Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: KevinA on February 06, 2016, 06:08:05 am
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Why is bland good enough for this competition.
Lets face it if you watch a cookery competition on TV no one wins with a Tesco supermarket meal deal do they, so why is plain ordinary good enough for a photography portrait competition?
Why hasn't the photographer needed to show a degree of skill above the normal, why isn't the concept something special, why isn't the execution of the idea done with somekind of panache?
Why has the winner turned up with a meal deal and popped it in the microwave and walked off with the prize?
That Kobel prize winner, anyone thats ever owned a camera has taken one like that............then discarded it for something better. I think this is a shockingly poor competitionr and yes I do get it, I get what the pictures are about, I don't dislike them...but honestly they shouldn't be winning prizes.
In a World where everyone thinks they are a photographer stuff like this proves to them they are.........bland is the new vivacious obviously, the competition is now who can be the most bland and detached.
No doubt they don't call it bland but deep and insightful....still if it walks like a duck and quacks like a ......you know the rest.
http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/twppp-2015/exhibition/prize-winners-entries/first-prize.php
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... That Kobel prize winner, anyone thats ever owned a camera has taken one like that............then discarded it for something better...
Big mistake! Next time you take a shot like that*, submit it to the competition ;)
But seriously, it's the concept, not skill, execution, or technique, that matters in contests like that. Judges are often not photographers. In this particular case, it's a lawyer with exposure to various art worlds, music, film, photography, etc.
* that my six-year old could do too, right?
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Isnt this the motivating factor behind being a photographer though? i.e. the "I could do better than that" mentality?
What was that image a few years back which became the most expensive photograph ever sold? - that was "just" a row of trees. Anyone could have taken it. But they didnt - that artist did and got a whacking great lump of cash for doing so.
I personally dont really like the image, I dont like the subjects, composition or lighting. But I didnt enter a better image, and I am not in any position to say I understand photography enough to say if its a good or bad decision. I just know it's not something which I would look at and think "how could I reproduce that piece of art myself?" because I dont think I'd particularly want to. I wouldn't find it a satisfying image personally.
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Not a fan of David Stewart then??
Fair enough. But he doesn't deserve this rant.
Exactly. He has an impressive body of work specially teenage portraits ("pre-occupation"). Is the image that won the contest my favorite of his? No, he has many that i like much much better. But compared to the other images in the contest it is something VERY different so I guess that is why it got the win.
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it actualy is a well lit shot. however the concept...I don't see 5 girls not communicating to each other, and they probably have their phones in hand at the same time.
2nd runner up is an amazing shot, however it is a bit difficult, the model can not really agree or disagree with being made public.