I entered my first competition...

[UUilliam]

They said it wasn't competition quality. One said I should be showing that in a gallery, that it is very sellable...that interior designers would love it. Keep it up, make some money, but it's not competition quality.

Good enough to sell & make lots of money, but not good enough for a competition...?

They are both good pictures, but I just cannot understand why they thought the first one wasn't even good enough to be entered into a competition.

It almost sounds like in order to live up to their standards, you would already have your own gallery and be rich from all the print sales.

It's not that it isn't GOOD ENOUGH for a competition, its just not in the style which most competitions favor, it is more of a commercial shot / abstract

 

[Josh66]

They said it wasn't competition quality. One said I should be showing that in a gallery, that it is very sellable...that interior designers would love it. Keep it up, make some money, but it's not competition quality.

Good enough to sell & make lots of money, but not good enough for a competition...?

They are both good pictures, but I just cannot understand why they thought the first one wasn't even good enough to be entered into a competition.

It almost sounds like in order to live up to their standards, you would already have your own gallery and be rich from all the print sales.

It's not that it isn't GOOD ENOUGH for a competition, its just not in the style which most competitions favor, it is more of a commercial shot / abstract

I could understand if they said it wasn't competition material - not what they're looking for. But "quality" kinda implies that they didn't think it was good. I think there is subtle, but important difference.


If it was "very sellable", I would think that alone makes it competition worthy...
What's the point of the competition? See who can take the most unsellable photo?



...Sounds like the judges are giving you mixed reviews.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

It's not that it isn't GOOD ENOUGH for a competition, its just not in the style which most competitions favor, it is more of a commercial shot / abstract

I think you summed it up well.
I get what they were saying, even though I can't vocalize it better here.

O|||||||O, I think the term quality was used loosely, and could easily mean material.

I see it like this, I nailed every element in the image, but the image is still a little *meh* to compete with. That is not saying the image is unsuccessful.

 

[Derrel]

Congratulations on the third place out of 104--that's really good. As far as the B&W, I can spot several things that would cost this image a lot of points in judging. First off, the composition does not feel well-balanced--there's a bit of "pull" created by the placement of the objects and by the 75% of the right hand side of the frame being rendered out of focus. A second area is the handling and representation of the highlights and the blacks; the highlights on the cable coupling are blown out and detail-free, and the bottom edge of the coupling is rendered as inky black and detail-free as well. The overall contrast is too high for this type of industrial still life,and the mid-tones also lack microcontrast.

On the right hand side, the out of focus areas begin very close to the bottom of the frame,and go up the right hand side. On the cable itself, the highlights are very hot and specular,and old,rusty cable's highlights should not be rendered that way. The third area is the nature of the lens this was shot with--the lens has very severe bokeh of a type known as "hashy" or "nervous", and looks very typical of what Canon's 50mm 1.8 renders, due to its optical design and clunky 5-sided diaphragm opening. As the cable goes out of focus, you can see the highlights beginning to render as double-highlights. The same thing happens along the highlights on those bars or whatever along the right hand side. This photo is a specific type of genre that is pretty well-known, and the depth of field is too shallow to render enough of the scene in good focus, and the lens's drawing style is very "ugly". I'm going to guess that this shot was done with your Canon 50/1.8, just based on the harsh bokeh.

I don't want to appear to be bashing on the B&W image, but these are the technical and artistic reasons that I would mark this print down on if *I* were judging it in a print competition; Excessive scene contrast, lack of local contrast, inadequate depth of field, and use of a lens with a very harsh, hashy bokeh characteristics. The depth of field is simply inadequate to "show us" or allow us to immerse ourselves in 75% of the scene. No offense is meant by this, but the Canon 50/1.8 has about the worst bokeh of any normal lens I have ever owned, and I have owned many 50-55-58-60mm lenses. A lens with really good bokeh would have made this industrial still life a lot more eye-pleasing, as would have simply stopping down enough to render at last 90 percent of the frame area in good focus.

This "type" of industrial still life has a language all its own,and print judging has some definite criteria that this image does not quite meet. If this had been photographed with a lens like,say, the Nikkor 45-P on an adapter ring and shot at f/13, I think the image would have been much more pleasing to look at.

 

[PastTheFuture]

It seems the judge was getting your hopes up just for laughs on the first one... Saying everything was great, excellent focus, great lighting, etc etc (which is all true) but then saying that you didn't even come close to placing.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Thanks Derrel! Points well taken. Not offended AT ALL!

 

[tom beard]

How many times was Van Gogh not allowed to even hang his work? Just bring the work forward, the judges and the public will catch up. Very nice work!

Tom Beard

 

[tom beard]

This is only your first 'competition'. Consider how long it took Van Gogh just to have his paintings hung, let alone sold. Hang in there. I have no doubt that you'll get to where you're going!
Tom Beard

 

[Baaaark]

Don't worry, I love discussions like this. I didn't feel you were invalidating my success. I felt you were invalidating the judges.

Yes, I was. I HATE being judged, so maybe that's the problem. Maybe its the feeling they're using static measures on dynamic objects.

 

[Overstanding]

Congrats. They both look stunning to me.

 

[mishele]

Congrats..........3rd!!

How do yo find contest like that in your own area?

 

[Misfitlimp]

Congrats on the third place. Ive been thinking about puttin some of my stuff in a contest because people tell me that they would love to hang some of my prints in there homes but i think i might not after this thread. HA! and the thought if some prick telling me my images arent worthy of his or hers contest isnt apealing at all. Maybe if u guys all took the same picture of the same subject then they could say "that one is the best" but to say that this one beats out that one is kinda wierd in my opinion.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Congrats..........3rd!!

How do yo find contest like that in your own area?

Thanks!

Check out any school that has Photography classes, Good camera shops, clubs, art institutes...

Congrats on the third place. Ive been thinking about puttin some of my stuff in a contest because people tell me that they would love to hang some of my prints in there homes but i think i might not after this thread. HA! and the thought if some prick telling me my images arent worthy of his or hers contest isnt apealing at all. Maybe if u guys all took the same picture of the same subject then they could say "that one is the best" but to say that this one beats out that one is kinda wierd in my opinion.

Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
What makes you think judges are pricks? I enjoyed talking to the three judges. I would have loved to chat a lot more. I could learn a lot from them...Pricks? just because they don't like an image? No.