Beyond Phototips

Finally, I’ve been able to properly evaluate and publish the winners of the Beyond Phototips Detail Everywhere competition. We received an un-expected 43 entries, each of them showing your expertise and fondness for photography.

Now, here are the winners; without further ado.

The Winners

Congratulations Aaron Koolen, Gunjan Karun and Ananda Niyogi! You have all won copies of “Fundamentals of Photography” by Tom Ang from the publishers and Aaron has won a $50 Amazon.com gift voucher from BeyondPhototips.com. You have been contacted on flickr and have been requested for your contact details please respond to that message.

Selecting the winners

Selecting the winners was not easy. I wanted to offer a fair chance, un-biased by my personal tastes and prefernces so I got 5 other people whose tastes and opinions varied based on background, age and even profession and asked them to rate each photograph based on 4 criteria. The results were tallied and the images you see above were the winners.

EDIT: I neglected to mention that it was not easy, choosing the winner. 6 judges (me plus 5 others) meant 6 different opinions. The images submitted did not make the choice any easier… I had to tally them up to see which pictures were rated the most and among them which were rated the highest. However, in the end the winners were clearly the ones you see above. Congratulations.

Late announcements

I’m aware that many of you were eagerly awaiting the results of this competition. You have mailed me and left comments on the blog. I do apologise for the delay. Unfortunately, it was un-avoidable. You can, however, expect Beyond Phototips to keep giving you your regular dose of photography tips once again.

photo credit: bill barber

Wow, This has been a great first competition for Beyond Phototips.

The Flickr Group has grown in leaps and bounds… We now have 115 members and 292 entries in the group pool. Thank you, everyone for the support.

Things have been rather hectic, but I’ve frozen the entries as of 12PM IST. If you’ve entered after that, I’m sorry, but we will not be considering your entry to be valid.

Right now, it looks like we have 43 entries. I’ll post the entries right here tomorrow, so keep watching this space.

Thank you for your patience, and have a great year ahead. Happy Holidays!

December; the end of the year, holidays and presents. Apparently it’s also the time for photography competitions with great prizes and inspiring projects that test your creativity. Here’s a quick run-through of some of the coolest.

1. Lets start with Brian Auer’s Action and Preset Extravaganza. With prizes worth over $1,000, this is truly a drool-worthy competition. If you’re wondering about what actions are, and how to create them, he’s got a post about how to create actions in Photoshop, and another on how actions can save time.
   Deadline: Jan 2^nd, 2009.
2. Neil Creek has yet another Iron Chef Photography Project running. This time he’s asking people to look creatively at the regular “paperclip”. Hurry on this one because it closes in two days.
   Deadline: Dec 25^th, 2008.
3. DIYphotography’s Something Newer Project encourages you to take photographs with the theme related to the topic ‘friends’.
   Deadline: Jan 20^th, 2009.
4. ADIDAP has the Document Christmas project which also has a prize – a Year’s subscription to SmugMug, worth $150.
   Deadline: Dec 25^th, 2008.
5. Beyond Phototips – Detail. Yes, us… If you’ve not noticed, we’re running a pretty cool project/competition ourselves, and there are three prizes. The first is an Amazon Gift card for $50 and a copy of Fundamentals of Photography by Tom Ang. The second and third prizes are a copy of this wonderful book each, two more lucky winners!!!
   Deadline: Dec 28^th, 2008

Do remember that it’s your participation that makes it fun for both the organizers and the other participants. Don’t worry about the equipment you own, or don’t own… jump in for the unique fun and learning experiences that these projects offer, and you can’t help but come out a winner.

Also, do remember to check out the projects pages of all of these websites.

Happy Holidays!

Beyond Phototips’ first photography competition was supposed to have had its deadline on the 15th of this month, but I’ve decided to extend the submission date for the contest to the 28th of December 2008. Mainly because I’ve not had enough time to give it due attention. Here are the details for those of you who have not seen them as yet.

See you at the games!

This post is part of the Beyond Phototips Birthday series, see the other posts from this series here.

I’ve been wanting to organise a photography competition on BeyondPhototips.com ever since the PhotoProjects got a positive response. Now, we’ve got our first year under our belt, the Beyond Phototips Flickr Group, and some prizes in hand! and I think we’re ready to go…

photo credit: simpologist

The publishers of Tom Ang’s book Fundamentals of Photography: The Essential Handbook for Both Digital and Film Cameras got in touch with me a couple of weeks ago, wanting to give away a few copies of the book. I should be receiving a copy in a couple of days and will do a reivew of it at that time, but I’d like to announce the competition first.

The Prizes

Three Prizes to be won.

1. One copy of Fundamentals of Photography and one Amazon.com gift card for $50.
2. Two Prizes. One copy of Fundamentals of Photography each to two winners.

Not bad for a first competition…

The Competition

In this last week, I’ve given you some tips on how to become more observant in your daily life. We’re going to see how creative you can get with DETAIL in this competition. Try to dramatise a detail from some object that you would normally not have even noticed… Try to get creative with it, and have fun. At the same time remember that you should always strive to show the best of your work when displaying it to the world.

Don’t let that keep you away from the competition. Remember the Parkour way… Practice, Practice, Practice… Keep at it, and you’ll get where you want to be.

There will be at least 2 judges, one being me; the other, I’ve not decided on, but will let you know in a future post.

Submissions

Submissions will have to be made in the Beyond Phototips Flickr Group. If you don’t have a flickr.com account, get one… the accounts are free, and… They’re a great place to meet like minded photographers…

Remember to add your photograph to the group and tag your photographs with bpcomp1-me or else you submission will not be considered part of this competition. How many submissions per person? 2 sounds like fun… so up to two photographs with this topic…

We’ve got to have a deadline too… and the 15th of December sounds good… that way you will have enough time for Christmas fun. And maybe we can announce the winners before Christmas too…

21st of December – a good date: that’s when you’ll hear who the winners are.

Good luck, and I hope to see some brilliant entries.

You’ve watched Casino Royale, or Babylon A.D.? Yes? Then you’ve seen traceurs in action.

Photo: amfdesigner

They’re the guys who run around cities, jumping over walls, climbing the outsides of buildings and generally doing ‘impossible’ stuff. Their ’sport’ is called “Le Parkour” or “FreeRunning” and the practitioners are called ‘Traceurs’. Their goal is to get from point A to point B in the most graceful and efficient way physically possible.

Now, where’s the creativity?

Their creativity is in the way that they tackle each obstacle. Each of them may go down the same route, but tackle the same obstacle in different ways. See this video clip to understand just what they do.

What can you learn?

1. Conditioning is King – Traceurs have to be able to deal with real-time changes in their environment. They practice for hours every day in an effort to develop an innate “muscle memory” that will help their bodies understand their commands and adapt their movements instantaneously.It’s the same with photography. If you practice enough, your adjustments will come to you so naturally that you will forget about the technical aspects altogether. Practice makes perfect. It also helps you forget about the camera and think more about the things that are going on around you… essential for a ‘brilliant’ photograph.
2. Understand you environment – As a photographer, you need to understand everything that’s going on around you while taking photographs. This is more important if your environment is one that is constantly changing.
3. Use the environment to your advantage – This is an offshoot of the previous point. Knowing what to expect in a given situation will help you plan out your shots in advance, anticipate what is about to happen and make the most of that situation. A keen eye for detail can help you in this.
4. Keep your mind free – Your mind is at it’s creative best when it’s free of inhibiting thoughts. Lots of practice will help you with this. It takes your conscious thought away from repetitive actions that you’ve practiced a thousand times before, and helps you concentrate on the creative aspects of your photography that confront you.
5. Know the rules and respect them – This may seem odd at first. Do ‘the rules’ mean the rules of photography? Do they mean the law of the land? Do they mean the confines of ‘good conduct’?I believe that this means all of the above mentioned points. Know the rules of aesthetic photography, The law of the land, and the limits to which you can push decency. Stay within those confines, and people will respect you and treat you well.
6. View the world through childrens’ eyes – What could be less confining, more innocent and more questioning than a child’s mind? Try to view the world through a child’s eyes and you’re sure to see something different and new all the time.The traceur is urged to do this because that is what they’re after… a mind and body free of the restrictions imposed on it by ourselves, yet responsible and ready for action.
7. Express yourself – The traceur seeks a world free of inhibitions, and their freedom of movement beyond the “traditional” gives them a form of creative expression that is unique.You have that freedom too… your camera gives you a means of expressing your thoughts that is impossible for some. So, do not restrict yourself.
8. Know who you are, and why you want to do what you do – A traceur’s journey is hard on the body, mind and soul. It is a path that is as difficult as the highest form of martial arts at it’s very zenith. Traceurs who want to attain this peak are advised to ask themselves why they want to achieve that level.Why does this matter? Because, as with anything, if you know your intentions and motivations it will strengthen you and guide your thoughts and actions. If you do not intend to reach the very peak of your skill, you will know that you need not put in your best efforts here… Rather, seek out where your efforts should be directed to achieve your goal.

I’ve recently been enthralled by “Parkour” videos that are freely available on the internet and have been studying their training methods and the reasons why they do what they do… If you get nothing else from this post, I hope you go away with an appreciation of how wonderful the movements of these athletes are, and a yearning to be be able to do something close to it.

This post is part of the Beyond Phototips Birthday series, see the other posts from this series here.