Photo Contest Advice

[urbana_photographer]

There is a local photo contest in a few weeks that I'm going to enter and I need advice on what to submit. If anyone wouldn't mind could you please take a quick look at my gallery and please let me know what you think would be best to enter?


The link is http://www.pbase.com/urbana_photographer/contest

Thank you very much for the time

-Nick

[halesr]

I like Fountain Looking though Bush. It is pretty abstract. Do you know anything about the judges? I also like the one with the ladder in the first row, but you would have to do a heck of a printing job. It seems a little flat (more contrast needed) here on the web and I would think you would have to burn the windows as they are a bit blown out. It is really a crap shoot for contests. A picture can be accepted by one judge and rejected by another. No accounting for tastes. And, sometimes the judges are selecting so the show hangs together as a cohesive whole and your image may be great, but not fit. Good luck!--Rene

[wangi]

Is there not a theme?

[urbana_photographer]

There are different catorgories you can enter, so I'll just enter whatever catorgories the pics I choose are.

[sheila]

Photographic contests are really subjective and as others have pointed out - it depends on the judge - what he or she prefers. One of my images a photographic judge really liked (in an online comp) and placed it second while the same image, judged by my peers, came ninth! So, you can't really pick 'em. And in the same competition, a couple of months earlier, my image of duelling pelicans (in my wildlife gallery) came first or second (I can't recall which) by my peers and got nowhere with the professional judges. Of all your images, I like the backlit horse. Landscapes must be extremely dramatic to get anywhere. I'm afraid yours lack a little "oomph" and if you convert any to mono, you must IMO make them much more contrasty. And avoid having the horizon dead centre. Never shoot landscapes after 10 am or before 4 pm. In other words, early morning or late afternoon when you have interesting shadows. If you shoot people, shoot with an aperture of f/4 to 5.6 so that you have a blurred background (or bokeh as its called in the trade) so the subject does not compete with the background.

In my book, an image must have three elements - good lighting, good composition and what I call "tension" - something that makes one look twice at an image.

Cheers
Sheila

[urbana_photographer]

Wow, thanks for all the advice, I'll definally try out shooting landscapes in early morning, not having the horizon centred and more contrast.
Again thanks, Nick