A Little Rant About Photo Competitions
Every year I, like thousands of other hopeful nature photographers, enter a few big name photography competitions in hopes of earning myself a little much needed recognition. In years past, I’ve entered competitions sponsored by Nature’s Best Photography Magazine, the National Wildlife Federation, and the BBC, and I have been lucky enough to have a few photographs advance within the competitions, although I have yet to have a winning image.
Each year the style of winning photographs tends to change, and I find it impossible to predict which photographs the judges will or won’t like. This year, I was struggling with deciding which photographs to enter in the Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition (formerly the BBC/Shell competition where I had my Eric Hosking portfolio entry make it to the finals in 2007), when I noticed a pretty significant rule change: “File size requirements for all entries: For the initial submission, images must be 1400 pixels on the longest dimension. Digital images must have been taken on a sufficiently high resolution camera – at least ten (10) million pixels, on the highest setting.”
All of the most recent crop of digital SLRs meet that requirement, but what about photographers who don’t have the latest and greatest camera bodies? My first DSLR was a Nikon D70 (6MP), which I purchased back in late 2004, only six years ago. I upgraded to a 10MP D200 for a bit before switching to Canon in early 2007, when my first body was the then current professional model, an 8MP 1D Mark II N. I’ve had that camera ever since, and only last year did I purchase any camera with higher resolution, first a 5D Mark II (22MP) and then a Canon G10 point-and-shoot (15MP). The majority of my shots are still with the 1D2N, and therefore ineligible for entry in this year’s competition.
I think its a stupid move by the contest organizers to be honest. 8MP is more than enough resolution to yield good quality enlargements, and in the past photographs taken with the 4MP Canon D1 have been blown up and displayed and looked fine! Last year, images that won categories within the Veolia contest were photographed with 8MP cameras. So why the rule change this year?
Fellow photographer Jan Wegener emailed the competition for an explanation and received the following response:
“”We require images to have been taken on a camera with a resolution of at least 10 million pixels so that we can reproduce them to a high standard in the exhibition, book etc. We have been advised that setting this level will ensure that the files produced meet our needs. Unfortunately we would not be able to progress any images taken on a camera with a lower resolution. We hope this is not too disappointing for you – we understand that there was limited notice given of this rule change and will endeavour to notify potential entrants of any similar changes at an earlier date for future competitions.”
I find it entertaining and disappointing when the organizers of a well respected and highly competitive contest fail to realize that a high quality 8MP file will enlarge much better than a poor quality 10MP file. Or that just because an image came from a 10MP camera doesn’t mean that photographers won’t crop their photos and enter 8MP files from a 10MP camera. Or that a higher resolution camera will begin to pick up the flaws of a lens or a photographers technique, and may yield a poorer quality image than a smaller resolution, technically superior photograph. Or… you get the picture.
The winner of last year’s Veolia competition was recently disqualified for using a captive, trained wolf for his winning image “Storybook Wolf.” Immediately after the selection was publicized, internet rumors began to circle about the origins of the wolf, location of the photo, and behavior exhibited. Eventually, it was concluded that the photo was a set-up, using a captive trained wolf from a zoo, and the winner was disqualified. This year, I predict the Veolia awards will do a good job of irritating photographers yet again, either by sticking to this seemingly poorly thought out rule change and disqualifying worthy images based entirely on a number, or by realizing that a 10MP camera resolution requirement has nothing to do with how good a photograph is and letting images from 8MP cameras squeeze by into the winning images causing an uproar among those who didn’t bother to enter due to the new rule.
I just hope I get my money back.
on February 27, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Permalink
A-friggin-men!
The contests are all getting a little ridiculous.
Between the rights grabs, cropping percentage rules, raw file submissions, post-processing restrictions, and megapixel requirements…why bother. It seems that most of the contests favor the established big names with all the great gear.
Kari brings up a lot of good points in the [justified] rant and I hope that sometime soon the folks running these contests realize that everyone will just “take their ball and go home” rather than play a game by some silly and ill-advised rules.
Barring the occasional bad apple (wolf photo in question) their efforts and caveats are mostly unfounded.
Hope you get your money back too.
on February 27, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Permalink
Doug Perrine won the overall competition back in 2004 with a I think a 6MP camera. I guess that they are after state of the art images. 3-10MP cameras from a 5+ years ago just won’t cut it these days.
on March 1, 2010 at 10:36 am
Permalink
UGH That’s horrible!! They obviously haven’t stepped out and taken a photo in a while, or they would realize.
on March 2, 2010 at 6:17 am
Permalink
Personally I use a 6MP and I have no finances to change! Anyway, I did have not the good level to participate
… Good luck for this contest!
on March 6, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Permalink
I’m with you, Kari. I have printed 40 x 60’s from a 20D (8 MP) for corporate use and they look pretty amazing still at that size. I doubt that any photo competition is going to need a print anywhere close to that size so what it really says to me that is the people who set these rules really have no experience with digital printing.
Perhaps they should spend more energy on making sure the winners pass the ethics sniff test rather than focusing on the camera.
on April 12, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Permalink
Update: I did get my money back (thanks to my bank and credit card company).