How do you judge this?

On one day during the Festival I'd been photographing Sham, he'd just had one of his worst shows. I'd arrived at the point in his show were he was looking for a lighter to get his fire torches lit. I hurriedly passed up a lighter and he finished off his show.

He thanked me profusely for being there at just the right time. As we were chatting someone approached, passed Sham his details and told him about a competition of street performers he was organizing. Sham took the details, but said politely that it was not really something he would consider. He brought me into the conversation at this point, with as many years watching and photographing street performers how can you judge different types of show.

If one show is unicycle based, one is on a pole. Does the performer juggle or escape. How do you judge.

People have their favorite performers. But each performer is still different.

The Space Cowboy wildly entertaining, JP amazing skill and dexterity. Stickman flamboyant and totally dedicated. And everyone else out there way to numerous to mention.

Every performer top of their game, if they weren't they would have no audience watching them.

Competition is about how good one person is, on the High Street in my view everyone is No.1.