Archive for Competitions

Name your Dream Assignment – Winners!

If you can remember back to mid February, I did a post called If you can dream it, you can do it - which, among other things, called out for entries for the Name Your Dream Assignment competitions. I was one of the judges, and Christ with a jetpack, if people didn't come up with some absolutely awesome ideas...

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If you can dream it, you can do it

Planning out the 100% perfect photo shoot can make you a better photographer. Here's how. Think, for a moment, about every single photo shoot that somehow went wrong. The props you wish you had, the equipment you wish you could afford, the models you wish you could hire, the locations you wish you could scope out, light properly, and use as you please. Imagine for a second that you could hire the best make-up people, the best lighting assistants, the best stylists - everything you could possibly dream of. Sounds insane, doesn't it? Perhaps not - There's a lot of limitations on your photography, but many of them will be entirely artificial. To find out what's actually holding you back, put away your camera, and grab a pen and a ream of paper.

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WINNERS: one of 5 copies of my book!

Right, the winners for the competition have been picked! By deadline, there were 151 competition entries, and I used Random.org to pick the winners. The winners are: #2 - ryan97ou #88 - Luís Brás #120 - John Jimenez #116 - Tim Norris #98 - Aaron Snowden I'll e-mail you all as soon as to get your addresses so I can ship the books out to you. CONGRATULATIONS! Original competition for posterity:

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How to win photography competitions

I was recently asked to be one of the judges in a photography contest run by Crestock. (more about the competition in one of my previous posts). It's a pretty high-profile affair: The prizes are very good, and there's a lot of judges on the panel, including some esteemed bloggers, experienced writers, and successful stock photographers. When it comes to this competition, it works like this: As one of the judges, I choose the 10 photographs I like best. For round 1, that meant choosing 10 out of 491 photographs. In other words, for every 50 photos, I can only choose one. Words can't describe quite how difficult that is: A lot of talent and creativity goes into competition entries, and a lot can be said about. I won't lie to you - while I am a moderately successful blogger (hey, you're reading my blog right now, aren't you?), a soon-to-be-published author (my book goes on sale in about a month and a half) and a washed-up freelance / stock photographer who decided that I could only do photography as a hobby, because doing it for the money was soul-destroying - I have never actually judged a competition before. While the guys at Crestock were quite helpful in offering guidelines and ideas as to what I should be looking for, it got me a-thinking: What can you, as a photographer, do to maximise your chances in the battle of shutter times and lighting, against the rest of the pack?

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