Epson Australian Landscape Competition Winner and Finalists

Hi All,

I've posted the winner of the Epson 1410 printer and all the finalist
images in a gallery:
* w w w .dimagemaker . com /article.php?articleID=983

New competitions will be announced shortly.

Cheers,

Wayne

--
Wayne J. Cosshall
Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, * w w w .dimagemaker . com /
Blog * w w w .digitalimagemakerworld . com /
Publisher, Experimental Digital Photography
* w w w .experimentaldigitalphotography . com
Personal art site * w w w .cosshall . com /

"Wayne J. Cosshall" <wayne@dimagemaker . com > wrote in message
news:4649a947$0$22547$afc38c87@news.optusnet . com .au...
> Hi All,
>
> I've posted the winner of the Epson 1410 printer and all the finalist
> images in a gallery:
> * w w w .dimagemaker . com /article.php?articleID=983
>
> New competitions will be announced shortly.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Wayne
>

I am more than a little disappointed at the description as to why this was
the winning entry.

"In the end, everyone agreed that it came down to one image. So we award the
prize of an Epson 1410 printer to Tony Dimmock of Melbourne for his image
Passing Storm 2, shot at Lake Mungo. The judges felt it was a strong and
dramatic image, showing patience to get the sky and lighting right."

The description given by the artist shows that he completely erased the
original sky using photoshop and replaced it with another sky, yet you say
that the photo shows patience to get sky and lighting right.

Gerrit

gerrit wrote:
> "Wayne J. Cosshall" <wayne@dimagemaker . com > wrote in message
> news:4649a947$0$22547$afc38c87@news.optusnet . com .au...
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I've posted the winner of the Epson 1410 printer and all the finalist
>> images in a gallery:
>> * w w w .dimagemaker . com /article.php?articleID=983
>>
>> New competitions will be announced shortly.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Wayne
>>
>
> I am more than a little disappointed at the description as to why this was
> the winning entry.
>
> "In the end, everyone agreed that it came down to one image. So we award the
> prize of an Epson 1410 printer to Tony Dimmock of Melbourne for his image
> Passing Storm 2, shot at Lake Mungo. The judges felt it was a strong and
> dramatic image, showing patience to get the sky and lighting right."
>
> The description given by the artist shows that he completely erased the
> original sky using photoshop and replaced it with another sky, yet you say
> that the photo shows patience to get sky and lighting right.
>
> Gerrit
>
>
lolol. That's funny - really quite funny.
A quick look is all that's needed to see that it's obvious that is
exactly what he's done. Long evening shadows on the ground, and clouds
lit from well above. The photo must have been taken on Tattoooine.

On May 15, 10:36 pm, "Wayne J. Cosshall" <w...@dimagemaker . com > wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I've posted the winner of the Epson 1410 printer and all the finalist
> images in a gallery: * w w w .dimagemaker . com /article.php?articleID=983
>
> New competitions will be announced shortly.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Wayne
>
> --
> Wayne J. Cosshall
> Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, * w w w .dimagemaker . com /
> Blog * w w w .digitalimagemakerworld . com /
> Publisher, Experimental Digital Photography * w w w .experimentaldigitalphotography . com
> Personal art site * w w w .cosshall . com /

????

Call me bitter and biased because I had entries in it, by all means!
But to me, an "Australian Landscape" competition just might possibly
be better biased *towards* real Australian images that are *not* PS
creations, especially the type of creation that has a non-matching
sky. Yes, I know you said they could be manipulated, but a pasted sky
in a landscape comp? Sheesh.

There are many excellent images (yes, other than mine!) in the
finalists that at least *looked* real. I am simply astounded at that
choice.

But I guess controversy gets you more hits, so it's win-win!!

Ok, I can see your points but it still took patience to get the sky, and
the lighting on the landscape, even if they were shot differently. Some
of the judges may not have read the description before giving me their
comments, others may have. Frankly I don't believe it matters. The
competition allowed manipulated images and I did not specify degrees of
manipulation.

The image is a very strong one and I was impressed that everyone put it
first, though there was some difference in places of the next few
images. These differences came down to variation on how important each
person felt it was to look for a 'typical' Australian landscape or not.

Cheers,

Wayne

Wayne J. Cosshall
Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, * w w w .dimagemaker . com /
Blog * w w w .digitalimagemakerworld . com /
Publisher, Experimental Digital Photography
* w w w .experimentaldigitalphotography . com
Personal art site * w w w .cosshall . com /



mark.thomas.7@gmail . com wrote:
> On May 15, 10:36 pm, "Wayne J. Cosshall" <w...@dimagemaker . com > wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I've posted the winner of the Epson 1410 printer and all the finalist
>> images in a gallery: * w w w .dimagemaker . com /article.php?articleID=983
>>
>> New competitions will be announced shortly.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Wayne
>>
>> --
>> Wayne J. Cosshall
>> Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, * w w w .dimagemaker . com /
>> Blog * w w w .digitalimagemakerworld . com /
>> Publisher, Experimental Digital Photography * w w w .experimentaldigitalphotography . com
>> Personal art site * w w w .cosshall . com /
>
> ????
>
> Call me bitter and biased because I had entries in it, by all means!
> But to me, an "Australian Landscape" competition just might possibly
> be better biased *towards* real Australian images that are *not* PS
> creations, especially the type of creation that has a non-matching
> sky. Yes, I know you said they could be manipulated, but a pasted sky
> in a landscape comp? Sheesh.
>
> There are many excellent images (yes, other than mine!) in the
> finalists that at least *looked* real. I am simply astounded at that
> choice.
>
> But I guess controversy gets you more hits, so it's win-win!!
>

Well I guess anything said will be branded as "sour grapes", but
really..... "patience"??? I see no patience in grabbing a late
afternoon "snap" and combining it with a sky from another image.

Patience would have been sitting there and waiting for everything to
be just right!

But having said that, manipulation was allowed for in the rules... so
be it.

What I find more disappointing is the poor composition, the blocked up
dark areas of the sky and most of all, the areas of the sky (blow it
up and have a look at the marks in the middle folks) that are
obviously bits of left over layers that were not removed. For those
obvious editing floors to be overlooked (by both the photographer and
the judges) is just a not very professional IMHO.

On May 16, 8:15 pm, "Wayne J. Cosshall" <w...@dimagemaker . com > wrote:
> Ok, I can see your points but it still took patience to get the sky, and
> the lighting on the landscape, even if they were shot differently. Some
> of the judges may not have read the description before giving me their
> comments, others may have. Frankly I don't believe it matters. The
> competition allowed manipulated images and I did not specify degrees of
> manipulation.
>
> The image is a very strong one and I was impressed that everyone put it
> first, though there was some difference in places of the next few
> images. These differences came down to variation on how important each
> person felt it was to look for a 'typical' Australian landscape or not.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Wayne
>
> Wayne J. Cosshall
> Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, * w w w .dimagemaker . com /
> Blog * w w w .digitalimagemakerworld . com /
> Publisher, Experimental Digital Photography * w w w .experimentaldigitalphotography . com
> Personal art site * w w w .cosshall . com /


It seems my first post did not work.... but sorry if this ends up here
twice.

I guess anything said will sound like sour grapes, but I fail to see
patience in combining a late afternoon "snap" with a sky from another
image. patience would have been to sit there and wait for everything
to be just right.

But manipulation was allowed for in the rules.... so be it.

I am more disappointed with the poor composition, blocked up dark sky
areas and most of all, the left over bits of old Photoshop layers that
have not been removed (check out the marks in the middle of the sky
folks). For those obvious editing mistakes to go un-noticed (by both
photographer & judges) is simply unprofessional lIMHO.

jasonstevens_aust wrote:
> On May 16, 8:15 pm, "Wayne J. Cosshall" <w...@dimagemaker . com > wrote:
>> Ok, I can see your points but it still took patience to get the sky, and
>> the lighting on the landscape, even if they were shot differently. Some
>> of the judges may not have read the description before giving me their
>> comments, others may have. Frankly I don't believe it matters. The
>> competition allowed manipulated images and I did not specify degrees of
>> manipulation.
>>
>> The image is a very strong one and I was impressed that everyone put it
>> first, though there was some difference in places of the next few
>> images. These differences came down to variation on how important each
>> person felt it was to look for a 'typical' Australian landscape or not.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Wayne
>>
>> Wayne J. Cosshall
>> Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, * w w w .dimagemaker . com /
>> Blog * w w w .digitalimagemakerworld . com /
>> Publisher, Experimental Digital Photography * w w w .experimentaldigitalphotography . com
>> Personal art site * w w w .cosshall . com /
>
>
> It seems my first post did not work.... but sorry if this ends up here
> twice.
>
> I guess anything said will sound like sour grapes, but I fail to see
> patience in combining a late afternoon "snap" with a sky from another
> image. patience would have been to sit there and wait for everything
> to be just right.
>
> But manipulation was allowed for in the rules.... so be it.
>
> I am more disappointed with the poor composition, blocked up dark sky
> areas and most of all, the left over bits of old Photoshop layers that
> have not been removed (check out the marks in the middle of the sky
> folks). For those obvious editing mistakes to go un-noticed (by both
> photographer & judges) is simply unprofessional lIMHO.
>
I agree. There is "digital manipulation" that many or even most
photographers would consider part of normal post-processing, and would
hope should be "allowed" in a contest, then there is what has been
allowed here - which isn't producing an interpretation of a real scene,
but is presenting a fraud - a scene that never existed. The winning
photograph isn't "An Australian Landscape" at all. The poor quality of
the fraudulent work is almost a side issue.

The point is that the terms made it clear than manipulation was fine.
End of story.

Now if you want a competition for unmanipulated, 'straight' photography
(whatever that means), I'll organise one. In fact, if you want, I'll
even make it a public choice one where you can score the images
yourselves. How's that?

My personal view with regard to manipulation is that unless there is a
documentary purpose to an image, anything goes. This is not because I do
not value the idea of being there and getting the image the hard way,
but because I see all photography as manipulation, since no 2d image can
be a 'true' representation of our experience of the 3d world, so to me
it is a matter of drawing arbitrary lines in the sand. This has been
discussed on another list about setting the conditions for photography
shows, as well as competitions, and you see various attempts along these
lines :
1 in camera manipulations only
2 minimal image enhancement
3 darkroom level manipulations
4 anything goes

all these have practical issues. How does a judge work out whether 1 or
2 have been followed to the letter. If done well, I don't believe you
can tell, particularly with the heavily downsampled nature of emailed
entries. 3 is a complete waste, because there is nothing we can do in PS
that you can't do in the darkroom if you try hard enough. So are you
limiting this to only what most people are capable of in the darkroom?

Running competitions and competitive entry exhibitions is hard because
there will always be something to criticize (I know I've been critical,
though not publically, of many of the competitions I've entered). One
difference is that at least I am here and happy to discuss and more than
willing to try to change things in future if there seems to be a real
issue. Your comments have been noted.

Cheers,

Wayne

Wayne J. Cosshall
Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, * w w w .dimagemaker . com /
Blog * w w w .digitalimagemakerworld . com /
Publisher, Experimental Digital Photography
* w w w .experimentaldigitalphotography . com
Personal art site * w w w .cosshall . com /



frederick wrote:
> jasonstevens_aust wrote:
>> On May 16, 8:15 pm, "Wayne J. Cosshall" <w...@dimagemaker . com > wrote:
>>> Ok, I can see your points but it still took patience to get the sky, and
>>> the lighting on the landscape, even if they were shot differently. Some
>>> of the judges may not have read the description before giving me their
>>> comments, others may have. Frankly I don't believe it matters. The
>>> competition allowed manipulated images and I did not specify degrees of
>>> manipulation.
>>>
>>> The image is a very strong one and I was impressed that everyone put it
>>> first, though there was some difference in places of the next few
>>> images. These differences came down to variation on how important each
>>> person felt it was to look for a 'typical' Australian landscape or not.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Wayne
>>>
>>> Wayne J. Cosshall
>>> Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, * w w w .dimagemaker . com /
>>> Blog * w w w .digitalimagemakerworld . com /
>>> Publisher, Experimental Digital
>>> Photography * w w w .experimentaldigitalphotography . com
>>> Personal art site * w w w .cosshall . com /
>>
>>
>> It seems my first post did not work.... but sorry if this ends up here
>> twice.
>>
>> I guess anything said will sound like sour grapes, but I fail to see
>> patience in combining a late afternoon "snap" with a sky from another
>> image. patience would have been to sit there and wait for everything
>> to be just right.
>>
>> But manipulation was allowed for in the rules.... so be it.
>>
>> I am more disappointed with the poor composition, blocked up dark sky
>> areas and most of all, the left over bits of old Photoshop layers that
>> have not been removed (check out the marks in the middle of the sky
>> folks). For those obvious editing mistakes to go un-noticed (by both
>> photographer & judges) is simply unprofessional lIMHO.
>>
> I agree. There is "digital manipulation" that many or even most
> photographers would consider part of normal post-processing, and would
> hope should be "allowed" in a contest, then there is what has been
> allowed here - which isn't producing an interpretation of a real scene,
> but is presenting a fraud - a scene that never existed. The winning
> photograph isn't "An Australian Landscape" at all. The poor quality of
> the fraudulent work is almost a side issue.

Wayne J. Cosshall wrote:
> The point is that the terms made it clear than manipulation was fine.
> End of story.
>
> Now if you want a competition for unmanipulated, 'straight' photography
> (whatever that means), I'll organise one. In fact, if you want, I'll
> even make it a public choice one where you can score the images
> yourselves. How's that?
>
> My personal view with regard to manipulation is that unless there is a
> documentary purpose to an image, anything goes. This is not because I do
> not value the idea of being there and getting the image the hard way,
> but because I see all photography as manipulation, since no 2d image can
> be a 'true' representation of our experience of the 3d world, so to me
> it is a matter of drawing arbitrary lines in the sand. This has been
> discussed on another list about setting the conditions for photography
> shows, as well as competitions, and you see various attempts along these
> lines :
> 1 in camera manipulations only
> 2 minimal image enhancement
> 3 darkroom level manipulations
> 4 anything goes
>
> all these have practical issues. How does a judge work out whether 1 or
> 2 have been followed to the letter. If done well, I don't believe you
> can tell, particularly with the heavily downsampled nature of emailed
> entries. 3 is a complete waste, because there is nothing we can do in PS
> that you can't do in the darkroom if you try hard enough. So are you
> limiting this to only what most people are capable of in the darkroom?
>
> Running competitions and competitive entry exhibitions is hard because
> there will always be something to criticize (I know I've been critical,
> though not publically, of many of the competitions I've entered). One
> difference is that at least I am here and happy to discuss and more than
> willing to try to change things in future if there seems to be a real
> issue. Your comments have been noted.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Wayne
>
> Wayne J. Cosshall
> Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, * w w w .dimagemaker . com /
> Blog * w w w .digitalimagemakerworld . com /
> Publisher, Experimental Digital Photography
> * w w w .experimentaldigitalphotography . com
> Personal art site * w w w .cosshall . com /
>
>
>
> frederick wrote:
>> jasonstevens_aust wrote:
>>> On May 16, 8:15 pm, "Wayne J. Cosshall" <w...@dimagemaker . com > wrote:
>>>> Ok, I can see your points but it still took patience to get the sky,
>>>> and
>>>> the lighting on the landscape, even if they were shot differently. Some
>>>> of the judges may not have read the description before giving me their
>>>> comments, others may have. Frankly I don't believe it matters. The
>>>> competition allowed manipulated images and I did not specify degrees of
>>>> manipulation.
>>>>
>>>> The image is a very strong one and I was impressed that everyone put it
>>>> first, though there was some difference in places of the next few
>>>> images. These differences came down to variation on how important each
>>>> person felt it was to look for a 'typical' Australian landscape or not.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Wayne
>>>>
>>>> Wayne J. Cosshall
>>>> Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, * w w w .dimagemaker . com /
>>>> Blog * w w w .digitalimagemakerworld . com /
>>>> Publisher, Experimental Digital
>>>> Photography * w w w .experimentaldigitalphotography . com
>>>> Personal art site * w w w .cosshall . com /
>>>
>>>
>>> It seems my first post did not work.... but sorry if this ends up here
>>> twice.
>>>
>>> I guess anything said will sound like sour grapes, but I fail to see
>>> patience in combining a late afternoon "snap" with a sky from another
>>> image. patience would have been to sit there and wait for everything
>>> to be just right.
>>>
>>> But manipulation was allowed for in the rules.... so be it.
>>>
>>> I am more disappointed with the poor composition, blocked up dark sky
>>> areas and most of all, the left over bits of old Photoshop layers that
>>> have not been removed (check out the marks in the middle of the sky
>>> folks). For those obvious editing mistakes to go un-noticed (by both
>>> photographer & judges) is simply unprofessional lIMHO.
>>>
>> I agree. There is "digital manipulation" that many or even most
>> photographers would consider part of normal post-processing, and would
>> hope should be "allowed" in a contest, then there is what has been
>> allowed here - which isn't producing an interpretation of a real
>> scene, but is presenting a fraud - a scene that never existed. The
>> winning photograph isn't "An Australian Landscape" at all. The poor
>> quality of the fraudulent work is almost a side issue.

I understand what you are saying, but you have a PR problem. None of
the other "finalist" images appear to be "created scenes".
Post-processed - sure, to greater and lesser degrees. But they still
"qualify" IMO as landscape photographs, yet "created scenes" do not.
That's just my opinion - but I'm guessing that it's not unique.

"Wayne J. Cosshall" <wayne@dimagemaker . com > wrote in message
news:464b7424$0$17388$afc38c87@news.optusnet . com .au...
> The point is that the terms made it clear than manipulation was fine. End
> of story.
>
> Now if you want a competition for unmanipulated, 'straight' photography
> (whatever that means), I'll organise one. In fact, if you want, I'll even
> make it a public choice one where you can score the images yourselves.
> How's that?
>
> My personal view with regard to manipulation is that unless there is a
> documentary purpose to an image, anything goes. This is not because I do
> not value the idea of being there and getting the image the hard way, but
> because I see all photography as manipulation, since no 2d image can be a
> 'true' representation of our experience of the 3d world, so to me it is a
> matter of drawing arbitrary lines in the sand. This has been discussed on
> another list about setting the conditions for photography shows, as well
> as competitions, and you see various attempts along these lines :
> 1 in camera manipulations only
> 2 minimal image enhancement
> 3 darkroom level manipulations
> 4 anything goes
>

If images entirely created in Photoshop were allowed and such an entry
actually prevailed then it was a Photoshop competition not a photo
competition. That's plain, simple and obvious. Photoshop imagery is a
different form of artistic expression than photography. A person can make
beautiful pictures in Photoshop without ever so much as touching a camera.
Having done so, however, in no way makes the person a photographer nor does
it make the picture they create a photograph.

Only an idiot (or delusional photographer wannabe) would argue this.