FILM Photographer of the year

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I had planned on not holding a random shot back just in case I can enter it later and then ended up not entering one which I think would have been a good entry but substituted it for another shot because I thought it could have been better later. I'm going to try harder not do this but January doesn't really leave me much time to think and plan.
 
Well now, theres a surprise. I wasn't expecting much from this month's comp as I hadn't had much chance to shoot anything.
Keep with it guys, i struggled last year to begin with but the rigour of thinking about the theme gets easier as you progress through the year.

Àndy
 
steveo_mcg said:
Meh, I'm giving up. I just can't shoot for competitions.
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I shoot for a living, but can't shoot for comps, and to be honest, don't really care that much, it more about the challenge of coming up with a photo for the theme rather than necessarily just photographing what I like. You should see the fun I have had coming up with something for the monthly challenge just here in the film section. I had a jiffy bag ready to pop in the post last night with several rolls of film and a half finished roll of B&W in a camera when yet another idea stuck me. Out came the camera, cue hunting through drawers and cupboards for some props and finally another film was added to the bag. They are probably all utter rubbish, but at least I had fun trying :LOL:

Huge congratulations @Andysnap and everyone else that placed in the FilmPOTY, good to see so many.
 
Carl Hall said:
Yep same! Told myself I'd be happy with getting any points at all but I think I only got some because there weren't eniugh film entries for me to get zero points lol
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Having spent last year getting nill point I'd not have minded but for once I was actually happy with that shot!

Yv said:
I shoot for a living, but can't shoot for comps, and to be honest, don't really care that much, it more about the challenge of coming up with a photo for the theme rather than necessarily just photographing what I like. You should see the fun I have had coming up with something for the monthly challenge just here in the film section. I had a jiffy bag ready to pop in the post last night with several rolls of film and a half finished roll of B&W in a camera when yet another idea stuck me. Out came the camera, cue hunting through drawers and cupboards for some props and finally another film was added to the bag. They are probably all utter rubbish, but at least I had fun trying :LOL:
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If I hadn't spent last year dragging along the bottom I'd probably not be so down on it but for once I really liked my entry and it still didn't place. I'm not sure my ego can take another 12 months of that...

I'm glad you're having fun with it though :)

Sorry @Andysnap should have congratulated you before spitting my dummy, bad form. Well done mate cracking shot.

Incidentally I was sure that was @ChrisR entry when I first seen it and thought yours was the watch. Not as good as I thought...
 
steveo_mcg said:
Incidentally I was sure that was @ChrisR entry when I first seen it and thought yours was the watch. Not as good as I thought...
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Gosh, I'm flattered! Nearly as good as winning, if someone thinks the winning shot was mine (if that's what you meant...)! However... congratulations, Andy, I did have that as your shot, though I too was confused by the watches. The crit on your shot was spot-on, I thought.

Steven and Carl, I think I went 8 months last year without even getting a single judges' point, let alone a placing. For me, it was worth carrying on; as Yv says, the discipline helps. This year the structure is much more in our favour, as there are fewer of us and relatively more places, which means more points, potentially adding up to a late burst later. Obviously, it's not worth entering if it makes you annoyed or doesn't suit, but both of you take some fantastic shots, I'm sure you'd both place higher.:hug:
 
Have to say, the turnout from you guys was GREAT... disappointing the digi-folks didn't seem to get on board, though with the shambles that the last 2 years of the POTY has been organisation-wise it's unsurpising that the numbers are down... Bearing in mind, the last full year I entered (2011) there were 122 entries (okay 12 were DQ'ed for various infringments, mostly about not reading the rules on removing EXIF or getting the sizing right, but still... 110 entries!)

Fortunately Marc has his finger on the pulse, and, perhaps just as importantly, is sharing as much information as possible, so if he's away for a while, at least someone can give an informed opinion on what's happening.

And of course, lets face it, the Staff POTY is also encouraging more green-team participation in the POTY threads than I've EVER seen before, so that's got to be a bonus in terms of keeping things on track...
 
Well done Andy with the win, great shot and well deserved.
First time I've ever entered a competition and can't believe I came where I did, certainly didn't expect that :)
 
Well done Andy, very well deserved. And well do ne to all the other film entrants all a very impressive start to the year.

My personal gripe is that although there are points for the top ten entries my entry has been completely ignored despite there only being apparently nine entries, I fear it may have something to do with the fact that it wasn't flagged up as being on film for some reason. Not that it would have made any difference, like Steven I don't think I can shoot for competitions, well not TP competitions anyway.
 
fabs said:
Nick, I can only apologise, the flag got missed off on the spreadsheet. I take it you didn't notice when the entries were posted?
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Unfortunately not Marc, it's not important though as I don't think I've missed out on a whole bagful of points :LOL:
 
RaglanSurf said:
Unfortunately not Marc, it's not important though as I don't think I've missed out on a whole bagful of points :LOL:
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Well I've allocated you the remaining point anyway as that's only fair.

I would urge people to check that their entry is correctly annotated when the entries go up. I try to make sure everything is correct but I'm human so it would help to get any errors corrected as soon as possible.
 
fabs said:
Well I've allocated you the remaining point anyway as that's only fair.

I would urge people to check that their entry is correctly annotated when the entries go up. I try to make sure everything is correct but I'm human so it would help to get any errors corrected as soon as possible.
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That's very kind of you Marc, thanks. At least now I'm only 24 points behind Mr Snap:D And yes I will check more carefully next time.
 
come on peeps, we're one month in and people are throwing in the towel. I know im going to be posting some real abstract crap in the coming months as i just refuse to shoot the sort of stuff the judges really like (although i love this months winner). So even though i will be scoring naff all i like to think i might be showing people you can shoot things other than a sunset or some smokey water.
 
AshleyC said:
as i just refuse to shoot the sort of stuff the judges really like
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TBH I did try a few times last year to shoot with the judges in mind and I took little pleasure from it, so I'm not throwing in the towel but I'll continue to shoot my usual mix of crap and obscure and be chuffed when I do actually score points and seethe privately when the judges completely miss the point :LOL:
 
I spent 3 and a half years ploughing my own furrow in the POTY before walking away from it for a while. I don't think that any of the 42 shots I took were taken with a view of pleasing anyone but myself, lots of the shots were quite "off the wall" takes on the theme - usually because I simply refused to go shoot something I hated just for the sake of the competition... fortunately, as it was "peer voted" one or two people occasionally agreed with my take on things, but most of the shots I really liked generally came in with "nul pointe..."

At the end of the day, to take 12 real competition standard pictures in a year pretty much consumes all my available photography time, so, if I was shooting to please anyone but myself, i'd be a bloody idiot.
 
I thought ashleyc's entry was actually from andysnap haha, andysnaps avatar threw me off! Clearly filmies like taking pictures of clocks...

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Also, I thought I had CarlHalls entry pinned down as the one of two dogs on the beach (threeracers), after this cracking dog shot I saw knocking about on the forum

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I loved the 2nd place landscape, mainly because the Thames has been absolutely done to to death but that was a take on it I have never seen before and it really worked for me. I am saying that because actually I get a bit fed up of landscapes doing so well in any 'open' competition amongst photographers of all levels. I am not entirely sure why this is. Take the FB banner, 12 winner to date, of which 9 could be considered some kind of 'landscape' - you have really got to go some to beat a nice sunset it would seem. That is not to belittle landscapes of any sort, there are some fantastic examples of the genre around this forum, but it does feel like they 'woo' people much more than any other genre. I like seeing more abstract, alternative takes on a theme and that is where POTY does have an advantage in that you would have to have special kind of skill to shoe horn a landscape into it! However, I would much prefer to see some interesting, alternative takes on a theme rather then something just shot for the judges [albeit with the promise of big prizes over recent years I can see a logic in that, hopefully that wont be the case now] Get out, take what excites and motivates you and have fun doing it :D
 
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there isnt anything wrong with a nice landscape, the one with the light trail was lovely. Its just the same tired old stuff over and over. Im glad there isnt a prize this year as it might encourage people to go a little more abstract :)
 
AshleyC said:
come on peeps, we're one month in and people are throwing in the towel. I know im going to be posting some real abstract crap in the coming months as i just refuse to shoot the sort of stuff the judges really like (although i love this months winner). So even though i will be scoring naff all i like to think i might be showing people you can shoot things other than a sunset or some smokey water.
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Ashley, for what it's worth I had your entry in my overall top 10, but obviously with other judges favouring other entries this wasn't enough to keep it there. These were the comments I submitted for it, which were not printed as only the overall top 10 ones got in:

Another photograph that I find intriguing in the story/message behind it. I feel the use of old and broken clock and watch parts all discarded is a metaphor for something that I want to explore more. I'm a fan of alternative techniques, and the processing of this perfectly suits the subject matter. I do hope it is an alternative technique that was used and not a photoshop filter to achieve this feel and look. Very interesting piece.

And to echo what Ashley says - don't give up...lets try and keep the good film turnout continuing.
 
yes the alternative technique was screwing up the exposure on some fomapan 200 which gave it that "rough as a badgers ass" look which was quite nice as it turned out ;) Thanks for the comment though, its nice to see what other people read into your images isnt always what you had in your mind when you took the shot.
 
Alright, you guys are right. Dummy collected, sterilised and returned. I've got February's any way and my phone was playing up so it prevented me from throwing my toys properly...

I'm still not sure my ego can take another 12 months of this though :(


@Vesalius, thanks mate. I think I got too invested in that photo for my own reasons I've probably got some better ones from that set but I chose that one.
 
steveo_mcg said:
I think I got too invested in that photo for my own reasons I've probably got some better ones from that set but I chose that one.
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I think that's one of the hardest bits. Unless I have a standout shot, there's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. This one? That one? None of them? It becomes really hard to make a good judgement call after a while. Glad we've got you back! :)
 
well here's a tale of woe. I had a brainstorm 11pm last night for an entry this month. So i got out of bed and prepped it all for shooting this morning. Got up, set up the wista, had some pre loaded dark slides so shot it all off. Dev'd it up and when i opened the tank it turned out 2 of the 3 loaded darkslides (marked colour) were loaded with B&W so 4 perfectly clear negatives greeted me out of the bubbles! the last slide was actually loaded with velvia but they were my test shots and came out pretty under exposed. I think they are recoverable but im not setting it all up again now.
 
That's a real shame, Ashley! Is there no conventional way of showing what film is in the dark slides (like the slot on the back of 35mm cameras for the box label)?
 
yeah you can open it up and feel for the bumps. 5x4 neg's have a unique notch pattern along the edge. I just assumed i had actually loaded them with colour since i took the time to label them as colour slides in the past :) Anyway, ive recovered 1 that im actually quite happy with so will be submitting that.
 
Deep joy... I've just revisited what will have to remain my entry and decided I don't like it. Purse making time...
 
steveo_mcg said:
Deep joy... I've just revisited what will have to remain my entry and decided I don't like it. Purse making time...
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You still have 9 days left :)

My only photo that fits in with the theme so far is digital... It's one I took "just in case I screw the film one up", which I inevitably did :LOL:
 
Carl Hall said:
You still have 9 days left :)

My only photo that fits in with the theme so far is digital... It's one I took "just in case I screw the film one up", which I inevitably did :LOL:
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I've no more shooting time this month and even fewer ideas!!
 
I'm hoping there's something on the second roll that came back yesterday, nothing useful on the first. :(
 
Oh dear, bit of a dilemma. Do I send in the shot of the back of a (cold) lens cap, hoping that there's less than 10 film entries and I'll get some points that might be useful later in the year, or do I show some backbone and integrity and decline to enter when no shot seems quite up to it?

(PS you don't actually have to answer... but that is roughly the problem I'm addressing over the next 24 hours!)
 
Personally, rather than a did not enter, i'd shoot a frame of B&W of the interior of my fridge/freezer and soup it quick... - DFL beats DNE
 
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