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The Results Are In - Part 8

I received a recent award notification for The 8th International Color Awards. This is another of those big competitions that have entrants from over 80 countries and have over 8,000 photos submitted.

Several of my photos were nominated for further judging, and as a result, two were recognized as Honorable Mentions by the jury.

I have to admit that only 4 of the 12 photos in recognition were taken in Italy, the rest were taken here in the USA and Iceland. Here are the photos -- just click on a photo for a larger view.

Honorable Mentions

Abstract Category

This first photo is called 'Bourbon Street R & R'. The photo style is what I call a 'slurred' photo. I used a very slow shutter speed to allow movement of the subject. I have had a lot of fun with this process. The photo, 'Pink House Slurred' below was taken with the same process. You can see many other of these slurred photos on my non-Italy website here.

Fine Art Category

If you are a regular reader of my articles, you have seen 'Busy Day on the Grand Canal' before...and, here it is again. This photo was created using over 80 photos taken in about one hour from the Rialto Bridge in Venice. Be sure to check out that couple in the boat at the bottom-center of the photo.

Nominated

Abstract Category

'Pink House Slurred' is one of the slurred photos mentioned above. It was taken in the Texas panhandle from a moving vehicle at 73mph...this according to the Texas State Trooper.

Architecture Category

The photo of the abandoned church, aptly titled 'Abandoned Church' (catchy, huh?), was taken in northern New Mexico in the small (very small) town of Grenville.

This next photo was taken during a serendipitous lunar-puddle moment in Iceland after a long day of driving The Highlands. It was captured during sunset, which in Iceland literally lasts about 3 hours in the summer. I call this 'Icelandic Barn at Sunset'...I know, I know...another catchy title.

Fine Art Category

The photo called 'Just Around the Corner' was taken on the island of Burano, in the Venetian lagoon. I liked the way the sunlight was hitting the orange-painted plaster of one of the many colorful homes of Burano.

Nature Category

Back to Iceland and the outlet of the Jokulsarlon Lagoon for 'Blue Ice, Black Sand'. This is where icebergs are washed out to sea, only to be washed ashore to die a cold, dripping death. There are more Iceland photos here.

This photo is titled 'Church Rock' because that is what it's called, when translated from Icelandic. It is another photo taken in Iceland during one of those super-long sunsets. And yes, the mountainside is truly that green.

'Evening Seastacks' was captured late one afternoon at Second Beach on the Washington coast on the Olympic Peninsula.

In the extreme north of Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation, you will find the magnificent Antelope Canyon, this being the northern portion of that canyon. The very deep sandstone canyon has been cut over the centuries and I was able to capture it looking straight up with 'Just a Chance of Clouds'.

People Category

In 'Sunday Morning Paper' we see a stylish Roman gentleman reading his morning paper in Campo Trevi, which is home to the famous Trevi Fountain.

Still Life Category

I call this photo 'A Very Still Life', because that is exactly what I saw when I came across it on the island of Burano.

Well, that's it. Some of these photos you have seen before in the other articles with titles beginning with 'The Results Are In...' I'll keep you up to date as I hear about other results coming in.

Ciao for now,

Steve

The Results Are In: Part 1

The results of the 7th Annual International Pollux Awards are in and I’m happy to say that I received recognition in this prestigious competition! There were entries from 1,000 photographers from 62 countries in the competition, and I had 20 photos selected for recognition.

This is a different kind of photo competition than I’ve entered before. Instead of recognizing winning photos, they recognize winning photographers – a bit confusing, but there is a distinction - they say. They take the body of work submitted and evaluate the photos. They then assemble the best photos in order of preeminence to determine the winning photographer. For instance, in the ‘Nature’ category you will see that I was the Winner, but three photos made up that winning recognition for me, the photographer. Get the difference? I’m a bit hazy on it myself, but it doesn’t really matter as far as I’m concerned.

Recognition Categories

There are several photo categories and three recognition categories for the photographers, as follows:

Nominated: These are the photos selected by the competition’s producers that are passed on the jurors for further evaluation to select the Winner and Runner-Up photographers

Runner-Up: A photographer selected for recognition by the jurors but not the Winner

Winner: The one winning photographer for a category

The Results

Here are my results for the 7th Annual International Pollux Awards, along with the photos involved.

Nature -- Winning Photographer!

Winner: 3 photos

Fine Art

Nominated: 2 photos

Landscapes & Seascapes

Runner Up: 1 photo

Nominated: 2 photos

People, Culture and Daily Life

Nominated: 1 photo

Street Photography & Cityscapes

Nominated: 5 photos

Animals and Wildlife

Nominated: 1 photo

Still Life & Abstractions

Runner Up: 3 photos

Architecture & Bridges

Nominated: 1 photo

Nudes

[Sorry, I was unable to enter that category this year…but I’m working on it!]

Ciao for now,

Steve

Serendipity, Stakeouts & Targeting - Part 1

You’ve taken photos – we all have. Think about your most satisfying images and how they were captured. By ‘how’, I mean how you set about capturing that image, and whether you set out to capture that image at all.

There are typically three ways that we go about the capture of our photographic images.

Serendipity: This is the fortuitous circumstance where things seem to just magically work out for you when you have your camera. Call it chance, fate, providence, coincidence, luck or just good fortune; it was your destiny to get that shot. A rainbow appears but for a few moments, and you are there to capture it. The newborn yawns for the first time and you say ‘hold it!’ as you click your camera shutter. Your 5-year-old catches an 18” rainbow trout and you pull out your camera for that once-in-a-lifetime event. Many of our photos are caught serendipitously, but in fine-art photography, serendipity is rare.

A Stakeout: This involves surveillance, observation and just hanging out at a particular spot waiting for just the right moment to come along. Whether it’s a bird alighting on a pre-focused branch, stars aligning with the moon, your child screaming on the slide just before they reach the bottom, a salmon jumping upstream right into the mouth of an awaiting bear (he, too was on a stakeout), getting a wave frozen in time as it crashed against the rocks, two gondole arriving at precisely the right time, or whatever – it’s the situation where you need things to be just perfectly aligned for the shot to work. One must set up a vigil and wait, wait, wait for it…

Targeting: I will define targeting as planning and then going after the image, doing whatever it takes to get the image that was envisioned. You have a goal in mind, an objective, and an intention to capture a certain final image. All wedding photographers work from a shot list that targets their trademark shots. The portrait photographer targets a certain look as they have you drop your right shoulder, raise your chin and look to the left to capture that ‘un-posed’ portrait. And targeting can involve having several photos on your shot list that will later be combined into that one final image that you were targeting. When we travel to Italy, I often have a shot list, and several final images in mind, as I go about photographing - and I have to check my shot list often.

Combinations: Often, getting the targeted image that you envision requires a stakeout, so a combination is often needed. I’ve taken photos where I envisioned the final image, and then I had to set up a vigil to accomplish the final photograph.

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean by these terms.

The photo below was a result of a Stakeout and Targeting.

I knew exactly what I wanted the finished photo to look like even before leaving home. I targeted the location that I knew was integral to the shot (in this case the Rialto Bridge in Venice). And, I knew that I was going to have to be staked-out for about an hour to accomplish what I had envisioned (I took over 80 photos in an hour’s time of boats on the Grand Canal, all from the same location and perspective). Certain boats from each photo were combined into a image that was selected by National Geographic senior editor Kurt Mutchler for a gallery showing called 'The Art of Travel Photography'.

So, that image was a combination of targeting and then a stakeout.

You be the Judge

For this next image, you decide how the photo below was accomplished. This image, titled ‘Procession’ was part of a four-page portfolio of my Venice images published in ‘Black & White Magazine’ in 2013.

Was this image a result of:

1. A stakeout, where I waited and waited at this location until the two gondole were just perfectly aligned in a ‘Procession’?

2. Serendipity, where I happened upon a location and without having to wait hardly at all, one gondola passed by just as another was coming down the canal to create ‘Procession’? Perfect timing! What a surprise! I love it when that happens! Yes!

3. Targeting, where my goal was to get an image that I envisioned, and which I would call ‘Procession’, and then I went out to make it happen – whatever it took?

I’m now playing the music for the Final-Jeopardy question as you work on your answer - you have it in your head now, right? And I will keep playing it until next week's blog.

Feel free to put your answer in the Comments box below.

Ciao, for now!

Steve