ultimate use of the winning entries is book publication and associated licensed products. For that reason, the panel for Stage 1 was made up of two highly experienced international book publishers, Geoff Blackwell (CEO and Publisher of  PQ Blackwell) and Ruth Hobday (Editor in Chief of PQ Blackwell), together with photo editor and historian, Don Neely and independent photographer Jacqui Blanchard. They reviewed all entries against the judging criteria for the competition in order to select those that move forward to stage 2.

The judges sought outstanding images that captured authentic, spontaneous and humorous moments shared between friends, families and lovers around the world. The judges selected images on the basis of the following:

• Images that celebrated friendship, family and love.
• Images that told stories and conveyed real emotion.
• Images that evoked a humorous response.
• Technical quality.

Stage 2

The Chief Judge, Elliott Erwitt, selected the Grand Prize-winner from the 150 images chosen by the panel in Stage 1.