This past week many competitors were given the opportunity to view the 2015 Southwest District image competition. Isn’t technology a wonderful thing? For two days we could sit in the living room with our feet up and listen in on one of the best educational resources available. Many just listened in while they went about their daily office work – what a convenience! I chose the “feet up” option, myself. 😉
And now that the competition is over and we’re waiting for the final results that include names and scores, because face it – we want to see exactly WHO some of these incredible artists are – we’re excited. And inspired.
Inspiration is groovy as heck. And after watching hundreds of images rotate through the judging panels, sometimes we get on a little bit of overload and find that the inspiration meter needs re-calibrated.
Eh?
Slow down. Think about what you’ve seen. Before you rush off and start calling models and arranging hair and makeup artists and renting cool locations and props – think about what you are doing. And trying to do.
Inspiration is fine. Duplication is not.
Take care with your inspiration. As artists, we want to stretch our creativity and explore new concepts. Putting our own spin on an amazing image is fine, but duplicating someone else’s concept is not.
If you want to get into the nitty-gritty black and white rule portion of it – here’s what the PPA has to say*:
Any entry that has been reproduced from an existing photograph, portrait, graphic or any other artwork produced by another person is a violation of the competition rules and will not be judged, accepted or displayed. If an entry, in the good-faith opinion of the Photographic Exhibition Committee, violates copyright, trademark or any other applicable law, that entry shall be disqualified.
Just bear in mind that in addition to being creative technical storytellers, we should also be ethical. If you ever have any question about whether your image/concept might be violating this rule, ask for help from the PPA or check with a PPA Affiliated Judge.
The fact that you’re wondering may be an indicator that you’re treading onto thin ice and you may just want to proceed with a different concept, instead. Better safe than sorry, right?
Seriously, this is one lesson you do not want to learn the hard way. You and your reputation as a competitor will suffer.
Starting this Thursday (SQUEE!), the PPA will begin live-streaming their District competitions with the 2015 Southwest District Competition.
If you thought the excitement last August during the first live-streamed International Print Competition (IPC) was something, just wait. It gets better. 🙂
Tune in January 8th and 9th from 9am-5pm CST to view the competition.
1. On your desktop* device go to stream.theipc.org
2. Log in with your PPA info or complete the short registration
3. Watch and learn what makes a merit image!
*Audio is NOT enabled on mobile devices. For full audio and video, please view the IPC judging live stream on your desktop computer.
One of the pieces of advice I give to my students is that they should look around and see if there are any other image competitions that would be helpful to them. There are many state level PPA-Affiliates that allow non-members to enter for a score, only. This can be a viable way of testing the waters with a new image before submitting to your own state and/or district.
This can also help you out of a tight spot if you’re like me and are in a state that is hosting one of the District competitions. Normally, my state (Ohio) would have its state level competition about a month before Northeast District. Ohio lets me enter 6 images, and generally I use the 4 highest scoring images as my entries for the Northeast District. This year, however, Ohio is hosting the Northeast District competition and Ohio entrants lose a step of competition that they normally have. It’s all fine – I love it when we host Districts – but it’s a little nerve-wracking to take 4 images straight to Districts – I like a little more input than that before I send my stuff on to IPC – so in this set of circumstances, entering first at a different state would be a good option for me.
The important thing to bear in mind is that state level associations do not have a standard for judging like the PPA does at District and IPC judging. Anyone from a Master to an fully Affiliated PPA Judge may be asked to judge at the state level. It is up to you, as a serious competitor, to make sure your images are seen by the most experienced and educated judges as possible. It would stand to reason, that if you want to see how your images *may* fare at your district, stick to competitions that are being judged by the same level of judges. Fortunately, there are a number of states that are exceptional about getting as many trained judges as possible on their panel.
As a matter of fact, I did some research and entered several images at another state just a few weeks ago. I knew who on the judging panel were PPA Affiliated judges and I used their critiques and comments as guidelines for reworking the images. It was well worth the entry fee to have that additional input.
Hang tight, Wootness will be releasing information about individual upcoming competitions that have PPA Affiliated Judges AND allow non-members to compete for scores. I will be providing all the pertinent deadlines, entry details and contact information of who is in charge.
This is going to be short and sweet as I am deep into some preparation and packing for a four day class I’m teaching in Cleveland, OH this week.
One of the things I do for some of my class presentation materials is prepare some lighting diagrams to help my students understand lighting patterns better.
The program is free to use for personal use and generates lighting diagrams in both JPG and PNG format.
This is also an excellent way to keep track of all of the lighting patterns you have found useful in your own work; customized to your own gear. You know… if you’re really organized and like to keep track of stuff like that. I’m just guessing, it’s not like I know anyone that actually does that…no siree.
One of the requirements when entering physical prints into image competition is an approved print case. If you ship your competition prints anywhere in a cardboard box or other unapproved case, your prints will more than likely not be returned to you.
If we prance on over to the PPA website, we can see the PPA Approved Print Cases section. If you’re still confused, or need more specific information – read on…
If you just want someone to point you in the right direction and tell you something to buy that will work – I can do that. There are a variety of print cases out there – so a search at any of the supplier links on the PPA Print Case page will yield something useful. Keep that link handy – and bear in mind that if will be difficult to procure a print case at the last minute and you may have to check around. The case I’m about to recommend is on a 2-4 week back order at B&H, but is in stock at the recommended vendor.
The most common type of print case that I see is made by the Fiberbilt company. I got my first print case (I currently have two) at Adorama.com and I purchased the 16×20 1″ thick case. HERE is the link the the exact case I got.
I used this case for 4 years of competition with no issue. I stayed with images that were 16×20 and smaller. I never entered albums, so the case only needed to hold 4 prints. For some competitions, it needed to hold 6 prints, which was a little bit of a squeeze, but the case has some room for growth, so it all worked out. The real problems came when I started entering images that were more than 20″ on the long side. The maximum square inches allowed for competition prints is 480 square inches, so this case is not large enough to hold prints at the upper end of the scale. I eventually bought a larger case because I started making larger competition prints. You should decide in advance if you think you might want to eventually enter larger images and just buy that size now. The least costly of these cases tops $130, so it’s a bit of an investment.
The next case I got was a Fiberbilt 20x24x4. It is entirely too large for my purposes (too deep), but I got it for a good price from another competitor who used it to enter physical albums, so that’s why it’s a 4″ case. I have to add more filler foam to the case to take up room, but that’s about the only downside so far. I’ve only been using it for a year or so and it’s currently with my IUSA2015 prints. It will hold the largest size I’d probably ever make for competition, so I don’t see needing to upgrade again any time soon.
There is a difference in the price to ship. The thicker & larger one is just going to cost more. Also, I have way more luck going to my main UPS office to ship the case instead of using a UPS store or service elsewhere. Almost everyone wants to charge me extra to put the case in a box. Except for the main UPS office. I have no clue what the issue is and it could be just the places in my area, who knows?
This is a often-asked question. It’s kind of hard to know what you’re doing in the beginning with print competition and taking a gander at some previous entries is quite helpful.
Currently, these are your options:
1. IUSA Image Exhibit
All entries that received merits or loans are displayed at the PPA’s national convention, Imaging USA. This year it it will be held in Nashville, TN February 1-3, 2015. For more information about that see HERE. The image exhibit will be open from 8am – 8pm Sunday & Monday and 8am – 3:30pm on Tuesday, and will be located at Lower Level, Hall C, Inside the Imaging Expo. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
The Print Exhibit at IUSA 2013
2. Loan and Showcase Books
Each year, images that receive a loan (L) or showcase (GB) designation are published in books by Marathon Press and are available for purchase.
Loan collection books are HERE. The 2014 edition is $69.95 plus shipping, however, if one of your images is in the book, you receive a special reduced price.
Showcase collection books are HERE. The 2014 edition is $59.95 plus shipping, however, if one of your images is in the book, you receive a special reduced price.
If you need to order a book at the reduced/contributor price, call 800/228.0629 to speak with a Marathon Representative, Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm CST.
3. Observe Competition
This used to be hard, but with modern technology, it has become much easier in recent years. Presently, there are three ways to do this:
A. Attend a live competition in person.
Competitions are generally conducted so that they may accommodate an audience. if you are a member of the organization hosting the competition, there should be no issue with attending. Presently, competitions are conducted on local, state, district and international levels. Keeping in touch with your organizations will allow you to be aware of when these opportunities are scheduled. Most organizations also have an image exhibit following the live competition so that you may peruse all entries at your convenience.
B. Watch a live-streamed competition – Part 1.
Here’s where it starts to gets fun. 🙂
For the past several years, there has been an independent company, called printcompetition.com with a variety of print competition services. A number of local and state organizations are beginning to use this service for administrative functions. This is where competitors can enter their images online and pay their fees. The organization may also opt to rent some competition scoring equipment, which also includes the opportunity to broadcast the competitions online for competitors who cannot travel to the competition.
Bear in mind that not every organization uses this system and this website is not affiliated with the PPA. Streamed competitions are visual ONLY and do not include ongoing AUDIO coverage.
Access the game Day Application HERE (also available on iDevices). Upcoming streamed competitions are also listed on the main web page.
C. Watch a live-streamed competition – Part 2.
And this is where it gets knocked out of the park.
PPA has entered the playground and boy is this hot stuff! IPC 2014 was live-streamed in its entirety. images being judged and the corresponding audio in all competition rooms are broadcast. Due to the number of entries, judging takes place in multiple rooms simultaneously. Up to five rooms were broadcast at a time in 2014. AND entrants received score notifications via text – WOOTNESS!
PPA has also just announced (see HERE) that the Southwest District competition on Jan 8 & 9, 2015 will also be live-streamed. There is a lack of information about how to access that, but I’m assuming (and we know the risk of doing that) that they will be utilizing the same access website as they did for IPC, which is http://stream.theipc.org/ – stay tuned – Wootness will announce more details on this as they are forthcoming.
4. Competition archives.
Generally I don’t make recommendations on Wootness.net that involve spending money. I’m going to make an exception this time.
Because of the appearance of printcompetition.com on the scene, we are now able to review the archive of images that have been entered into the local and state organizations (PPA District and IPC competitions are not included) that have utilized this website for entry and scoring purposes. In order to view any entries other than your own, you must purchase a Premium membership which is $10 quarterly. I do not get a thing for recommending this membership. I think it’s an incredible value for the money – there are over 10,000 images in the archives at this time. The scores the image received are viewable as well as a recording if the image was challenged. Although there is no audio of the entire competition, challenges are recorded automatically and made available on the site. I heartily recommend you purchase a membership – the educational value is exponentially more than the $10 price tag. You may also access individual competitions for a fee of $25.
A sample archive image at printcompetition.com
Now – pay attention to this – although looking through the results and scores and listening to the recorded challenges can be quite helpful – remember that you do not know who the judges are that did the scoring and challenging. They may have been fully affiliated judges, members with Masters degrees, or somewhere in-between. I recommend that my students pay particular attention to scores and critiques by PPA affiliated jurors, but there is no way of knowing who is who when utilizing this site.
5. Digital Presentations.
These are less numerous and a bit harder to locate, but here are two collections of recent images.
Marathon Press 2013 Loan Book: The 2013 Loan book in PDF format. This is not the usual way of things, so don’t count on being able to see future ones this way.
And there you have it – five ways to peruse past competition entries – have fun!
It’s late, and I really ought to have headed off to bed by now, but today’s to-do list had write post about resolutions on it and so here we are.
As I get older, the holidays and days of significance are, well, less significant. It’s been a good many years since I’ve gone out and celebrated New Year’s and at this point it’s just another Thursday, except my husband gets the day off work. In the middle of the week. Who do I talk to about getting this one shifted to Friday? Because we’d much rather have a 3 day weekend, thank you very much.
And so it only makes sense that my inclination to hash out this whole resolution thing is less enthusiastic with each passing year.
I know, right?
A few years ago Mr. Wootness made a resolution to drink more red wine. I’m pretty sure that’s the same year he gave up Lentils for Lent.
And while those are novel ideas (and a sign of a much more warped sense of humor than mine), I’ve just never approached the whole resolution thing from that angle.
Perhaps I should.
Part of me is thinking I should do the bright shiny sunrise oh goody goody we are SO going to have party! resolution.
It would be what would be expected from someone who does some of the things I do – you know – with the needing to be a good example/mentor thing. But it wouldn’t be real, or honest.
And besides, it’s late, and I don’t have the energy for rah! rah! kumbaya!
So perhaps sitting up late tonight, when there’s nothing but darkness outside the window, and I’m feeling fairly tired, and not very sunshiny at all – maybe this is when the real resolutions are penned. Before the dawn. In the dark and cold and tired, we see ourselves, probably as realistically and as practically as possible. We know our limits and our energies.
There are certainly things I need to fix and change and do better. There are things I need to do more often and some that I need to do less. And some that I shouldn’t be doing at all.
But this is life. And these are every day awarenesses (awarenessi?) that take continual work and improvement, and not something I should be saving up or putting off to attack once a year.
So, I guess this year I’m not really doing the resolution thing. I’ll just continue to try to do things each day as best as I can and a little bit better than the day before.
I’d heard a judging colleague of mine once talk about the images you take home with you. Figuratively speaking, of course. And after judging my first image competition earlier this year, I think I understand what he meant.
I’d been asked to judge for The Professional Photographers of South Carolina and welcomed the February trip to a warmer climate. Ohio was in the middle of Snowmageddon 2014, remember that? Ick.
This was to be my first judging rodeo and I was a little nervous. My fellow judges were all very experienced and I welcomed the opportunity to nestle in among them. No matter what side of the row of chairs you sit on at judging, you still learn. At least when you’re a newbie like me, anyway.
PP of SC was small and intimate. I liked that. There was a unobtrusive team of two or three that ran things and the audience stayed quite silent, as well, so it was easy to forget you weren’t the only one looking at an image.
During the course of the day, we were presented with Permanent Bond. It was a beautiful print of two young men, yin-yanged with a rope/noose of sorts, intertwined. It was captivating, to say the least, and while I was studying it, a storyline began unwinding in my head.
I saw these young men as a couple. Same sex marriages was in the news quite a bit and I have some interest in the topic, so it wasn’t strange that my mind would go in that direction. I saw the rope as symbolic of the public declaration that many same sex couples make – once you make it, you are bound to it, and it very well may be the noose that drags you down.
That was my personal take on it, anyway.
We scored it, and I don’t remember exactly where it landed, but it was challenged. Randy McNeilly was the first to speak for the print, (which means he was the challenger) and he began to speak eloquently for the print and it’s deserving of a higher category score.
The first word of his summary was “Twins.”
THUD. Twins? Oh dear, how did I miss that? Twins? While I was off in never-never land with the storyline, Randy had gotten the intended story of the image as soon as it spun.
Twins. What was I thinking?
I had a series of thought processes going on all at the same time – wondering if I should just quit judging now, very glad that I hadn’t challenged the print and spoken first because I’d be trying to hide under my chair in embarrassment, and listening to Randy’s challenge listing the positive attributes of the image. He was right, and luckily my interpretation of the story of the image had little bearing on my score of the print as it was a superior example of portraiture. In the end, the image scored a 97.
Wow.
Thinking about it now still gives me goosebumps.
Later, we gathered together to eat, and since we were finished with the judging, we could speak freely about the images. I, with some embarrassment, told the other judges my interpretation of the image. And then Randy said something I’ll never forget.
What a fine example of art if two viewers, looking at the same piece of art at the same time can come up with two completely different interpretations.
I’m still thinking about that. I can only hope to some day create the kind of work that moves people emotionally. And not always in the same direction. I’ll probably go though some angst about the directional thing – I probably wouldn’t be near as gracious as the maker of Permanent Bond has been about my rogue interpretation.
I’ll work on that part.
I thought about that image and what Randy said all the way home. And it was a long drive from South Carolina to Ohio. I remembered the judge that said there would be images that didn’t leave your mind, images you’d think about for a long while after the judging was over. Images that would haunt you.
This was one of them.
♦
Permanent Bond was awarded the Sunset Print Award at PP of South Carolina and later went on to win the Sunset Print Grand Award of 2014. To read more about Permanent Bond and maker Tammy Bevins, click HERE.
PSÂ – Tammy Bevins is also a Certified Professional Photographer. Just sayin’.
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