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Photo Contest Alert: Announcing a (Free!) Billboard Contest From Fine Art America

09 Aug

The post Photo Contest Alert: Announcing a (Free!) Billboard Contest From Fine Art America appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

Fine Art America billboard contest

Have you ever dreamed of seeing your art displayed large – for everyone to admire?

Then you’ll love Fine Art America’s new Billboard Contest, which will award a giant billboard display to 20 artists. Win the contest, and your eye-catching work will be featured on a 24-foot billboard in a major city, such as Chicago, Atlanta, or Los Angeles, accompanied by a title plus your name or social media handle. 

Here’s the type of stunning showcase winners can expect:

example billboard for photo contest

Each billboard will stay up for a month, giving viewers plenty of time to appreciate the winning art.

your art goes on this billboard

How to take part

The contest is currently open and free to enter. Simply create a Fine Art America account and upload one to three files on the contest page. The contest closes on August 31st, and the winners will be announced on September 15th. 

Note that entry is not exclusive to photographers; Fine Art America accepts submissions from all 2D artists, including painters, graphic designers, and illustrators.

Vote, vote, vote: the selection process, explained

After you’ve submitted your entries, you can encourage family, friends, and followers to vote for your art on Fine Art America’s website. All entries receiving 100 votes will then proceed to the next round, where contest judges will choose the top 20 pieces for billboard display.

There are also a number of fun prizes and promotions along the way:

  • Get 25 votes, and you’ll receive a Pixels t-shirt
  • Get 100 votes, and your image will be featured on the Fine Art America Instagram account
  • Get 250 votes, and you’ll receive a free 24’’ x 36’’ canvas print of an image of your choosing

It all comes down to the voting – so as soon as you’ve uploaded your entries, head over to social media and drum up some interest!

By the way, if you’re looking for contest inspiration or you simply want to vote for your favorite art, you can see all current entries here. Click on each piece to view its vote count and register a vote of your own, and don’t forget to check out the top-voted artwork here (you’ll find plenty of stunning bird photos, landscapes shots, paintings, and more!). 

What is Fine Art America?

Billed as “the world’s largest online art marketplace,” the company’s website, fineartamerica.com, acts as a one-stop shop for photographers, painters, illustrators, graphic designers, and more – and it also welcomes non-artists who simply appreciate great art.

On the Fine Art America website, you can:

  • Order custom prints of your own art, including posters, metal prints, wood prints, canvas prints, printed t-shirts, and printed smartphone cases
  • Sell your art to interested buyers as prints, t-shirts, greeting cards, etc.
  • Buy beautiful art sold by artists around the world

The Fine Art America Billboard Contest is yet another example of the company’s dedication to artists. As explained by the CEO, Sean Broihier, “For 15+ years, we’ve been promoting our artists and their incredible artwork almost exclusively online. It’s time to showcase them in the real world. Our upcoming billboard campaign gives us an incredible opportunity to reach a new audience of art buyers, build brand awareness for Fine Art America, and introduce the incredibly talented artists who use Fine Art America to sell canvas prints, framed prints, greeting cards, and more.”

So take a look at Fine Art America – and in the meantime, be sure to enter the Billboard Contest. Remember: It’s open until August 31st and the entry process only takes a few minutes, so give it your best shot! 

the world's greatest art contest

Fine Art America is a paid partner of dPS.

The post Photo Contest Alert: Announcing a (Free!) Billboard Contest From Fine Art America appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.


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Slideshow: Winning photos from the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2021 contest

07 May

Winning photos from the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2021 contest

Editor’s note: There are images in this gallery that show animal carcasses being butchered (slide 8 and 9, in particular). Keep this in mind going forward if you would rather not see this content.


The winning photographs for the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2021 contest have been announced, with the overall prize being taken by Chinese photographer Li Huaifeng for their photograph Taste, which shows a young family enjoying a meal in their home as the sun cast rays through the smoke-filled room.

The Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year awards is celebrating its tenth anniversary. The finalists and winning images were whittled down from nearly 10,500 entries submitted from more than 70 countries around the world.

In lieu of an in-person event, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the winners were announced in a livestream, which can be watched in its entirety, below:

In addition to the usual categories, this year’s contest also featured a ‘very special category’ to honor Claire Aho, ‘Finland’s greatest woman photographer,’ according to contest organizers. The inaugural winner of the Claire Aho Award for Women Photographers was Marina Spironetti for ‘her magnificent portrait Female Butchers of Panzano – Martina, one of the women trained by Dario Cecchini, world-famous butcher of Panzano.’

As for the judges of this year’s contest, the event organizers say:

This year’s global judging panel, chaired by legendary food photographer, David Loftus, includes Fiona Shields, Head of Photography, Guardian News & Media, Susan Bright, Writer and Curator, Nik Sharma, Cookbook Author and Photographer, Chef Simone Zanoni, Restaurant Le George, Four Seasons Paris, Alison Jacques, Founder, Alison Jacques Gallery and Vitalie Taittinger, President, Champagne Taittinger.

An exhibition for the 2021 finalists will premiere at The Royal Photographic Society in Bristol from November 20 through December 12. Entry is free.

The following gallery will showcase images from twelve of the more than three dozen categories in this year’s contest. You can see all of the finalists and winning images on the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year 2021 contest website.

Taste, Overall Winner

Credit: Li Huaifeng via Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Li Huaifeng, China

Image Description: The photograph was taken in Licheng, Shanxi, on a warm and sunny day, and shows a young family sharing in the joy of preparing food.

Drying Okra, Bring Home the Harvest

Credit: F. Dilek via Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

Photographer: F.Dilek Uyar, Turkey

Image Description: Drying okra flowers in Tokat, Turkey. Women pick okra flowers from the field and arrange them on a rope, then the dried flowers fall and the okra becomes ready to be used in winter

A Grape View, Errazuriz Wine Photographer of the Year – Overall

Credit: Oscar Olivera via Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Oscar Oliveras, Spain

Image Description: The photograph captures the filling up of Semillon grapes ready to be pressed at the cellar. It was taken on the first day of the harvest of Sauvignon Blanc at Chateau des Ganfards, in Saussignac, France. The harvesting machine is unloading the fruit into the tractor, ready to take them into the winery for pressing. The tractor is being driven by M. Jean Claude Géraud, the owner of Château des Ganfards. Oscar took the photo whilst working there as a winemaker.

Breakfast at Weekly Market, Food at the Table

Credit: Thong Nguyen via Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Thong Nguyen, Vietnam

Image Description: People enjoy their Pho (beef of chicken noodle) for breakfast at a local weekly market.

Making Rice Noodles, Fujifilm Award for Innovation

Credit: Abdul Momin via Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Abdul Momin, Bangladesh

Image Description: A worker is inspecting rice noodles if they got dried rightly or not.

Old Friends, Politics of Food

Credit: Sandro Maddalena via Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Sandro Maddalena, Italy

Image Description: Tskaltubo – Refugees from the Abkhazian – Georgian conflict gather in the basement of an abandoned sanatorium to share their food. Almost thirty years after the conflict, Abkhazian refugees are still living in abandoned buildings in conditions of poverty.

Female Butchers of Panzano-Martina, The Claire Aho Award for Women Photographers

Credit: Marina Spironetti via Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Marina Spironetti, Italy

Image Description: Part of a project about the female butchers at Dario Cecchini’s, the world’s famous butcher from Panzano in Chianti. For some time now, Dario has been training a team of young ladies, who came to Tuscany from all over the world to learn the art of deboning. Traditionally, women butchers have always existed in Tuscany.

Head to Head, The Philip Harben Award for Food in Action

Credit: David Thompson via Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

Photographer: David Thompson, Taiwan

Image Description: Taken at Wanhua District night market, Taipei, Taiwan the photo depicts a butcher preparing cuts for the daily traditional market, here seen working on a pigs head cutting out the cheeks.

Family, WFP Storytellers Award

Credit: Ziney Abdulhakim Ibrahim via Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Ziney Abdulhakim Ibrahim, Iraq

Image Description: The importance of all family members meeting around one dining table at least once a day, as this habit helps to strengthen family ties and gives family members a sense of emotional warmth and provides an opportunity for dialogue, exchange of ideas and problem-solving.

Orishas Tribal Markets, Young – 11 – 14

Credit: Indigo Larmour via Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Indigo Larmour, India

Image Description: The tribal markets in Odisha are some of the most colourful in all of India. Vendors commonly sit on the ground and spread-out vegetables that they are selling.

Spill the Tea, Young – 15 – 17

Credit: Dewi Hollema via Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year

Photographer: Dewi Hollema, Egypt

Image Description: Men gather round on the side of the street in old Alexandria to share the local gossip with a cup of black sweet tea and snacks. This is a common sight in Egypt where their national drink is enjoyed throughout the day: tea ???.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Slideshow: Nominees for the 2021 World Press Photo Contest

16 Mar

Nominees for the 2021 World Press Photo Contest

Nominees were recently announced for the 64th annual World Press Photo Contest. The list includes contenders for the World Press Photo of the Year, World Press Photo Story of the Year, and World Press Photo Interactive of the Year.

“The nominated images, stories, and productions we introduce today present different perspectives of one of the most important years in recent history, marked by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the social rights movements around the world. Amongst the nominees are remarkable stories of hope, resilience, and social change. I would like to thank the independent jury for their dedication and commitment in selecting the stories that mattered in 2020,” said Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of the World Press Photo Foundation.

The World Press Photo Foundation was founded in 1955 to connect the public with trustworthy photojournalism. Some captions for these nominated photos won’t be available until the end of March. Winners will be announced on April 15th through an online ceremony.

Nominee, World Press Photo of the Year: ‘Fighting Locust Invasion in East Africa’ by Luis Tato (Spain) for The Washington Post

Story: In early 2020, Kenya experienced its worst infestation of desert locusts in 70 years. Swarms of locusts from the Arabian Peninsula had migrated into Ethiopia and Somalia in the summer of 2019. Continued successful breeding, together with heavy autumn rains and a rare late-season cyclone in December 2019, triggered another reproductive spasm.

The locusts multiplied and invaded new areas in search of food, arriving in Kenya and spreading through other countries in eastern Africa. Desert locusts, Schistocerca gregaria, are potentially the most destructive of the locust pests, as swarms can fly rapidly across great distances, traveling up to 150 kilometers a day.

A single swarm can contain between 40 and 80 million locusts per square kilometer. Each locust can eat its weight in plants each day: a swarm the size of Paris could eat the same amount of food in one day as half the population of France. Locusts produce two to five generations a year, depending on environmental conditions. In dry spells, they crowd together on remaining patches of land. Prolonged wet weather—producing moist soil for egg-laying, and abundant food— encourages breeding and producing large swarms that travel in search of food, devastating farmland.

Even before this outbreak, nearly 20 million people faced high levels of food insecurity across the East African region, challenged by periodic droughts and floods. COVID-19 restrictions in the region slowed efforts to fight the infestation as supply chains of pesticides were disrupted.

Caption: Henry Lenayasa, chief of the settlement of Archers Post, in Samburu County, Kenya, tries to scare away a massive swarm of locusts ravaging grazing area, on 24 April. Locust swarms devastated large areas of land, just as the coronavirus outbreak had begun to disrupt livelihoods.

Nominee, World Press Photo of the Year: ‘Those Who Stay Will Be Champions’ by Chris Donovan (Canada)

Story: The Flint Jaguars basketball team in Flint, Michigan, USA, embodies efforts to nurture stability, encourage mutual support and strengthen community spirit in a city struggling to survive. Flint, the birthplace of General Motors, is striving against outmigration caused by a precipitous decline in its motor industry, a health crisis brought about by the authorities switching water-supply sources without proper safeguards, and the systemic neglect of high-poverty, predominantly Black neighborhoods. Basketball is an integral part of Flint culture, and the city once produced dozens of big names at collegiate and professional levels.

For decades, four high school teams battled as fierce rivals. Now there is only one high school in town. The Flint Jaguars were established in 2017, merging the teams of the last two schools that remained at the time. In 2020, the team fought to turn around what had up until then been a nearly winless history. By March, they were prepared to head to the division finals with an 18-4 record, having won more games in 2020 than in the previous three years combined. Their play-off run ended prematurely when COVID-19 forced the cancellation of the season. Nevertheless, the student athletes had had a taste of collective success.

Caption: Flint Jaguars team star Taevion Rushing jumps from one locker to another in the team locker room before the last regular season game of his high school basketball career, on 24 February 2020. He aims to go on to play basketball at a junior college.

Nominee, Contemporary Issues Singles: ‘Doctor Peyo and Mister Hassen’ by Jérémy Lempin (France)

Story: The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War began on 27 September, and conflict continued until 9 November. It was the worst fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory since the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in the 1990s. The first war ended in an uneasy ceasefire, with victorious ethnic Armenians unilaterally declaring an independent state, and sending hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis into exile.

In the intervening 30 years, little was done to resolve the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was still internationally recognized as belonging to Azerbaijan, and there were periodic military clashes between the two sides, which escalated into war in 2020. In a settlement brokered by Russia in November, Azerbaijan regained possession of territory lost in the 1990s, but the regional capital, Stepanakert, was left under Armenian control. The Armenian army gradually withdrew from the Nagorno-Karabakh region, to be replaced by Russian peacekeeping forces, who will be deployed until 2025.

Animal-assisted therapy, also known as pet therapy, is used in many clinical environments, especially in psychological therapy and palliative care. Animals appear to be able to reduce anxiety and stress, and also to have physical effects, such as lowering blood pressure, improving heart rate, or helping in pain management.

In hospices, the aim is to use the natural bond between humans and animals to provide comfort, peace, and companionship to terminally ill patients. Horses seem particularly suited for palliative care as they are especially in tune with their surroundings. Peyo works with his trainer Hassen Bouchakou at Les Sabots du Coeur, an organization devoted to animal-assisted therapy, and to scientific research into the subject. He supports around 20 patients each month, and scientists are now studying his instinctive ability to detect cancers and tumors.

Caption: Marion (24), who has metastatic cancer, embraces her son Ethan (7) in the presence of Peyo, a horse used in animal-assisted therapy, in the Séléne Palliative Care Unit at the Centre Hospitalier de Calais, in Calais, France, on 30 November.

Nominee, Environment Stories: ‘Pantanal Ablaze’ by Lalo de Almeida (Brazil), Panos Pictures, for Folha de São Paulo

Story: Nearly a third of Brazil’s Pantanal region—the world’s largest tropical wetland and flooded grasslands, sprawling across some 140,000 to 160,000 square kilometers—was consumed by fires over the course of 2020. According to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, there were triple the amount of fires in 2020 compared to 2019. Fires in the Pantanal tend to burn just below the surface, fueled by highly combustible peat, which means they burn for longer and are harder to extinguish.

The Pantanal, which is recognized by UNESCO as a World Biosphere Reserve and is one of Brazil’s most important biomes, is suffering its worst drought in nearly 50 years, causing fires to spread out of control. Many of the fires started from slash-and-burn farming, which has become more prevalent due to the weakening of conservation regulation and enforcement under President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration. The Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) has seen its funding reduced by around 30 percent.

Bolsonaro has frequently spoken out against environmental protection measures, and has made repeated comments undermining Brazilian courts’ attempts to punish offenders. Environmentalists say that this is encouraging agricultural burning and creating a climate of impunity. Luciana Leite, who studies humanity’s relationship with nature at the Federal University of Bahia, predicts the total collapse of the Pantanal, if current climate trends and anti-environmental policies persist.

Caption: Not available at this time.

Nominee, General News Stories: ‘COVID-19 Pandemic in France’ by Laurence Geai (France)

Story: The first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Europe were reported in France on 24 January. Reports of infections in other European countries followed quickly, and on 13 March the World Health Organisation declared Europe to be the epicenter of the pandemic. By the end of March, Paris and its suburbs accounted for more than a quarter of the 29,000 confirmed infections in French hospitals, with 1,300 people in intensive care.

France went into home lockdown between 17 March and 11 May, with restrictions in Paris being extended to 14 June. Schools, cafés, restaurants, non-essential shops and public buildings were closed, and people outside the home had to carry identification and signed declarations for any travel. Care homes were closed to visitors. Hospitalizations reached a peak in April, with 7,148 people in intensive care, when ICU capacity was only 5,000.

Specially converted trains transported patients from overcrowded hospitals to regions that had fewer cases, and the French military airlifted critical cases from eastern France to hospitals in neighboring countries. As the death rate rose, morgues filled to capacity and ad hoc mortuaries were opened in places like the refrigeration hall of Paris’s Rungis wholesale food market. Funeral homes were ordered to bury or cremate bodies immediately, without any ceremony, mortuary preparation, or anyone in attendance.

Caption: Not available at this time.

Nominee, General News Stories: ‘Cross-Border Love’ by Roland Schmid (Switzerland)

Story: Switzerland closed its borders for the first time since the Second World War, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. In towns like Riehen and Kreuzlingen, citizens had barely noticed the borders with Germany for decades, and had crossed freely. The closure lasted from 16 March to 15 June. Barrier tapes indicated boundaries that should not be crossed, retracing borders that had been reinforced with barbed wire during the war.

In some places, these barriers became meeting places for people who were no longer allowed to be together. Despite regulations to restrict movement and socializing, many individuals found inventive ways to see their loved ones.

Caption: Not available at this time.

Nominee, Long-Term Projects: ‘Habibi’ by Antonio Faccilongo (Italy), Getty Reportage

Story: Nearly 4,200 Palestinian security detainees are being held in Israeli prisons, according to a February 2021 report by human rights organization B’Tselem. Some face sentences of 20 years or more. To visit a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail, visitors have to overcome a number of different limitations resulting from border laws, prison regulations, and restrictions set by the Israel Security Agency (ISA).

Visitors are usually allowed to see prisoners only through a transparent partition, and talk to them via a telephone receiver. Conjugal visits are denied and physical contact is forbidden, except for children under the age of ten, who are allowed ten minutes at the end of each visit to embrace their fathers.

Since the early 2000s, long-term Palestinian detainees hoping to raise families have been smuggling semen out of prison, hidden in gifts to their children. Semen is secreted in a variety of ways, such as in pen tubes, plastic candy wrappers, and inside bars of chocolate. In February 2021, Middle East Monitor reported that the 96th Palestinian baby had been born using sperm smuggled from Israeli prison.

Habibi, which means ‘my love’ in Arabic, chronicles love stories set against the backdrop of one of the longest and most complicated conflicts in modern history. The photographer aims to show the impact of the conflict on Palestinian families, and the difficulties they face in preserving their reproductive rights and human dignity. The photographer chooses not to focus on war, military action, and weapons, but on people’s refusal to surrender to imprisonment, and on their courage and perseverance to survive in a conflict zone.

Caption: A portrait of Mazen Rimawi, a former Palestinian political prisoner and uncle to Majd Rimawi, whose father is serving a 25-year sentence, on 22 December 2019. Majd was born in 2013, following IVF.

Nominee, Long-Term Projects: ‘Reborn’ by Karolina Jonderko (Poland)

Story: ‘Reborn’ babies first appeared in the 1990s. Each is unique, carefully crafted by artists known as ‘reborners’. The hyper-realistic reborn babies are created with such details as birthmarks, veins, implanted hair, pores, tears, and saliva. More sophisticated reborns are equipped with electronic systems capable of reproducing the heartbeat, breathing, and sucking of a real baby.

Most of the dolls are made of vinyl, though the more realistic ones are made from silicone. Human hair is used for eyelashes, and completed dolls are sometimes perfumed with a ‘new baby’ smell. Reborn babies are available whole and in kit form, and can be purchased online and at fairs. The process of buying a reborn can be done in such a way as to simulate adoption: dolls come with ‘adoption’ or ‘birth’ certificates.

Reborn babies have been used in pediatric training to teach students practical childcare skills, and the use of the dolls in care homes has been shown to help reduce disruptive behaviour in people with dementia. While most reborn owners are doll collectors, others have experienced miscarriage, neonatal deaths, have no means for adoption, or suffer from empty nest syndrome, and may use the doll as a substitute for a child.

The photographer wished to explore the phenomenon of how artificial babies evoke genuine emotional response in adults. Each woman portrayed in this project has a personal motivation for having a reborn baby. Some who cannot have, or who have lost, a baby, give their love to an artificial one, looking after them, changing them, and buying them clothes. For some, the dolls are a means of dealing with loss or anxiety; for others they provide companionship.

Caption: Not available at this time.

Nominee, Portraits Stories: ‘The “Ameriguns”‘ by Gabriele Galimberti (Italy) for National Geographic

Story: According to the Small Arms Survey– an independent global research project based in Geneva, Switzerland–half of all the firearms owned by private citizens in the world, for non-military purposes, are in the USA. The survey states that the number of firearms exceeds the country’s population: 393 million guns to 328 million people.

Gun ownership is guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which dates from 1791 and has long been a controversial issue in American legal, political, and social discourse. Those who argue for the repeal of the Second Amendment or introduction of stricter gun control say that the Second Amendment was intended for militias; that stronger regulation will reduce gun violence; and that a majority of Americans, including gun owners, support new restrictions.

Second Amendment supporters state that it protects an individual’s right to own guns; that guns are needed for self-defense against threats ranging from local criminals to foreign invaders; and that gun ownership deters crime rather than causes more crime. According to the independent Gun Violence Archive (GVA), the US has had more mass shootings than any country on the planet, with 633 mass shootings in 2020 alone.

Caption: Not available at this time.

Nominee, Portraits Stories: ‘The “Ameriguns”‘ by Gabriele Galimberti (Italy) for National Geographic

Story: According to the Small Arms Survey– an independent global research project based in Geneva, Switzerland–half of all the firearms owned by private citizens in the world, for non-military purposes, are in the USA. The survey states that the number of firearms exceeds the country’s population: 393 million guns to 328 million people.

Gun ownership is guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which dates from 1791 and has long been a controversial issue in American legal, political, and social discourse. Those who argue for the repeal of the Second Amendment or introduction of stricter gun control say that the Second Amendment was intended for militias; that stronger regulation will reduce gun violence; and that a majority of Americans, including gun owners, support new restrictions.

Second Amendment supporters state that it protects an individual’s right to own guns; that guns are needed for self-defense against threats ranging from local criminals to foreign invaders; and that gun ownership deters crime rather than causes more crime. According to the independent Gun Violence Archive (GVA), the US has had more mass shootings than any country on the planet, with 633 mass shootings in 2020 alone.

Caption: Not available at this time.

Nominee, Sports Singles: ‘Tour of Poland Cycling Crash’ by Tomasz Markowski (Poland)

Story: Groenewegen had deviated from his line, veering towards the right barrier and leaving little room for his teammate, sending Jakobsen crashing over the barricade. The two had been competing for first place in the stage, and were traveling at around 80 kilometers per hour.

Jakobsen sustained severe injuries, underwent a five-hour operation, and spent a week in intensive care. Groenewegen broke his collarbone. He was disqualified from the race and received a nine-month suspension from the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). Jakobsen was awarded first place for stage one.

Caption: Dutch cyclist, Dylan Groenewegen (left), crashes meters before the finish line, after colliding with fellow team member Fabio Jakobsen during the first stage of the Tour of Poland, in Katowice, Poland, on 5 August.

Nominee, Nature Stories: Taal Volcano Eruption by Ezra Acayan (Philippines) for Getty Images

Story: Taal volcano, in Batangas province, on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, began erupting on 12 January, spewing ash up to 14 kilometers into the air. The volcano generated ashfalls and volcanic thunderstorms, forcing evacuations from the surrounding area. The eruption progressed into a magmatic eruption, characterized by a lava fountain with thunder and lightning.

According to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, a total of 212,908 families, nearly 750,000 people, were affected by the eruption. Damage caused to infrastructure and livelihoods, such as farming, fishing and tourism, was put at around US$ 70 million. Taal volcano is in a large caldera filled by Taal Lake, and is one of the most active volcanoes in the country. It is a ‘complex volcano’, which means it doesn’t have one vent or cone but several eruption points that have changed over time.

Taal has had 34 recorded historical eruptions in the past 450 years, most recently in 1977. As with other volcanoes in the Philippines, Taal is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a zone of major seismic activity that has one of the world’s most active fault lines.

Caption: Not available at this time.

Nominee, Sports Stories: ‘Faces of Bridge’ by Henrik Hansson (Sweden)

Story: Bridgeklubb i Borlänge, a bridge club in the municipality of Borlänge in Sweden, has around 100 members. For a while, the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to games, but during the summer, a solution was found by separating players by means of crossed plexiglass screens. A tactical game of skill, contract bridge (or simply bridge) has its origins in the 16th century, in what were known as trick-taking games, but evolved into its present form in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Today’s game is based on rules set out by Harold Stirling Vanderbilt, an American railroad executive, in 1925. A World Bridge Federation coordinates revision of laws, and conducts world championships. Duplicate bridge, in which the same deal of cards is used at each table, is the most widely employed variation of contract bridge in club and tournament play. Bridge, as with chess, is recognized as a ‘mind sport’ by the International Olympic Committee, although neither has yet been found eligible for the main Olympic program. The Swedish Bridge Federation currently has around 27,000 members and operates an annual bridge festival with more than 8,500 tables in play.

Caption: Not available at this time.

Nominee, Spot News Stories: ‘Port Explosion in Beirut’ by Lorenzo Tugnoli, (Italy), Contrasto

Story: At around 6pm on 4 August, a massive explosion, caused by more than 2,750 tons of high density ammonium nitrate, shook Lebanon’s capital Beirut. The explosive compound was being stored in a warehouse in the port. Some 100,000 people lived within a kilometer of the warehouse. The explosion, which measured 3.3 on the Richter scale, damaged or destroyed around 6,000 buildings, killed at least 190 people, injured a further 6,000, and displaced as many as 300,000.

The ammonium nitrate came from a ship that had been impounded in 2012 for failing to pay docking fees and other charges, and apparently abandoned by its owner. Customs officials wrote to the Lebanese courts at least six times between 2014 and 2017, asking how to dispose of the explosive. In the meantime, it was stored in the warehouse in an inappropriate climate. It is not clear what detonated the explosion, but contamination by other substances, either while in transport or in storage, appear the most likely cause.

Many citizens saw the incident as symptomatic of the ongoing problems the country is facing, namely governmental failure, mishandling and corruption. In the days after the blast, tens of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets of central Beirut, some clashing with security forces and taking over government buildings, in protest against a political system they saw as unwilling to fix the country’s problems.

Caption: Not available at this time.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Slideshow: The winning images from the 2020 Potato Photographer of the Year contest

31 Jul

2020 Potato Photographer of the Year

Editor’s note: Image #10 (11th in the gallery) doesn’t strictly feature nudity, but may be considered NSFW, so proceed with caution accordingly.


Yes, you read the headline right. The Potato Photographer of the Year is a real photo contest and this year’s winners have been announced.

If you’re wondering where the idea for a potato photo contest came to be, look no further than Kevin Abosch’s Potato #345 (2010), a now-famous photo of a sole starchy tuber that sold for a wallet-mashing one million dollars in 2016, making it the 15th most expensive photo sold at the time.

The Potato Photographer of the Year contest was founded by the contest platform Photocrowd, who partners with The Trussell Trust to ensure all proceeds to ending hunger and poverty in the United Kingdom. Proceeds are made with each photo entry, which costs £5 (GBP) each (up to 8 images).

While the competition ‘didn’t quite raise a million bucks I had secretly hoped for,’ says competition organizer Benedict Brain, ‘the few grand we did raise will go a long way to help provide much-needed food for the Trussell Trust.’

The overall winner is Raw Spence, who captured an image of his sprouting spud about to get a much-needed quarantine haircut. For taking the overall prize, Spence is receiving a Fujifilm X-A7, a year’s membership of the Royal Photographic Society, a one-on-one workshop with photographer Benedict Brain and 3 years of Photocrowd master-level subscription.

The ten winning images, presented in the following gallery, were selected from an panel of judges that includes Martin Parr, Paul Hill, Angela Nicholson (Founder of She Clicks), Nigel Atherton (Editor, Amateur Photographer), and Benedict Brain (Brain’s Foto Guides).

Overall Winner

Photographer: Ray Spence

Title: End of Lockdown

Caption: ‘This picture manages to introduce a topical lockdown obsession to the brief of photographing a potato. It takes a great imagination to see a sprouting potato as a head covered with hair, and there is a lot of humor in the way the picture has been executed.’ — Nigel Atherton

Judge’s comment: ‘This is delightful, imaginative, and a good laugh. And again, a bit bonkers. What we all need at this grim time. Love it!’ – Paul Hill

2nd Place

Photographer: David ‘Spud’ White

Title: A Potato

Judge’s comment: ‘This looks like an alien lifeform, photographed on the surface on a barren planet by a NASA robot.’ — Nigel Atherton

3rd Place

Photographer: Amy D’Agorne

Title: Tight Market Specifications

Caption: ‘Potato agronomy is changing, raising the need for new solutions to old problems. In an environment where pests, weeds and diseases have no regard for the pressure to meet tight market specifications Bayer is committed to helping you produce quality crops that are also profitable to grow.’ – Bayer, 2019

In Peru, the birthplace of the potato, indigenous women sometimes use fine slices of potato peel as a facemask to soothe and soften the skin.

I was meant to be working with an indigenous NGO in the Andes when Covid broke out so since I couldn’t try this in the Andes themselves, I decided to try this technique out at home and made a self-portrait documenting the process. I was simultaneously reading about the history of agriculture and the development of large agribusiness, specifically about the corporation Bayer, now one of four major agrichemical businesses in the world, a company that owns 80% of all commercial seeds on the planet. The report that I was reading was released by the CIA in 2001 and discloses information about Bayer (then known as IG Farben) and their despicable involvement in Nazi Germany.

I rang up the Crop Science branch of Bayer that is based in the U.K. and was shocked to hear that the company still uses and promotes the use of glyphosate on British potatoes. Glyphosate, a chemical that the company Monsanto, which was bought up by Bayer in 2011), sold in their ‘Round-Up’ product, a product they, and now Bayer is being sued by consumers for giving the users of the product various cancers and autoimmune diseases. I was fascinated by the obvious dichotomies and differences that there are when looking at the relationship that indigenous peoples have with their food and the relationship that western ‘developed’ countries and companies share with their food.

Indigenous peoples make up less than 5% of the planet’s human population, and yet they are protecting 80% of its diversity. And only 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. This image investigates the relationship between natural remedies /the close relationship some people have with their food and the big companies/corporations that take advantage of that natural knowledge to expand on market specifications.

Judge’s comment: ‘This image looks at the politics of the potato from two angles — its indigenous origins and the current domination of agriculture by a single company — and cleverly combines them is a thoughtfully conceived and well-executed composite image.’ — Nigel Atherton

4th Place

Photographer: Laure Gibault

Title: Potato Slug

Caption: A straight shot of a sweet potato

Judge’s comment: ‘I like the fact that this spud looks like a cross between a seal and a unicorn.’ Martin Parr

5th Place

Photographer: Peter Hubert

Title: Planting Jersey Royals

Caption: Every winter the fields in Jersey are ploughed in preparation for the planting of the Island’s main cash crop, Jersey Royals. As a Jerseyman I have been endeavouring to determine and photograph some of the things that we take for granted but are intrinsically and distinctly part of the fabric of Jersey life, cultural reference points that fellow Islanders would instantly recognise and instinctively understand. The planting of potatoes by migrant workers has been a feature of the farming community since the 19th century. Over the years some have stayed and many families include forebears who originally arrived as seasonal farm labourers.

6th Place

Photographer: Tova Krentzman

Title: Untitled

Caption: A portrait of individuals, together yet very much alone….and the unifying task of the mundane that is also beautiful….much like the character of the potato (mundane and glorious in its basic state and potential).
Together, alone, under a mundane task of peeling potatoes. During these past months of lockdown, the story of individuals; each from a different country, with their own interests and commentary…sharing space. In this depiction, they are united by the potato.

Judge’s comment: ‘This carefully arranged tableau is a work that stayed most in my mind when I went back and forth through the excellent contributions to the competition. The photographer has creatively used what looks like available light in an empty kitchen, and the image also reflects effectively the claustrophobic side of the lockdown. It is engagingly surreal and a bit bonkers too.’ Paul Hill

7th Place

Photographer: William Richardson

Title: Frites in Bruges

Caption: Frites in Bruges with dollop of mayonnaise.

Judge’s comment: ‘How reassuring to see a helping of chips and mayonnaise.’ – Martin Parr

8th Place

Photographer: Justin Quinnell

Caption: Eating a ‘potato face’ – from inside of my mouth ‘Smileycam’, 110 cartridge pinhole camera image taken from inside of my mouth using two flashguns to illuminate subject and teeth (not in mouth).

9th Place

Photographer: Amy D’Agorne

Title: 2030

Caption: The year; 2030. Climate change and a rise in food shortages have prompted the U.K. Government to encourage all citizens to start growing food within their back yards. Gripped by the mass hysteria, the protagonist, with a colander on her head to protect herself from her own erratic fears of 5G, tries to plant potatoes in her concrete-lined back yard. As one of the hardiest food crops, they may be her only chance of survival.

Judge’s comment: ‘I like the humour in this image and have nothing but admiration for the effort the photographer went to in order to create it.’ – Nigel Atherton

10th Place

Photographer: Jodie Krause

Title: Apple of the Earth

Caption: This photograph depicts an interpretation of Adam and Eve. Subsequent to COVID-19, humans have been denied many temptations such as contact and intimacy. However, it has also provided an opportunity for the world to ‘reset’ and renew. The potato is a staple food enjoyed around the world and therefore epitomises the fundamentals of life. Moreover, potato in French, ‘Pomme de Terre’, directly translates to ‘Apple of the Earth,’ highlighting the importance of the potato since it is likened to a fruit associated with re-birth. Therefore, my photograph is focused on the creation of Adam and Eve, who herald the start of a new world by holding a potato.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Slideshow: Shortlisted photos from the 2020 Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest

20 Jul

2020 Astronomy Photographer of the Year Shortlist

The Royal Observatory (Greenwich) has announced the shortlisted photos for its Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2020 competition. This year marks the 12th year of the competition, which is sponsored by Insight Investment and is held in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine.

A record-breaking 5,200 photographs were submitted from nearly 70 countries across the world. The competition will ultimately result in one overall winner and winners within nine categories (Skyscapes; Aurorae; People and Space; Our Sun; Our Moon; Planets Comets and Asteroids; Stars and Nebulae; Galaxies; and Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year), as well as two special prizes (The Sir Patrick Moor Prize for Best Newcomer Award and The Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation Award). The winning images will be announced on September 10, 2020.

We’ve rounded up a few of the shortlisted images and presented them in the accompanying gallery. You can find out more about the Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition on the Royal Museums Greenwich website.

Geysir Aurora © Phil Halper (UK)

About the image: Close to the Spring and Autumn Equinox, the Earth’s magnetic field aligns with the incoming solar wind to create a better chance for aurora activity. The photographer had been waiting for signs of solar storm near the equinox date hoping that the ‘Russell-McPherron effect’ would kick in. During the last weekend in September it seemed there would be favourable terrestrial and space weather conditions, so the photographer travelled with a friend to Iceland. They were not disappointed. The northern lights danced all weekend, with clear skies every night. This shot shows the famous Geysir of Iceland preparing to blow with the aurora behind it.

Gear: Sony ILCE-7S camera, 24 mm f/1.4 lens, ISO 2000, 2-second exposure

Northern Dragon’s Eye © Elena Pakhalyuk (Ukraine)

About the image: The photographer loves to travel, especially exploring the north and chasing the Northern Lights. Trying to capture how ordinary things can take magical forms under the lights, the photographer selected and lit this rocky outcrop and waited for the aurora to work its magic.

Gear: Canon EOS 6D camera, 14 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 1600, 30-second exposure

Hamnøy Lights © Andreas Ettl (Germany)

About the image: After two weeks of storm, clouds and snow in the Lofoten Islands, the sky finally cleared up, providing perfect conditions for hunting the northern lights. The photographer waited patiently in their car for the light show to begin and on the first sign of the aurora borealis in the sky, he set up his camera at this famous overlook of the idyllic fishing village Hamnøy. The image is a manual exposure blend consisting of one base image for the sky and foreground plus a total of seven bracketed images to balance the highlights and shadows in the fishing village and water.

Gear: Nikon Z7 camera, Tamron SP 15-30mm F/2.8 Di VC USD 17 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 800, 10-second exposure

NGC 253 – Starbust Galaxy in Sculptor © Terry Robison (Canada)

About the image: This image depicts an object that many will recognise in the southern hemisphere skies – NGC 253, The Sculptor Galaxy. It is an intermediate galaxy located within the constellation Sculptor and is one of the brightest spiral galaxies visible to us. It is also one of the dustiest and currently undergoing a period of intense star formation. The photographer’s goals were to present this large and bright galaxy in a way that retains its subtle colouring and intricate textures throughout its disk.

Gear: RCOS 10″ telescope at f/9.1, AstroPhysics AP-900 mount, SBIG STL-11000 camera, L-RGB-Ha composite, 34 hours total exposure

M16 © Alexios Theodorov (Russia)

About the image: This entry tries to catch the feel of stargazing through basic optical instrument – a kind of Galileo’s telescope. Special processing of the image includes converting to Lab, channel mixing, increasing contrast, and applying filters, with the aim of illustrating that images with limited colour range may be as stunning as full colour ones.

Some Moons are Close, and Some are Small and Far Away © Andy Casely (Australia)

About the image: On 12th August, our moon occulted Saturn and its moons. The shadowed limb of the waxing gibbous Moon gradually hid the planet over several minutes. Shadowed mountains are visible against the bright planet and rings as an irregular edge where the planet is hidden. To Saturn’s left are two of its own icy moons, Tethys (lower) and Dione (upper), tiny specks in the darkness.

This is an image the photographer has long wanted to catch; the contrast of a big far away planet against the sharp details of the nearby Moon.

Gear: Celestron C14 Schmidt Cassegrain telescope at f/11, Celestron GCX-L mount, ZWO ASI290MM camera, Saturn: 2 x 30-seconds, Tethys and Dione: 4 x 30-seconds, Moon 1 x 60-seconds exposures

39% Crescent Moon © Richard Addis (UK)

About the image: This image of the Moon at 39% illumination was captured through eleven videos of different areas, which were stacked and then stitched together. The saturation process revealed the mineral compositions in the Lunar Basalts on the surface. These vivid browns and blues are due to high concentrations of titanium and iron. The photographer loves the contrast along the terminator and the close-up detail and clarity of this image.

Gear: Celestron Nexstar 6SE telescope, Celestron Advanced GT mount, ZWO ASI120MC camera, 4,400 x 0.08-second exposures.

Eruption…. © Elena Pakhalyuk (Ukraine)

About the image: The photographer was inspired to imagine what the Crimean peninsula would look like in the distant past, when thousands of volcanoes erupted on Earth. She used lighting and long exposure to illustrate this. The resulting image sees everything combined into one large panorama image and processed in a photo editor.

Gear: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV camera, Sky: Canon 24 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 3200, 22 x 20-second exposures. Foreground: Samyang 14 mm f/2.8 lens, ISO 1600, 23 x 20-second exposures

Stargazing Giant © Dai Jianfeng (China)

About the image: This image is the view of the Milky Way rising above the Moai at Ahu Akivi. Ahu Akivi is a particularly sacred place in Easter Island in the Valparaíso Region of Chile, looking out towards the South Pacific Ocean. The site has seven moai, all of equal shape and size, and is also known as a celestial observatory that was set up around the 16th century. The shot highlights the central bulge of the Milky Way, the constellation Scorpio, as well as the planets Jupiter and Saturn.

Gear: Canon EOS 6D Mark camera, Sigma art 14 mm f/1.8 lens, ISO 12800, 10 x 15-second exposures

Meeting © Nicolai Brügger (Germany)

About the image: After a long hike and a little bit of climbing to the top of the mountain, the photographer was able to see the Milky Way. He only had five minutes time to take the panorama shot before the clouds moved. The photographer and his friend are pictured standing on the edge, looking out at the sky and over the city of Füssen in Germany.

Gear: Nikon D810 camera, Sigma 14 mm f/1.8 lens, ISO 4000, 33 x 20-second exposures

The Red Lake of Stars © Bryony Richards (USA)

About the image: Years ago, before over-fishing, Little Redfish Lake was called as such due to the vast numbers of salmon turning the lake a red colour. The red colouration is no longer seen because of salmon, but the colour of sunsets and airglow during the night still turn the waters a vibrant red. It is these beautiful warm echoes of red, combined with the mirror-like reflections of the Sawtooth Mountains in the distance and the alignment of the Milky Way with the mountains that make Little Redfish Lake one of the most spectacular places the photographer has ever shot at night. The photographer recalls that ‘we were fortunate enough that night to have the lakeshore to ourselves, just three of us, and a rather excited dog who tried his best not to run into our tripods! We spent the sunset here, waiting for the stars to come out and the Milky Way core to rise, marvelling at the red colour of the water.’

Gear: Sony A7riii camera, Sky: 50 mm f/2 lens, ISO 1600, 121-second exposure, Foreground: 50 mm f/1.4 lens, ISO 1600, 111-second exposure, Reflection: 50 mm f/1.4 lens, ISO 6400, 30-second exposure

The Cave of the Wild Horses © Bryony Richards (USA)

About the image: Located in the heart of the desert in Southern Utah, the Cave of the Wild Horses, with its copious wildlife, petroglyphs, rock varnish, and framed view of the summer Milky Way in its entrance, makes for a fairy-tale place to take astrophotographs. This photograph is one of the most complicated that the photographer has taken to date due to the location of the cave and the number of foreground images taken. Getting to the cave involves a long hike through the desert, over sandstone plateaus, through brush and desert sand. Upon reaching the cave, the photographer decided that she wanted to take a large panorama in order to preserve the feeling of looking out of the cave to the sky beyond.

Gear: Sony A7riii camera, Sky: 50mm f/2.2 lens, ISO 1250, 90-second exposure, Foreground: 50 mm f/1.4 lens, ISO 1600, 120-second exposure

Galactic Portal © Marcin Zajac (USA)

About the image: On the photographer’s trip to Australia, he travelled to the coastal town of Kiama, where he captured his first Milky Way image of the year – his first Milky Way image taken from the Southern Hemisphere. Once the sun set, the photographer made his way into the cave and waited for a few hours for the core of the Milky Way to appear. Being unfamiliar with the southern sky, the photographer was surprised to also see Jupiter appear soon after.

Nikon D600 camera, Sky: 24mm f/1.4 lens, ISO 6400, 15-second exposure, Foreground: 24mm f/8 lens, ISO 200, 30-second exposure

Thor’s Helmet © Ignacio Diaz Bobillo (Argentina)

About the image: One of the attractive things about astrophotography is that one can always improve on a previous image of an object, by going deeper with a longer integration, by trying new processing techniques, by changing the scale and framing, by using a better gear. This gives endless possibilities. In this particular case, the photographer went back to an image he did last year, and added 19 hours of data to complete a 25-hour integration. It is a bicolor narrowband image of a well-known nebula, which is sculpted by a central Wolf-Rayet star. With the added data, the structures are revealed in more detail and depth, and the surrounding nebulosity expands well towards the borders of the frame. The result, a ghostly helmet that seems to float in outer space.

Gear: Astro-Physics 167 FLZ telescope at f/7.2, Astrodon 3 nm filters, Astro-Physics 1100 mount, Apogee Alta U8300 camera, Ha-OIII composite, 75 x 20-minute exposures

Statue of Liberty Nebula © Martin Pugh (Australia)

About the image: Photographed using narrowband filters to accentuate the energy levels occurring in each emission line, sulphur was mapped to red, hydrogen to green and oxygen to blue. An additional 4 hours per RGB channel were acquired and substituted into the image, particularly for the stars. While aptly titled the Statue of Liberty Nebula (NGC 3576), the irony is that this is a southern hemisphere object.At lower left in the image is NGC 3603 containing the Starburst Cluster.NGC 3576 is located in the Carina arm of the Milky Way at approximately 20,000 light years distant.

Gear: Planewave CDK 17″ telescope at f/6.8, Bisque Paramount ME mount, SBIG STXL11002 camera, RGB-Ha-SII-OIII composite, Total exposure 35.5 hours

The Magnificent: Rho Ophiuchi Complex © Mario Cogo (Italy)

About the image: This image captures the photographer’s favourite astrophotography field and one of the most vibrant, colourful nebulas in space. It shows many interesting deep-sky objects as Rho Ophiuchi the triple star surrounded by the blue reflection nebula IC 4604 on top-left, the red supergiant star Antares and one of closest globular cluster to the Solar System M4 to the right. This two panel mosaic was taken under the dark Namibian sky over two nights in August 2019.

Gear: Takahashi FSQ106 ED APO refractor telescope at f/5, Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO mount, Canon EOS 6D Cooling CDS Mod camera, ISO 1600, 13 hours total exposure

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Nikon Photo Contest 2020-2021 Officially Confirmed

01 Jul

The post Nikon Photo Contest 2020-2021 Officially Confirmed appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.

dps-news-nikon-photo-contest-2020-confirmed

The 2020/2021 Nikon Photo Contest has been officially confirmed by Nikon.

For both amateur and professional photographers alike, and now in its 38th Edition, the Nikon Photo Contest has been running since 1969. During its life, it has seen over 440,000 photographers enter the competition, and had over 1.71 million photographs submitted.

In 2018-2019 (the 37th edition), the Nikon Photo Contest celebrated it’s 50th Anniversary, with around 33,000 photographers from 170 countries around the world entering over 97,300 works!

Nikon states:

“The environment surrounding the image-making culture is constantly changing with the times, and it always inspires us with new perspectives. We are pleased to provide a place for creators to discover new creations by adapting to the latest methods and styles of expression and deliver important stories through the common language of imaging.”

To keep up with the competition details, head over to the official competition site.

What do you think of Nikon Photo Contest? Have you entered before? Will you be entering this year? Let us know in the comments!

dps-news-nikon-photo-contest-confirmed-feature

You may also like:

  • 8 Great Reasons to Enter a Photo Contest
  • How To Evaluate Photo Contests Before Submitting Your Images And Cash
  • Photo Contests – Is that a contest or Rights Grab?
  • How to Improve Your Chances of Winning a Photography Contest
  • Key Tips to Winning a Photography Contest

The post Nikon Photo Contest 2020-2021 Officially Confirmed appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.


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My iphone shot from the Adorama photo contest

06 Jun

My shot of the Kimmel Center for the Adorama photo contest took  one of the 3rd place prizes!

http://contest.adorama.com/entries/36329

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Adorama’s opens up ‘Perspective,’ the first of its new photo contest series for US residents

22 May

U.S. camera retailer Adorama has opened a competition as part of it’s ‘Create No Matter What’ campaign in which photographers based on the U.S can win a Canon EOS RP kit worth $ 3000. The theme for the contest is Perspective, but you’ll need to move quickly as the closing date is 27th May.

The store is running the campaign with an ongoing series of competitions to encourage creative people to remain active during the lockdown, and says it aims to inspire photographers, videographers, designers and audio artists while many may find it hard to work or enjoy their hobby.

The Perspective Challenge though is a photographic contest, and entrants are allowed to put forward up to five images. Judges will be looking for ‘adherence/appropriateness to the challenge theme, originality of expression, composition, lighting, and visual and emotional impact’.

The prize is a Canon EOS RP body and Canon RF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens along with a Manfrotto Befree Live aluminum tripod with fluid head, a Moment variable ND filter, a ProGrade Digital 256GB SD camera and a Peak Design backpack to put it all in.

For more information, and to enter, see the Create No Matter What page of the Adorama website.

Press release:

Adorama Announces #CreateNoMatterWhat Creative Challenge Series

First Challenge Theme: Perspective Offers Photographers a Chance to Win a Canon Camera Package

Adorama, the trusted source for market-leading photo, video, audio, and computer equipment and information, announced today the “Create No Matter What: Perspective Challenge” photography contest. Revealed by travel, outdoor and adventure photographer Nathan Lee Allen, the Perspective Challenge asks photographers to show how they create a different perspective of their art, for a chance to win a Canon EOS RP camera prize package worth more than $ 3,000.

“With more than 50 million impressions and even more engaged users, our #CreateNoMatterWhat campaign has really hit a high note within our community. To keep the positive momentum flowing, we are excited to launch a series of themed creative challenges and will be rewarding our community with really amazing prizes!” said Mary-Irene Marek, Director of Content and Social Media for Adorama. “Our first challenge is all about perspective within photography. Whether you’re capturing life from a different angle or using props to create a whole new environment, you’re using perspective to tell the story.”

Adorama’s #CreateNoMatterWhat campaign is a community-based hashtag to engage with and encourage creatives to create, learn, and think outside the box. Whether it’s photography, videography, audio, design or editing, #CreateNoMatterWhat challenges creators to keep their creativity flowing and to continue their passions while at home.

To enter the Perspective Challenge, photographers should submit a completed online entry form and up to five photographs that demonstrate their talents, skills and vision. Winners will be selected based on the following criteria: adherence/appropriateness to the challenge theme, originality of expression, composition, lighting, and visual and emotional impact.

The Perspective Challenge is open now through May 27th at 11:59 PM ET. The winner will be announced on May 29th at 12 p.m. ET.

To learn more about the Perspective Challenge and enter up to five images for a chance to win, visit www.adorama.com/cnmw.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Slideshow: These are the shortlisted images for the Palm* Photo Prize 2020 contest

20 May

Shortlisted images for the Palm* Photo Prize 2020 contest

Palm* Studios recently announced the shortlisted images for its 3rd annual Palm* Photo Prize competition. Over 7,000 images were submitted from all over the world. 108 were selected for the shortlist and are now in the running for the annual prize. All of these photos are for sale as prints with 100% of the profits going directly to the artists.

The judging panel consists of Alastair McKimm, editor-in-chief of i-D, Karen McQuaid, senior curator at The Photographers’ Gallery, Sarah Allen, assistant curator at Tate Modern, David Campany, Jessica Lopez, photo editor at Polaroid Originals, and Lola Paprocka, founder of Palm* Studios.

Brooklyn, New York-based photographer Dino Kuznik is in the running for the annual prize.

20 overall award winners for the Judge’s Panel prizes, Peoples Choice Award, and Peoples Choice Instagram Award will be announced on May 30th. DPReview reached out to a handful of these shortlisted photographers and got the story behind their nominated images plus the information on the gear they used. Don’t forget to check out all the nominees and support their work.

Shortlist, 2020: Dimitri Djuric (London, United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: The image is a type of pylon for a high tension overhead power line. It’s part of an ongoing series of buildings and structures photographed at night.

Gear: Fujifilm XH1 camera and a big flash.

Shortlist, 2020: Ashley Bourne (Bristol, United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: My work centers around storytelling within society, drawing on ideas from personal experience to form the basis of my projects.

Gear and Film: Pentax 67 medium format camera, a 90mm lens, and Kodak Portra 400 film.

Shortlist, 2020: Mark Mahaney (San Francisco, California, United States)

Artist Statement: This is an image from my first book, Polar Night. The project is a passage through a rapidly changing landscape in Alaska’s northernmost town of Utqiagvik. It’s an exploration of prolonged darkness, told through the strange beauty of a snowscape cast in a two month shadow.

The unnatural lights that flare in the sun’s absence and the shapes that emerge from the landscape are unexpectedly beautiful in their softness and harshness. It’s hard to see past the heavy gaze of climate change in an arctic town, though Polar Night is a visual poem about endurance, isolation and survival.

Gear: Pentax 645z camera with manual focus 75mm lens.

Shortlist, 2020: Joseph Balestra (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States)

Artist Statement: At the end of 2019, I spent a month out west in California as a way to wrap up the year and reflect. During this time I created a few portraits of local artist and personalities. This portrait was created on Venice beach of Artist Floyd Zion, a musician and model based out of LA. The shoot was approached in what is still to this day one of my favorite ways to work with a subject. No planning, just chasing light and enjoying a day of collaboration.

Gear and Film: Mamiya AFD II camera, Kodak film, self-scanned.

Shortlist, 2020: Alexander Beer (London, United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: Too many people stigmatize women who wear the hijab. There is nowhere in the the Holy Quran that tells them not to kick ass as human beings. These amazing girls and women are all taekwondo black belts.

Gear and Film: Asahi Pentax 67 6×7 camera, with 120 film.

Shortlist, 2020: Caitlin Chescoe (London, United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: My Father has been a life long KISS fan, we’ve grown up with bands like KISS playing throughout the house and it is very much a part of who we are as a family. On this occasion myself, Mum, Dad and Sister all dressed up as the band to watch a gig in Munich for KISS’ last ever world tour. We had front row seats and my Dad nearly cried he was so happy. This image represents an incredible memory that we all share together.

Gear: Hasselblad 500c/m camera.

Shortlist, 2020: Jan Kühr (Oslo, Norway)

Artist Statement: Ripe fruits and vegetables constitute a wild boar feast in the mountains in Alpilles, South of France.

Gear and Film: Mamiya 7 II camera with an 80mm lens, Kodak Porta 160 ISO film.

Shortlist, 2020: Rinchen Ato (Cambridge, United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: Rinchen Ato’s photographs are an exploration of her heritage and the fast-evolving culture of the Khampa people. Over multiple trips, spanning the past two decades, she has documented family, friends and the struggles and celebrations of the wider community of Tibetan people living in Kham.

It is an incredible place. The region is mountainous, consisting of high altitude grasslands, a remote and rugged land with a society where little had changed for centuries until recently. ‘My father often jokes that he was born in the Bronze Age and even in the 20 years I have been photographing there I have seen how quickly Kham has evolved.’ The inhabitants were mostly nomadic but, with rapid modernization, mass migration to the town of Jyekundo ????????????? and huge earthquake in 2010 which obliterated the area, many villages are now abandoned or only have a few families remaining.

Deeply aware of the visual tropes used by foreign photographers, depicting Tibetans as ‘other,’ Ato’s work employs a sensibility which comes from her connection to the community, a community which is familiar to her.

The project has been described as a mix of nostalgia and realism. ‘To photograph is the act of capturing a moment and this is my attempt to record and hold on to something precious, like a love letter, an homage, to the people I hold most dear and the country that I adore.’

The project started in a naïve way. Twins are an obvious subject for photographers as the very notion suggests the mirror-like rhetoric that photography has with the world. It’s also interesting because when you shoot subjects so similar, under scrutiny, it highlights the differences between them and how we’re all individuals. But as the project now stretches over such a long period it has evolved into something more, an uninterrupted sequence, a body of work in it’s own right marking the passage of time. As they have grown and changed, so too has the environment around them, yet the resemblance between the girls remains constant.

In this image they were 15. We’d finished lunch and were sitting around chatting but this year was different. They dashed off to their room to get ready and were gone about half an hour. They came out wearing these incredible gingham dresses and matching watches. It felt like a real transition, they’d become conscious of their appearance. We stood on the balcony overlooking the town. The rabbits were a birthday gift and they wanted to hold them, and there it was, the shot.

Gear: Hasselblad 503CXI camera with film.

Shortlist, 2020: Lotte Van Raalte (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Artist Statement: This January (2020) I published my very first book, BODY. Over the course of 16 months I photographed 46 women in their most natural form including my mom. This picture was taken on the 16th of October 2018 at the beach in The Hague, the city where I grew up. My mom – who is terminally ill – had just told me some bad news. Minutes after, we were driving to the beach, during which I was still processing what she had just said.

As soon as we started shooting she was running, dancing and playing. One of her oldest friends was at the beach too, so I photographed them together. My mom absolutely loves the beach and although she’s ill, looking at the images afterwards, she looks so full of life and joy. It’s one of my favorite images of the book and I still am fascinated by the fact that her body actually created mine. The title of this image is ‘Judy and Lily.’

Gear: Sony a7RIII camera.

Shortlist, 2020: Jon Ervin (Brooklyn, New York, United States)

Artist Statement: This project aptly titled ‘Boys Will Be,’ which references the common phrase ‘Boys Will Be Boys,’ is an ongoing photographic journey exploring the various ways in which men perform and construct their identity. In this project I use the camera as an active agent to witness these gestures of masculine performance through documentation, portraiture, and staged scenarios.

By turning the camera on these men, I am encouraging them to perform for the ‘other.’ That performance, framed between the lines of the viewfinder, is a subjective choice to display their constructed identity to the camera, myself, and the viewer. The use of staged adolescent experiences creates scenarios where innocent horseplay can become something of consequence and for impalpable power dynamics that are threaded throughout our society to become tangible.

It is in those moments where boys learn their own power and how it can be used to influence others. Despite the relation to “Boys Will Be Boys,” this project does not adhere to the belief of so-called excusable male behavior that is at times aggressive, violent, and toxic; instead it has importantly left off the last word — ‘Boys.’ That distinction allows the men of this project to simply be.

Gear and Film: Pentax 67II camera with a 300mm f/4 lens and 1.4x teleconverter, Portra 400 film.

Shortlist, 2020: Dylan Lewis (Richmond, Virginia, United States)

Artist Statement: This image is from my larger body of work, a photo book titled ‘Dusker.’ The images in Dusker act as physical expressions of interior states. Situated between exhalation and incantation, they construct a space where the ontological unease of ‘documentary’ photography, the aestheticizing eye of fiction, and the emotional texture of dreams within an always-already fractured reality intertwine.

Shortlist, 2020: Pat Martin (Los Angeles, California, United States)

Artist Statement: It was Easter afternoon and we heard Jeff was feeling lonely. She had thought that her whole family had forgotten about her, but to her surprise, we all showed up with a pack of American Spirits, wine, and a pair up bunny ears. Jeff may be 98, but she’s still a party-girl and loves some good company.

Gear and Film: MF Pentax 67II camera, and printed in a color darkroom. All Kodak film, chemicals, and chromogenic darkroom paper.

Shortlist, 2020: Hua Jin (Montreal, Canada)

Artist Statement: This photo is part of my long-term and ongoing project ‘My Big Family.’ A project I document my extended families in China.

I call the woman in the picture ‘Aunt,’ she is a distant relative who lives nearby. When I took this photo she was trying to dig some coppers and wires from the demolition sites where the old farmer houses had been destroyed. She could make a small amount of money in the market by selling these materials.

While local people were trying to make small amounts of money from the ruins that used to be their homes, the government along with big companies were trying to redesign and reuse the land by building residential and commercial high rises, meanwhile, to change the traditional life-styles in the rural area.

Gear: Plaubel Makina W67 camera

Shortlist, 2020: Kamila Lozinska (Bristol, United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: This is a candid shot of my dear friend Jasmine basking in the sun.

Gear: Mamiya RZ67 camera.

Shortlist, 2020: Laura Pannack (London, United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: At the age of 16, Baruch chose to leave his Orthodox Jewish community and to study. The dramatic and challenging decision forced him to question his identity and future. Einstein says: ‘The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.’ The project explores how we choose our paths in life and questions how much control we have to change who we will become. The project was commissioned by 1854 Media and supported by Panasonic.

Gear: Panasonic SR1

Shortlist, 2020: Imogen Forte (London, United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: Last Summer, I moved out of my house, put my stuff into storage, and spent three months traveling the coast of England documenting the people and places I encountered. I wanted to explore more of the country I’d always called home and familiarize myself with new people and new places.

I met this girl in Cornwall, where she was stood in the street with her family. I approached and asked if she wanted a portrait and she agreed. I spotted this amazing backdrop in the cafe beside us and so we popped inside to have a drink and a chat and take some portraits.

Gear: Mamiya RZ67 camera.

Shortlist, 2020: Tais Sirote (London, United Kingdom)

Artist Statement: Tais Sirote, also known as Taisido, is a London-based photographer specializing in still-life and product photography. She has a background in graphic design and loves anything related to self-publishing books. Her style has always shown attention to lighting, showing her strengths on taking bold images, and having an eye for detail. Her pictures are sometimes mistaken for 3D renders and attempt to trick the eye of the viewer to make you wonder how it was taken.

Gear: Canon 5DS

Shortlist, 2020: Valeria Moreno (Richmond, Virginia, United States)

Artist Statement: This image is from a photo series meant to serve as an image as film sequence portraying young womanhood.

Gear: Panasonic Lumix G7 camera.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Slideshow: Winners and finalists of Smithsonian Magazine’s 17th Annual Photo Contest

02 May

Winners and finalists of Smithsonian Magazine’s 17th Annual Photo Contest

Smithsonian Magazine recently announced the winners and finalists of their 17th Annual Photo Contest. Over 36,000 images were submitted by more than 10,000 photographers from 145 countries. A judging panel consisting of the magazine’s photo editors selected 60 images across 6 categories: Natural World, The American Experience, Travel, People, Altered Images, and Mobile.

London-based photographer Jon Enoch’s ‘Hanoi Fish Man,’ captured in Vietnam’s capital city, depicting a biker lugging around massive loads of live fish contained in plastic bags, is the Grand Prize winner. If this image looks familiar, it was shortlisted earlier this year by Sony’s annual World Photography Awards.

All 60 finalist images can be viewed here. Smithsonian Magazine is currently accepting entries for their 18th Annual Photo Contest. For more inspiration, you can follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Reader’s Choice, American Experience: ‘Home Survives Direct Hit From Tornado’ by Matt Gillespie (United States)

© Matt Gillespie. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: Ellerslie, Georgia, United States

Artist Statement: This home was in the direct line of a tornado that hit Ellerslie, Georgia. Most of the trees on the property had fallen, but the house stood with minimal damage.

Winner, Natural World: ‘Adélie Penguin on an Iceberg’ by Conor Ryan (United Kingdom)

© Conor Ryan. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: Antarctica

Artist Statement: Ice-dependent animals are in perilous danger of losing their habitat. This photo shows an Adélie penguin standing on an iceberg off Devil Island, Antarctica. I like how the half-lit, sea-eroded iceberg gives the scene a sense of dichotomy. Perhaps the penguin’s indecision on which way to go, or perhaps ours.

Finalist, Natural World: ‘Tender Eyes’ by Tamara Maria Blazquez Haik (Mexico)

© Tamara Maria Blazquez Haik. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: Monfragüe National Park, Spain

Artist Statement: A gorgeous griffon vulture is seen soaring the skies in Monfragüe National Park in Spain. How can anyone say vultures bring bad omens while looking at such tenderness in this griffon vulture’s eyes? Vultures are important members of the environment, as they take care of recycling dead matter. When looking at them flying, we should feel humbled and admire them.

Winner, The American Experience: ‘Shields Strikes Back’ by Terrell Groggins (United States)

© ?Terrell Groggins. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: Detroit, Michigan, United States

Artist Statement: Olympic champion Claressa Shields (right) meets Hanna Gabriels in a boxing match at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, Michigan on June 22, 2018. Shields suffered a first-round knock-down by Gabriels—the first time that had happened in Shields’ career—but went on to win the match by unanimous decision. Shields is the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in boxing, and the first (male or female) to win a gold back-to-back in successive Olympic Games.

Finalist, The American Experience: ‘Playground Landscape’ by Juan Osorio (United States)

© Juan Osorio. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: Verona, New Jersey, United States

Artist Statement: This series documents the interaction of the shapes, colors and functionality of playgrounds and the people who use them with an emphasis in the color contrast between the outfits and the environment.

Winner, Travel: ‘Iceberg Tower’ by Natnattcha Chaturapitamorn (Thailand)

© Natnattcha Chaturapitamorn. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: Ilulissat, Greenland

Artist Statement: Sunset over an iceberg tower in Disko Bay.

Finalist, Travel: ‘Blooming’ by Thien Nguyen (Vietnam)

© Thien Nguyen. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: Phu Yen, Vietnam

Artist Statement: A fishing net moving underneath the water’s surface. Many local fisherman families along the coastline of Phú Yên province in Vietnam will follow the near-shore currents to catch the anchovy during peak season.

Only a small proportion of the entire catch is sold fresh, with most of it being dried or salted. Salted anchovy is the most important raw material to create traditional fish sauce; the humble anchovy becomes the spirit of Vietnamese cuisine.

Finalist, Travel: ‘Larung Gar Buddhist Academy’ by Attila Balogh (Hungary)

© Attila Balogh. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: China

Artist Statement: The world’s biggest Tibetan Buddhist institute.

Winner, People: ‘Dungan Wedding’ by Yam G-Jun (Malaysia)

© Yam G-Jun. All rights reserved

Photo Location: Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Artist Statement: Madina, 20, an ethnic Dungan, is covered by a red veil before she leaves for the groom’s house during wedding ceremony in Milyanfan, Kyrgyzstan. Dungans wear traditional Chinese-influenced wedding gowns, follow traditional Hui Chinese wedding ceremonies from the 19th century and practice endogamy, but due to shrinking population size, they have stopped the practice and allowed Dungans to marry other ethnicities.

Finalist, People: ‘Portrait of Endurance Athlete Anders Hofman’ by Jesper Gronnemark (Denmark)

© Jesper Gronnemark. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Artist Statement: Portrait of endurance athlete Anders Hofman before his attempt to complete a triathlon at Antarctica.

Finalist, People: ‘The Young Dreamers’ by Sujan Sarkar (India)

© Sujan Sarkar. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: India

Artist Statement: Childhood, youth, old age. Among the three, the childhood is the most beautiful part of our life…It must be enjoyed to the fullest.

Finalist, Altered Images: ‘Follow the Herd’ by Tuan Nguyen Tan (Vietnam)

© Tuan Nguyen Tan. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: Vietnam

Artist Statement: The buffalo follow each other to new food sources at Dau Tieng Lake, Vietnam.

Winner, Mobile: ‘At Sunset’ by Victoria Gorelchenko (Russia)

© Victoria Gorelchenko. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: Moscow, Russia

Artist Statement: I was waiting for my husband in the parking lot and noticed this beautiful light.

Finalist, Mobile: ‘Loneliness in Capital’ by Farnaz Damnabi (Iran)

© Farnaz Damnabi. All rights reserved.

Photo Location: Tehran, Iran

Artist Statement: When I was going back home from work, this scene—women taking naps on public transportation— attracted my attention.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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