Photo Contests Etc

I am still not a big fan but…

From closest to farthest; Moab Entrada Natural, Canson Baryta Photographique II Matt, then Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Matt Baryta.

I wrote a critique about the concept of photo contests a year and a half ago. I’ll summarize this quickly. I far prefer a curated exhibition that has context, meaning, and cohesiveness if there’s a collection of photographs that are the result of any call for entries. There’s not a winner or loser. There’s only a view of one editorial view on a subject. It’s not the photographs themselves being evaluated; it is more the editorial voice of the curators.

So, why would we hold a print contest of our own last month? A few reasons:

• A thank you to our paid supporters.

• We love to introduce new materials to photographers who haven’t used them before.

• An exercise in image/paper pairing is always useful for all of us that print.

• An opportunity to introduce and showcase some of our wonderful readers to each other.

• Just for fun.

We are down to a couple of finalists. Judging all of the entries was far more difficult than we expected. There were no complete duds. There were no absolute rejects. Every entry was a reasonable interpretation of “elegant” which was the theme filter for the contest. So then, what exact criteria did we use? That’s simple: the best example of the theme and the photograph that best paired with that particular paper. When we announce the winner and publish the photograph that we selected, we hope it will be of value to everyone as an example of what sort of photographs that Canson Baryta Photographique II Matt elevates.

Don’t interpret that as the only type of photographs that work well on a particular paper. Instead, it’s more of an optimum type of photo that looks like it was made to be printed on the material. Good photographs look good on many, many different papers. One type or family of papers may be a better choice than others. One particular paper may be exactly optimal. Every one of the photographs sent in would pair well; the winners just seem to sing on the Baryta Matt.

Here are a few themes we noticed that made entries suboptimal for this particular paper:

• Minor artifacts in the image (prominent noise, artifacts due to extreme cropping/upres’ing, etc) the images were great, but this paper brings those things to the forefront rather than complement them

• Most of the images were a bit too dark for print (based on our experience), and even the finalists needed a few minor tweaks to make a great print (we proofed them and confirmed the rendition with the photographers).

• Aspect ratios that would not work well in 13in x 19in format (again, this particular paper) but would work well in a different format

Stay tuned; we’ll be announcing the winner before the end of the month. I think this was popular enough that we’ll be making these little, themed contests a regular feature. Leave your thoughts on the next theme, the next paper, or both in the comments.