Photographic competitions

407370 · May 19, 2024

Hi All,

I am very new to entering photographic competitions but I am beginning to notice a few basics of how the images are ranked.

Square crop - good
Landscape - bad
Panoramic (stitch or very wide angle) - Affront to photography
Macro - Evil
Black and White - good
Dull Black and white with little or no contrast - Very Good
Colourful - bad
Film grain (Simulated or real) - very good
HDR - Work of the devil
Post processing in general = Bad photographer

I could go on.......

So I have hatched a wee plan just to see what happens. I created a load of the most bland, lifeless, pointless, and downright boring images to enter into competitions::

The images above are just a few of the examples I created.

I have added or left in some horrible composition or editing errors which allows the judge to give some artistic interpretation. I will give the image a pretentious title in line with the rules of that particular competition.

I will let you all know how I get on.

CHEERS
JBO

ClintLloyd · May 19, 2024

I can smell an award getting close! Love this.

It's been clear to me that the vast majority are attracted to highly saturated garbage, especially in landscape. If only I was happy to do that because processing would be so much easier and stress free, just pull the saturation slider as well as the clarity and sharpness then the image is complete..!

407370 · May 19, 2024

ClintLloyd said:
I can smell an award getting close! Love this.

It's been clear to me that the vast majority are attracted to highly saturated garbage, especially in landscape. If only I was happy to do that because processing would be so much easier and stress free, just pull the saturation slider as well as the clarity and sharpness then the image is complete..!

I would love to win a big competition with an image I created to take the p!zz out of competition judges.

CHEERS
JBO

ACHILLEAS · May 19, 2024

Let me also add:
blurry. especially two faces or walking.
abstract. makes you think.
current political things. makes you think some more.
nudes. especially on trees or a plastic bag on her face. must be a woman.
dutch angles. makes everything look better espeically if it is b&w with as much grey as possible and blurry and nude.

407370 · May 19, 2024

ACHILLEAS said:
Let me also add:
blurry. especially two faces or walking.
abstract. makes you think.
current political things. makes you think some more.
nudes. especially on trees or a plastic bag on her face. must be a woman.
dutch angles. makes everything look better espeically if it is b&w with as much grey as possible and blurry and nude.

Fully noted.

Hey maybe we could make this a team effort??

CHEERS
JBO

480sparky · May 19, 2024

IMHO, most photo contests aren't about the actual quality of the submitted images... it's a rights grab to get you to give them free images to use however they want.

cgw · May 19, 2024

Winners all!!!

Hardus Nameous · May 19, 2024

So in theory.......
A 6x6 on high ISO black and white film in a developer like Ilfosol 3 or Rodinal and printed with a 00 (or equivalent) grade filter should be the best image ever.
I've never entered a photo contest and wouldn't know where to begin but best of luck; I can't wait to hear the results.

Don Fischer · May 19, 2024

Damn! That stuff wins? I don't enter photo contest. I just like what I like!

407370 · May 19, 2024

Don Fischer said:
Damn! That stuff wins? I don't enter photo contest. I just like what I like!

Yes Don its a real eye opener. Images that I would not give a second glance win huge competitions.

I am determined to get a high finish in at least 1 competition. Its a different skillset from creating images that you like yourself. It purely creating something that follows the specific rules applied to a given competition.
CHEERS
JBO

ACHILLEAS · May 19, 2024

You want to game the system? good luck I gave up completely. I dont think is worth it. It wont help you professionally. When I got my first explore on flickr I lost interest. I gamed it for months and it was exhausting. Competitions are stupid anyway. They make money from your work.

ClintLloyd · May 19, 2024

It's 2024, it's all about encouragement awards these days anyway. Equality you know, everyone's a winner...

407370 · May 20, 2024

ACHILLEAS said:
You want to game the system? good luck I gave up completely. I dont think is worth it. It wont help you professionally. When I got my first explore on flickr I lost interest. I gamed it for months and it was exhausting. Competitions are stupid anyway. They make money from your work.

I am naturally curious person. I have been an engineer most of my adult life so Process / Procedure / Precision is embedded into my DNA. I cant work out why certain images win competitions so I wanted to simulate these types of images just to see if I could do it, ONCE !

I am not , and never will be, a professional photographer.

An AI image won a Sony award so why cant I do this?? SONY

CHEERS
JBO

407370 · May 20, 2024

OK First attempt at competition.

Theme is "M"

My image below will have the following description:

Image Title - Martyr
A Pile of discarded children's toys represents a metaphor for the tragedy of the children caught up in the Israel / Hamas conflict. The 2 flags are placed to show how close each side is geographically to the conflict. As all the destruction is currently taking place in Gaza, I have edited the Palestine flag into a burned remanent and cloned in some flames. The distorted background is to emphasise that bombs dont know who they are aimed at.