Thoughts on photo competitions
I’ve learned something this week.
It’s that trying to organise a “fun, family friendly, inclusive photo competition” aimed at allowing people who take holiday snaps to join in along side those who shoot with honking great DSLRs – it’s that those with the DSLRs have an astounding capacity to be jerks about it.
The rules of the game started off as:
- Deadline is 1pm Saturday
- Photos must be taken this week, and of the festival (daytrips to the seaside don’t count)
- One entry per person
- No photoshopping
That last rule was put in because not everyone has a laptop with them, let alone the skills or inclination to drive photoshop. It’s essentially an attempt to level the playing field and allow everyone to take part. It’s also been the bane of my week.
It started off as “That’s ok, I use GIMP” – so it was changed to “no post processing” – this was the worst thing I could have done. I’ve spent all week having the same discussions with every bugger who shoots RAW. I’m fed up with them asking “what am I allowed to do when converting raw to jpeg?” I started off trying to answer these questions, “whitebalance is allowed, exposure tweaks aren’t, sharpening and noise removal are not, cropping and straightening is right out” but last night, one shooter in particular (who it turns out, is not even intending to enter) wound me right up.
It started as your average “does converting to jpg count as post processing” progressed through some “cloning should be allowed so I can eliminate dead pixels” and turned into “your rules are completely arbitrary, you should be using the set of rules that my favourite photo competition website uses as they’re clearly much better”
It’s rare that after 10 days of chilling out in a field I get so steamed up about something that I need to take some time out, but I walked off site for two and a bit hours, and walked for 7.5 miles down country lanes in the dark.
It took 2 and a bit hours of stomping along in the dark for me to come to the conclusion that what I’d experienced is a fundamental difference in approach to photography.
For me, a photo is about capturing a moment in time, a subject, a feeling. It’s about composition, timing, and emotion. It’s about what you point the camera at and when you press the button. For some, it’s about the technology, the toys, the gadgets, making each pixel technically perfect, ironing out any percieved imperfection carefully and methodically.
So, the Bungay Photo Competition will be going ahead tonight, we’ve had 6 entries so far and half the site aren’t even awake yet – but if it happens again next year, I’m having nothing to do with it.
Hehee.
Now I don’t feel so bad for not being able to come. I wouldn’t have thought that Bungayers would be like that. I’d have guessed that in a relaxed (?) competition it would be clear enough what “no post processing” means.
If “that’s ok, I use Gimp” wasn’t a joke, and it was someone I know, please feel free to slap him/her for me.
I guess you didn’t get my postcard? I realised that I sent it too late (on Tuesday), and Thursday was a holiday here.
How about: RAW conversions must be performed with Auto or Default set.
haha, field full of buttercups — good
field full of buttercups and several members of one of the most pedantic and obsessive groups of people still allowed to roam in society — less good
( hmm, now I’m not sure whether I mean jugglers or photographers either )
@Jani – we did get your postcard, thanks! It raised several smiles :-)
You were too nice. I’d have disallowed RAW and told everyone to shoot jpg format. Anyone who can’t handle that on an SLR can borrow my point and shoot. :)
Hehe, good.
Update: He did end up submitting a photo, and as I was putting the entries out on display, he came back for another moan. He seemed to think that it didn’t look on print like it had on screen, and accused me of butchering his image by cutting bits off. I explained that all I’d done was give his image to the chemists, and ask them to print it at 8×6, the same as I did with everyone elses photo. If they’d cropped it in doing so, that’s not really under my control.
Of course, this was wrong of me too, as the rules hadn’t specified that all images were to be in 8×6 format (although I had told him previously that I was going to print them out in the chemists, which should have been a clue that it would either be 6×4, 8×6 or 10×8) and that this was outragious! I really wasn’t in the mood for this, and told him (quite strongly) to f$@! off and stop picking holes in the rules.
I will admit I was pleased that he didn’t win the audience vote (His subject matter, exposure and focusing were good, but I didn’t like his composition – it naturally drew the eye to an unfocused area of the image which meant it had no impact on me as a viewer.)
It was a draw in the end, and both winners were “point and shoot” photographers with popular subject matter and pleasing composition. The downside of a draw being that they had to share the trophy, King Solomon style. I really wish I’d got a picture of the trophy first. It was beautiful. Or at least as beautiful as a disposable camera spray painted gold and glued to a candlestick can be!
Oh, and I checked his exif data. Why are the dick waving know it all gear heads always canon shooters? ;-)
Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get my head into photo taking mode all week (creative energy directed elsewhere) , but I liked the idea of the competition.
Anyone who didn’t appreciate how much work you put into it and moaned about the rules should feel free to step in next year and run it with whatever rules they wish. I suspect that they won’t though.
I feel like I should say something in defense of Canon shooters, but well, I’ve just had a relaxing week meself, and I’ve got photos of birds to look at instead.
Just goes to show, it really isn’t the equipment,.. a good photo is still a good photo (I think we had that discussion at bungay as well).
And congratulations for destroying my grumpy reputation….
I didn’t say *all* canon shooters are evil :-)
If you don’t want to run it next year then I may step in. I’m good at making up arbitrary rules. will make the competition more interesting (All photos must be animated gifs to be printed as holographic photos in 10X2 format!)