Digital Photography Competition - May Results Comments

Congratulations Robert
Well deserved win, especially for trusting one of those suction cups,i have heard of them,
but never tried one out.

Well deserved winners... thanks for the mention!

Awesome, I am cuffed to bits :D I was thinking about buying a copy of LR2 as well so the prize is perfect, thank you very much :D

Congrats to the other shots as well, they are all great.

Nick, I drove around for about an hour with the mount on before I fitted the camera just to make sure it would hold ... was still a little nervous though!!

Interesting entries this month, a pity it's almost july that the results emerge, but I gather cliff was away. But are these really deserving winners? Bisca's shot is decidedly amateur: pylons obscure the subject in two places, the shot has no technical merit, and would work much better at 3:2 than 4:3. It's really just an interesting road, but the image is poor.

Mark's image is striking, though deeply unnatural. The sky is darkened way too much. The rapeseed's texture doesn't yield enough depth: it seems more like a vertically stacked 2d image than a 3d recede-into-the-distance type shot. It's certainly striking, just not natural. I dislike the proportion of sky to land as well.

Robert's pic is intriguing, but not difficult to achieve, and worthy only for its novelty value.The motion blur is unattractive, and the pic is spoiled by the tax disc on the windscreen, along with the lack of symmetry, especially in the trees behind the driver's head.

Very interesting to see these pics, but none of them are worthy of publication, and it might be nice if people were entitled to a little feeback instead of all 'great shot' comments that tend to pervade amateur photo websites.

johnbaker - I always welcome any constructive criticism, it's the best way to improve most things ... I agree about the tax disc but as I don't have access to a private road it has to stay on by law! As for novelty value, that's the point ... personally I find shots from a different perspective to often be the root of a good photo, I've not seen front on shots like this on amateur photography sites before. And virtually all images are not difficult to achieve as long as you have the knowledge / equipment / are in the right place at the right time.

I also look forward to seeing your Holiday shot in June's competition :D

Having only entered for the first time I was delighted to see my picture published. I thought the entries on the whole were great. I thought Bisca's picture was great and was actually surprised the picture with the model Beetle didn't win. Personally I think all the published pictures were of a very high standard.

@johnbaker: first of all, i admit, i am not a profesionist (as you), i'm just an amateur. As you can see, if you'd read the comment, the photo was taked 4 years ago, with a Canon PowerShot S410, so i don't think we can speak about 3:2/4:3 and other stuff, since is a small mediocre compact camera. Second of all, regarding "pylons obscure the subject in two places", i can tell you, that this place (the place from where i tooked the photo) it's the only place where you can make photos. And...it's not my fault i win something. I just send the photo...I would prefere a small compact camera for my girlfriend, but maybe i will sell the Adobe package, and make her a small gift:)))
Anyway, congratulations to the winners and thank you TR for the price. Iulian

Ajay: Appreciate the comment, thanks :)
Cliff: Thanks for choosing the pic to be part of the showcase
Everyone else featured: Great pics guys :)

The thing that a lot of people forget is that photography is completely subjective - what works for one person may not work for others and it's down to Cliff and the adjudicators to decide what works for them when choosing the entries to showcase and the ones that end up in the prize positions.
Fortunately last month I ended up in the prize positions with my waterdrops on a leaf pic for which I am truly grateful. Personally I thought the silhouetted tiger (IIRC) was much better than my effort and deserved a prize more than my pic did but the judges didn't and I ended up with the Adobe Photoshop and Memory Card/Reader bundle which was fantastic for my first entry!

A lot of us are amateurs, I've only been into photography since December but for a lot of us newbies it's these sort of competitions that inspire us and help us get better. It's a bit of fun and if we end up in the prize positions or even being showcased it's a great boost to our confidence :)

I've not got anything for the current competition, but I look forward to challenging myself with the next one and look forward to seeing everyone elses entries too :)

Nick

I'm always dismayed by those so-called photographers who decry something being in the photograph. If it's there, then it deserves to be in the photo just as much as the subject. It's called reality, deal with it. Also little details like this are of immense value to the archivists of years to come helping place and date photos.

The worst examples I see are at Manchester Airport's Aviation Viewing Park. People go to extrordinary lengths to avoid getting the littlest bit of the boundary fence in the frame. It's there. If it's in the photo, it's in the photo.

And don't get me started on cropping!

@johnbaker

"pylons obscure the subject in two places".
Actually, to me, triangles give a sense of strength or stability, so the 'triangle' of pylons works very well in juxtaposition to the carefree, winding road.

And anyone who can say anything bad about Robert's photo is just crazy.

Mark's image is striking, though deeply unnatural. The sky is darkened way too much. The rapeseed's texture doesn't yield enough depth: it seems more like a vertically stacked 2d image than a 3d recede-into-the-distance type shot. It's certainly striking, just not natural. I dislike the proportion of sky to land as well.

Robert's pic is intriguing, but not difficult to achieve, and worthy only for its novelty value.The motion blur is unattractive, and the pic is spoiled by the tax disc on the windscreen, along with the lack of symmetry, especially in the trees behind the driver's head.

Very interesting to see these pics, but none of them are worthy of publication, and it might be nice if people were entitled to a little feeback instead of all 'great shot' comments that tend to pervade amateur photo websites.

Whoops, pasted a bit too much there. End at "crazy" :-D

Hi Cliff,
I don't know if there is anything you can do but I never received my copy of Lightroom 2. I got the memory card and reader which are fantastic, huge thanks for that.
thanks
Robert