In August this year, we presented you with beautiful shortlisted images of Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2017 contest. The winners of nine categories are officially announced today, along with the overall winner. There were over 3800 entries taken from over 90 countries across the globe. We bring you the best images according to the contest judges.
Swiss photographer gets awards stripped for entering another photographer’s work as her own
There always seems to be some controversy or other with photo competitions these days. This time, it’s two competitions. Swiss photographer, Madeleine Josephine Fierz entered the above image into two competitions. She won first prize at the Moscow International Foto Awards and second at the Fine Art Photography Awards earlier this year. The only problem was, her winning image wasn’t hers.
The image, along with several others, were created by Thai photographer Sasin Tipchai. He’d uploaded them to free image website Pixabay. Feirz downloaded them and entered them into the competitions asher own work. Khaosod English reports that Tipchai took to the Internet to state that he was the one who’d actually shot these images, with which another photographer had received at least $3,000 in prize money.
These are the winners of 2017 National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year
National Geographic has announced the winners of their annual Travel Photographer of the Year photo contest. From over 15,000 entries from photographers in more than 30 countries, the grand prize went into hands of Sergio Tapiro Velasco from Mexico.
The winning photo displays a magnificent sight of an erupting volcano hit by a bolt of lightning. And even though this is the winning image, the rest of them aren’t anything less stunning. Take a look at the gallery of the winning images of the NatGeo’s prestigious photography competition.
These are the stunning shortlisted images of Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2017
The Royal Observatory Greenwich, in association with Insight Investment and BBC Sky at Night Magazine, organized the ninth annual contest for the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year. They have recently published the shortlisted images for 2017, which will show you spectacular images of space taken from all corners of the world.
Over 3800 entries were sent to the contest, from 91 countries across the globe. They range from stunning photos of Aurorae to photos of galaxies, comets, planets, and stars. The contest even includes the first time images of Uranus and asteroids. Out of almost 4000 photos, here are 31 of the shortlisted ones for your enjoyment and inspiration.
Photographer wins $20,000 prize for a ‘portrait photo’ made of pen scribbles and saliva
Sydney artist Justine Varga recently won the $20,000 Olive Cotton Award for a portrait photo of her grandmother. Only, her work is not really a portrait, nor it’s a photo (at least not in conventional terms).
In Justine’s work titled Maternal Line, the grandmother doesn’t appear in the image at all. Instead, there are only her pen scribbles and traces of her saliva on a piece of film. And as expected, the fact that this work was rewarded the main prize sparked an outcry within the photographic community, leading even to some hate emails for one of the judges.
This is what a lighting boot camp test looks like
Initiation rituals and hazing the new guys at work is a pretty common experience. Sometimes it’s simply a practical joke to see how gullible they are. For larger organisations with a new wave of interns, trainees and hopefuls, it’s a challenge with your noobie peers. And these traditions happen the world over.
Broadcasting & media production company, VS Services, based in Bangkok, Thailand put their newest interns to task in this video. What they describe as being the “first test”, they are to assemble C-Stands with a flag. You can tell that some are a little more used to this than others in this clip posted to Facebook.
Photo competitions: are they worth it?
I was sitting in my dorm room at Arizona State University. To my left I had my Xbox on (as it was pretty much 24/7) with some racing game on pause. In front of me I had my future, for I was entering a photography competitionthat I believed would make me famous and rich beyond my wildest dreams. To this day, I can’t remember if I won any prize in that specific competition, but I remember that was the genesis of the idea that photo competitions were how you become successful in this career.
As I grew in my career, I paid less attention to trying to win competitions and focused more on learning my craft and developing a style that would serve my clients well. In the same way that I worried schooling for photography would train my eye to be generic, I worried that results (be it good or bad) in a photography competition would jade the direction of my style. So for that, and many other reasons, I decided to save the money that I would spend entering them and put it towards camera gear.
You can win over $500,000 in gear if you make a really good short
RØDE Microphones film competition, My RØDE Reel, is now in its fourth year. Established in 2014, it’s rapidly grown to become the world’s largest short film competition. With close to 8,000 entries from 89 countries, it’s become a staple amongst the global filmmaking community.
This year, the competition is back with a massively increased prize pool of more than $500,000 worth of equipment up for grabs. These prizes include one completely new one, membership to the RØDE Directors Club. This could net you every new broadcast and filmmaking category microphone that RØDE release for the next three years, and you get them before they’re even launched.
Why competitions are good for your photography (and how to make the most of them)
Submitting your work to competitions can feel daunting. You submit your work to scrutiny and for anyone who is emotionally invested in their photos, they make themselves vulnerable too.
However, if you can summon the courage to submit your photos to competitions, you might find that the benefits extend beyond just the possibility of bagging yourself some swag.
A love letter to action sports photography
Today, in honor of Red Bull’s Illume competition, COOPH has shared an incredibly inspirational video that serves as a ’ tribute to the photographers who travel the planet in their unrelenting pursuit of the perfect shot.’ [Read more…]
