What we can do vs what is considered "right"

molested_cow

TPF Supporters
Supporting Member
Joined
Jul 3, 2004
Messages
3,714
Reaction score
531
Location
Here N There
Website
img24.photobucket.com
I am talking about photography competitions. Actually I don't know about competitions in other countries, but here in Taiwan, I find it uncomfortably odd that pretty much all photography competitions prohibit any form of post processing except color correction and contrast/levels adjustment/crop. No stacking, no joining. This means that I cannot submit shots that are either panoramic or HDR, or even manually crafted HDR images. No focus stacks too, no stacked star trails. They also don't allow shots taken with fisheye lens. To me it seems that the rule makers are people who have deep roots in traditional photography and are afraid to accept the current world.

By not allowing stacking or joining, it's sort of saying that HDR and pano images aren't recognized for their value or credit. I don't mind them having a separate category for pano or HDRs, but excluding them completely just doesn't seem right.

Many of the most creative images I've seen break the technical limitations of traditional photography using a combination of unconventional techniques, and I think these are the kind of works that need to be celebrated more often.

Do competitions in your region impose similar rules or is it just here in Taiwan?
 
A lot of competitions aim for the journalistic approach to photography - keep the editing as low as possible and single frames.

It's mostly aiming to improve skill through photography as in the act of capturing the photo whilst not making it too open to editing being the greater or dominant skill set. In addition its mostly trying to keep things simple - otherwise you get people trying to submit photos where its more a collage than an actual photo.

Yes this means things like focus stacking can't be done in many competitions. If its a local group you can always ask and say "Yeah the photo competition is great, but could we have another one for HDR and such for those of us who like to do that so we can have more variety".

Most competitions I know of that are national level tend to be one of two kinds:
1) Photographic - which tend to approach the journalistic approach

2) Monetary/advertising - tend to let nearly anything in (and tends to be won by likes on facebook :p)
 
I don't worry about competitions because I never enter them.

And I never enter them because they're basically a rights grab.
 
I agree with Overread, competitions seem to vary. Some seem to be no more than a popularity contest, or a way for people entering to try to win prizes and/or the sponsor to get followers or likes or whatever (edit - and I agree with Sparky, many contests seem to just want user submitted photos that can be sublicensed, etc. etc.).

If you're talking about juried exhibitions I've done submissions and those vary depending on what it is. I may submit to one if it's the type photography I do. The guidelines for submission are made available usually on the website of the gallery or organization.

You seem to be talking about what might be considered photo illustrations or manipulations rather than strictly photographs, so you might need to find competitions that are geared to that.

Even with more traditional methods in photography it's possible to take a photograph and do something creative with it; for example an emulsion lift of a Polaroid photo. That could be considered a photographic process or a photographic work, so it may still fit the category of photography, I think it just depends on the purpose.
 
I wonder how they'd deal with something like Nikon's Active D-Lighting or Fuji's Dynamic Range expansion, which are for all intents and purposes a sort of automatic HDR.
 
I belong to a photo club that is made up of mostly retired people. People who use to shoot slide film with no editing whatsoever! Now, they allow any post processing you wish to do for their juried contests. Ex-film photographers who now do cloning, HDR, you name it. They seem to get a kick out of the power of Photoshop.

Come to New Jersey and join our club.
 
fjrabon said:
I wonder how they'd deal with something like Nikon's Active D-Lighting or Fuji's Dynamic Range expansion, which are for all intents and purposes a sort of automatic HDR.

They clamp their hands over their eyes and pretend it's like pre-exposure controlled fogging of the film!!!
 
I belong to a photo club that is made up of mostly retired people. People who use to shoot slide film with no editing whatsoever! Now, they allow any post processing you wish to do for their juried contests. Ex-film photographers who now do cloning, HDR, you name it. They seem to get a kick out of the power of Photoshop.

Come to New Jersey and join our club.

That's the opposite of the photography club I've been in. It was made up of mostly retirees, but they were all enamored by Photoshop.

The watercolor filter was popular as was selectively making the background a painting while keeping the subject as a photograph....
 
I belong to a photo club that is made up of mostly retired people. People who use to shoot slide film with no editing whatsoever! Now, they allow any post processing you wish to do for their juried contests. Ex-film photographers who now do cloning, HDR, you name it. They seem to get a kick out of the power of Photoshop.

Come to New Jersey and join our club.
I would like to join my local, but they meet on the same evenings as another meeting.

As for using the technology to its utmost; sure, they were doing that with transparency film as well.
 
What's funny about those who pine for the olden days of "pure" images comple forget about the rich history of photo trickery. Heck look up the double exposure "spirit" photography craze.
 
Purists, purists, everywhere,
And all the rules did shrink;
Purists, purists, everywhere,
Nor any thought to think.
 
Here are two "techniques" that I often employ in my "images".

1. Take multiple exposures of the same shot because I know that I can't get everything in the shot well exposed. For an example, when shooting back light scenery such as sunrise or sunset. I will stack portion of the photos to get details of over or underexposed parts.

2. Take only one exposure only, but use RAW to generate different versions of exposures, then stack them just like 1. to get details.

In both cases, I stacked photos, so no go!

Here the white Merlion would have been over exposed if I want to capture the rest of the image in detail, so I did two exposures.
DSC_7480_2_zpsvrbyh1uv.jpg


Shameless pano OMG!!!
Pano03_1_zpsi7olcr9m.jpg
 
I am talking about photography competitions. Actually I don't know about competitions in other countries, but here in Taiwan, I find it uncomfortably odd that pretty much all photography competitions prohibit any form of post processing except color correction and contrast/levels adjustment/crop. No stacking, no joining. This means that I cannot submit shots that are either panoramic or HDR, or even manually crafted HDR images. No focus stacks too, no stacked star trails. They also don't allow shots taken with fisheye lens. To me it seems that the rule makers are people who have deep roots in traditional photography and are afraid to accept the current world.

By not allowing stacking or joining, it's sort of saying that HDR and pano images aren't recognized for their value or credit. I don't mind them having a separate category for pano or HDRs, but excluding them completely just doesn't seem right.

Many of the most creative images I've seen break the technical limitations of traditional photography using a combination of unconventional techniques, and I think these are the kind of works that need to be celebrated more often.

Do competitions in your region impose similar rules or is it just here in Taiwan?
some here restrict post processing and hdr etc. I think it is great. I agree with Taiwan.
 
What's funny about those who pine for the olden days of "pure" images comple forget about the rich history of photo trickery. Heck look up the double exposure "spirit" photography craze.

A rich history doesn't make it an ethical history. lol

I'm honestly glad they have restrictions. My photos aren't nearly spectacular enough to win competitions, but I think minimal editing keeps the playing field more level (pun intended).

If a competition is centered around the quality of the photographic content, then it makes sense to take away a lot of the gloss.

I'm not a purist by any means, but that "How can I make this average photo pop in Photoshop" mentality is rather annoying. It's even more-so when the photo is already good without it.
 
Last edited:
Our local group is all for the post processing. We have one guy who's 98 years old and is a photoshop wizard.
 

Most reactions

Back
Top