Selecting images for competition

 

We’ve just finished judging over 3,000 images for the VECC National.   This exhibition covers entries from UK photographers in four categories:  Colour, Monochrome, Creative and Natural History.   Now I’m going to ignore the natural history – I don’t understand the bugs and birds on sticks bit really.

So, here’s some observations:

 

COMMON PHOTOS:

All judges have seen a gazillion photos of Rannoch Moor, Dunstanburgh Castle, The Bothy, Iron Man contests, Venice masks, Selfridges Birmingham, steam railways in the snow or at night and the British Library.    Oh yes, dog racing, remembrance, bikes with the zoom filter as well.

If you really want to submit another one – please try and say something new, if nothing else, don’t put your tripod in the previous photographer’s spot.  We’ve seen it before!

CREATIVE EFFECTS:

Using a push button filter on Photoshop does not make an image “creative”.   We are all old hands, we know exactly which filter you’ve used and it is not creative, new or clever.

Spot colour on monochrome images is very, very old fashioned.

Really bad cut and paste montage and layering is very obvious.

 

MOTION BLUR

Actually I like motion blur on the right image, but I can tell you know, it won’t get accepted, so don’t bother.

 

WIDE ANGLE

Apart from a personal thing that just way too many shots are spoiled by shooting too wide, the whole nearly fish-eye look – especially on portraits – is tired, tired, tired.

 

GRABSHOTS OF FOREIGNERS

Preferably kids with dirty faces.   Just because they are foreign and you had an interesting holiday that is not an excuse for a poor grabshot of some poor native person.

 

VERY COMMON TITLES – MEANS VERY COMMON SUBJECTS

The following word lists are based on the last 7 years of entries, though to be honest the subject matter hasn’t really changed in all that time.

17 watching
15 concentration
15 abandoned
14 memories
14 bluebell wood
13 red kite
12 sisters
12 robin
11 walking the dog
11 waiting
11 misty morning
11 low tide
11 lady in red
10 tulips
10 tulip
10 solitude
10 reflections
10 red squirrel
10 morning mist
10 holly
10 contemplation
10 beach huts
9 lindisfarne
9 homeward bound
8 winter trees
8 windswept
8 the mask
8 frosty morning
8 evening light
8 determination
8 autumn leaves
8 alone
7 walk on by
7 the wave
7 the engineer
7 one man and his dog
7 leaves
7 end of the line
7 eilean donan castle
7 conversation
7 buttermere

 

VERY COMMON WORDS IN TITLES – MEANS VERY COMMON SUBJECTS

 

164 winter
127 light
122 blue
121 morning
107 tree
104 water
104 storm
100 autumn
93 mist
85 beach
69 grey
67 sunset
65 time
65 street
61 waiting
60 evening
58 sea
56 walk
55 lady
55 bridge
54 misty
54 girl
53 wood
52 old
51 home
50 snow
49 tide
49 last
47 sunrise
46 window
44 walking
44 dawn
43 man
42 young
42 trees
42 reflections
40 boat
39 sand
39 loch
39 ice

 

CONCLUSION

 

Competition entries need to be different, but not too different.   By their very nature they select for a median.   But please, before you submit, please look to see if you are doing something new or just re-treading the same old ground.

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Backup Your Data

 

You know you have to!

I’ve been asked several times recently about my backup strategy, so I thought I’d write a quick post about how my backups are handled.

OFF THE CAMERA

I have written a special piece of software that downloads the images of the CF card.  It creates some working folders for me, separates out images that need rotating, RAW files from JPEGS and Movie files all to separate folders.

At the same time, it creates a duplicate of all these files onto a second internal hard disk.  So straight out of the camera I have two copies of everything.

DAILY BACKUP

Every night I have an automated backup process that copies all files onto a second internal hard drive.  This includes any images taken, plus any files modified.  This is not just for images, this covers all business correspondences, emails, databases etc.

BACKBLAZE BACKUP

Backblaze is an off-site backup service offered out of the US.  It continuously copies updated files from your PC to their remote server somewhere in America.   It’s $50 for unlimited storage space – which for a photographer is an absolute bargain.

The downside is that’ its quite slow backing up the files over the internet, most days its up to date, but the initial load (of about 2 terabyte) took nearly 3 months!!  But once that load is there it just chunters away in the background making sure everything is off site.

MONTHLY BACKUP

Once a month I copy everything onto an external hard drive, which I then take off site.  These monthly backups are cycled, I always have three on the go, and over-write the oldest one first. 

YEARLY BACKUP

Every year, one of those monthly backup hard drives is retired permanently off-site.

In this way I can recover everything from today, last month and last year (even last decade).

EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES

I have an external SATA plug-in connector.  This lets you plug any barebones SATA hard disk into the socket and its instantly added to your Windows hard drives list.  It’s very simple, very easy.  It’s not the quickest of backups, since it runs over USB, but 2-3 hours is enough to backup all the modified files for a month.

DVD BACKUPS

I used to make DVD backups of a clients shoot, but found that with the higher res cameras I’ve been using for a while a single DVD is no longer big enough to cover a single shoot so I’ve dropped that now in favour of the dual hard drive approach.

VULNERABILITIES:

If the machine breaks but the hard disks are OK then I can just swap them to another machine.

If a hard disk fails, I’ve got another hard disk duplicate ready to go from yesterday.

If the office catches fire, I’ve got the last months back up held offsite on hard disk and daily backups to backblaze.

If a customer comes back from 5 years ago wanting a reprint (yes it happens) then I’ve got the annual backups to go back to.

SWPP Convention and Trade Show Review

 

Just got back from the first day, I’ve only been down to the trade show, would like to do the convention as well, but couldn’t make the time this year.

So, here’s a quick view of the trade floor:

1) Very crowded, it’s a shame a little more space would go a long way, goodness knows what it will be like at the weekend!   Sort of related, but there’s very limited parking at the hotel too.

2) Lots of album and print suppliers – surprise surprise – I’ll come back to this in a moment.

3) Gizmo shops fairly light on product, don’t expect the usual loads of stuff to buy, there are some gear stands, but not that much.   I was interested in bags and was hoping to try a few, but very limited choice there.

4) Lots of strobist type gear.  Loads of goodies to fit to your speedlights, mini softbox, gels, filters all sorts.  If you’re into that there’s quite a bit to look at.

5) Some software to look at, wasn’t paying much attention in this area.

ALBUMS

This was my main reason for going, to look at albums and books, and there’s a really good range of digital albums out there now.   Saw some really interesting stuff that would appeal to different audiences.  

For me I have to say the Loxley range really impressed, I like the contemporary look and feel of their products and the accessories that go with them.   As you may know I’ve been a committed Graphistudio fan from day one, but the Loxley products are seriously making me re-consider.

Favourite accessory of 2009

 

This is shamelessly culled from the net-model website, but I thought it was interesting, the discussion was on favourite accessories, excluding lenses and cameras, here’s the summary:

“Custom Brackets Mini RC”

“A large, round white/silver reflector.”

“Alien Bees parabolic brollies”

“My remote trigger”

“Cambo "Redwing" Light boom”

“Ringflash” (several times)

“Elinchrom skyports”

“Elinchrom Deep Octa”

“Iphone”

“Elinchrom Quadra A kit”

“Beanbag”

“Expodisk”

“Pocket Wizards”

“Lastolite Hilite”

 

For me, I’m going to repeat my entry from last year, my little Canon Selphy 720.  It prints 6 x 4 inch postcards by dye-sub – they’re brilliant.  It’s quick, easy, no fuss and perfect to give a client something to take away on the spot. 

Mine broke down this year, so picked up an eBay replacement for about £30 I think.  I could have got the more recent versions, but I like the old one and know it does what it says on the can.

The other accessory I still use so often and still get impressed by is the Canon EP-4 (I think) the battery pack for the 540-EX flash unit – holds 8 AA batteries to add to the 4 in the flash unit.   I can shoot a whole wedding with just one change of batteries with this fella.   Very fast re-charge time – personally I much prefer it to the heavier Quantum Turbo type packs.