What do you think of the way the final photos finished. I think a few could have qualified as #1, while the winner should have finished lower. JMHO. Jerry
Speaking as someone who has done a lot of model railroad photography down through the years and recalls MR’s annual photo contests going back well into the 70’s (didn’t they start in '74?), I found most of this year’s winning entries, although well executed, to be rather mundane and lacking in creativity. Several were simply static layout shots that lacked any life, or implied movement, to them.
I’d have to say, although I honestly can’t fully explain it, that the level of sophistication and complexity displayed in many of the images seen in MR’s and other contest photos, seems to have declined in recent years. Perhaps it’s the fact that the instantaneous results of doing digital photography has decreased or eliminated the patience necessary to compose highly complex, lively model scenes. Certainly, such was exhibited in days past when the winning photographers typically took great pains in setting up a specific temporary scene for photographs, simply because the scene likely would no longer be available to re-photograph when the film results were gotten back in a week, or so. You pretty much had to get things right the first time.
CNJ831
IIRC it was around late 1973 that there was mention made—I just have to go dig through the MR’s again.
BTW–CNJ- I’m trying to remember when they started having the great digital photography debate—was that in the late 1980’s? I remember something about a proposal that would have had both styles in seperate catagories at the time
Barry, I believe the conflict over digital images vs. film in MR’s photo contest came to a head in the late 1990’s, or perhaps even the first year or so of the 2000’s. What was really at issue was the use of such items as Photoshop in the creation and manipulation of the image, which held the potential of altering the contest’s nature from one based on the photographer’s modeling skills, ingenuity and understanding of the photographic art itself, to one much more associated with the computer graphic arts.
The final incident that precipitated change (i.e. the division of the contest into two categories, at least for a time) was when a 1st place winning image turned out to be only about 50% the original work of the winner, the striking background which made it a winner, and occupying much of the frame, having been added in the computer. At that point the question became equally one of: How much of a winning image must really be the physical creation of the entrant and present when the “photo” was taken, rather than simply scene elements downloaded from the Internet, or elsewhere, to form a composite? The debate in the pages of MR was long and hot, ending up with the contest being divided into digital and film.
I do note that all of this year’s winning entries appear to be essentially conventional in nature (i.e. largely reflecting the entrant’s modeling skills, not his ability at the keyboard) with no heavy reliance of Photoshop trickery.
CNJ831
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I think all of the photos were pretty nice. The one thing that bothered me with the Grand Prize winner was the sheen and plasticky looking water tank. It could have been toned down with a spray of Dull Cote or other weathering. Everything about the tank is one color.
And the fact that it was taken with a 35 year old film camera seems to me makes it special - no digtial trickery here!
I was quite happy with the winner, impressed with the runner-up although in my opinion it could have looked sensational with better lighting, unimpressed with image stacking of a diorama out in the sunlight [I could have done that] and thrilled with my honourable mention.
Mike
There was plenty of trickery that took place in the dark room if you knew what you were doing. Digital has just made those specialized, expensive rooms and tricks a lot more common place, and more accessible to more people.
A democratization of the industry, if you will.
I know about darkroom work, had one for about 30 years myself, gave it up with the advent of digtial photography. The Grand Prize winner, as I mentioned, is a great shot, taken with an older camera and a single source of light.
Back in the 70’s, maybe early 80’s, I was on a three judge panel for a pretty large photo contest. The biggest thing that sticks out in my mind about that was the fact that, in several instances none of the three of us would or could agree on the winning photo in a particular category. Now that I’ve laid THAT groundwork, I would have voted for the third place winner to have taken the grand prize while someone else might have voted for one of the honorable mentions to take that spot.
And there you go… [:D]
Jarrell
Ah, but that was very rarely the case with regard to images that were submitted to MR’s Annual Photo Contest over the years. This was because probably 90%+ of the images that were submitted over the years were in the form of transparencies, to which little in the way of dark room manipulation was possible and most definitely nothing even approaching the scale, or range, of what anyone with Photoshop can accomplish these days.
Digital imaging has by no mean been a democratization of the industry. Rather, it has introduced an entirely new concept and approach to what the average person can do with their images, lightyears beyond what was formerly possible. The differences are so radical that, to this day, most of the serious photo club competitions in my area will not accept any images obtained by digital means!
CNJ831
My apologies for having responded at all. Please excuse my ignorance.