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- Name
- Julian Elliott
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Morning all!
When I first joined I said I'd post up the story behind that infamous HDR bridge shot that won the Countryside is GREAT award in last year's LPOTY competition. I know that when it was announced last year it got a huge amount of stick and, for me, quite rightly so as it's not the best image they could have chosen. There was in fact another of mine in the running but I'll leave that for later in the post.
As an aside, when they posted up the winning images on Facebook my image got about 1000 or so Likes and the winner's got less than 150 or so if memory serves.
This is the shot in question
How did it all come about? Well, in September 2014 I had a trip to the UK planned which was to last somewhere between 7 - 10 days. If memory serves I was going to concentrate on Dorset and around but at the time the weather was just so hazy I started looking elsewhere.
My initial plan went out of the window too as one of my next trips in October and November was to capture Autumn across the country but in some places, notably Llanwrst, the autumn colour had already started appearing in mid-September. So after some stints up in the Lake District I headed down to capture the classic shot of the bridge and house. For those that haven't been it's easy as you just stand on the pavement and shoot across to the house.
Not content I went down to the riverbank but the bright sunlight that had appeared made it difficult to get an exposure which is how I ended up going for HDR. Loaded into Lightroom I used the quick and dirty plugin called Enfuse. Normally, it's actually quite good but on this occasion it was an "OK" blend".
Fast forward to July 2015 and like a lot of people I had the usual "thanks but no thanks" email from LPOTY. But then in August I got an email asking for a high-res as an image had been chosen for a special award. When I managed to see what it was it didn't please me at all. There was another image in my submission that was superior to this one and had in fact been in the running.
So why did they choose this one over the other? I was told that it was a "political" decision by someone high up from this particular sponsor. That one person had really rooted for the other image but was told no it had to be the bridge. What was the other image? This was the alternative. I personally feel that this is much indicative of me as a photographer. And here again I wanted to do something different to what everyone else does. Mam Tor has been shot to death but how many times had people ever opened that gate?
The image below also has good memories for me as I became good friends with someone this morning and a few weeks after it was taken it was published on page 3 of The Times as a half page.
What both images do share is that they were shot using the Canon 24mm TS-E Mark II.
Fast forward to the awards ceremony. I was asked if VB could use the Bridge image. The answer is you'll have to speak to Getty as it's in there. Then they asked if I had anymore. Same answer again. Sorry VB I am a working photographer who makes his money from selling stock images and footage. If you want any of my work you need to go through Getty who hold my best images.
I never did see them try to get hold of that image through Getty.
Any other nuggets? Absolutely and it will cause debate!
For me, I personally feel that the LPOTY is becoming a joke. In the beginning images that were chosen just didn't cause the debate that they cause now.
When our images are looked the first judges see them on a screen for about 5 seconds and have to decide whether or not to choose it. If it is rejected the other judges don't see it. Is that really fair? How do I know? Believe me, I just know as I was told by someone who was a judge a couple of years ago. That someone would not lie and has no reason to.
Earlier this year I was told by someone (I won't say who) that the organizers had phoned them to ask if they were entering again. Then had another call to ask if they would be a judge instead. They declined.
A couple of weeks ago I was told about another photo competition. The story goes that (and this was back in film days) that the head judges arrived to look at the photos that were sent in. When they went into the room there was a box in the corner. Asked what it was they were told it was the rejects. Response was "how do we know if they aren't any good if we haven't seen them?" Apparently they went on to choose some winning images from the rejects! I believe this was the Wildlife POTY.
Now, I have no affiliation whatsoever with the SLPOTY but if you read how that is done the judging seems to be very transparent and very fair. The quality of work in that competition is, for me, how the LPOTY used to be.
Is this all sour grapes you might ask? Nope. I just thought I'd pass on a little knowledge that some of you might find interesting
When I first joined I said I'd post up the story behind that infamous HDR bridge shot that won the Countryside is GREAT award in last year's LPOTY competition. I know that when it was announced last year it got a huge amount of stick and, for me, quite rightly so as it's not the best image they could have chosen. There was in fact another of mine in the running but I'll leave that for later in the post.
As an aside, when they posted up the winning images on Facebook my image got about 1000 or so Likes and the winner's got less than 150 or so if memory serves.
This is the shot in question
How did it all come about? Well, in September 2014 I had a trip to the UK planned which was to last somewhere between 7 - 10 days. If memory serves I was going to concentrate on Dorset and around but at the time the weather was just so hazy I started looking elsewhere.
My initial plan went out of the window too as one of my next trips in October and November was to capture Autumn across the country but in some places, notably Llanwrst, the autumn colour had already started appearing in mid-September. So after some stints up in the Lake District I headed down to capture the classic shot of the bridge and house. For those that haven't been it's easy as you just stand on the pavement and shoot across to the house.
Not content I went down to the riverbank but the bright sunlight that had appeared made it difficult to get an exposure which is how I ended up going for HDR. Loaded into Lightroom I used the quick and dirty plugin called Enfuse. Normally, it's actually quite good but on this occasion it was an "OK" blend".
Fast forward to July 2015 and like a lot of people I had the usual "thanks but no thanks" email from LPOTY. But then in August I got an email asking for a high-res as an image had been chosen for a special award. When I managed to see what it was it didn't please me at all. There was another image in my submission that was superior to this one and had in fact been in the running.
So why did they choose this one over the other? I was told that it was a "political" decision by someone high up from this particular sponsor. That one person had really rooted for the other image but was told no it had to be the bridge. What was the other image? This was the alternative. I personally feel that this is much indicative of me as a photographer. And here again I wanted to do something different to what everyone else does. Mam Tor has been shot to death but how many times had people ever opened that gate?
The image below also has good memories for me as I became good friends with someone this morning and a few weeks after it was taken it was published on page 3 of The Times as a half page.
What both images do share is that they were shot using the Canon 24mm TS-E Mark II.
Fast forward to the awards ceremony. I was asked if VB could use the Bridge image. The answer is you'll have to speak to Getty as it's in there. Then they asked if I had anymore. Same answer again. Sorry VB I am a working photographer who makes his money from selling stock images and footage. If you want any of my work you need to go through Getty who hold my best images.
I never did see them try to get hold of that image through Getty.
Any other nuggets? Absolutely and it will cause debate!
For me, I personally feel that the LPOTY is becoming a joke. In the beginning images that were chosen just didn't cause the debate that they cause now.
When our images are looked the first judges see them on a screen for about 5 seconds and have to decide whether or not to choose it. If it is rejected the other judges don't see it. Is that really fair? How do I know? Believe me, I just know as I was told by someone who was a judge a couple of years ago. That someone would not lie and has no reason to.
Earlier this year I was told by someone (I won't say who) that the organizers had phoned them to ask if they were entering again. Then had another call to ask if they would be a judge instead. They declined.
A couple of weeks ago I was told about another photo competition. The story goes that (and this was back in film days) that the head judges arrived to look at the photos that were sent in. When they went into the room there was a box in the corner. Asked what it was they were told it was the rejects. Response was "how do we know if they aren't any good if we haven't seen them?" Apparently they went on to choose some winning images from the rejects! I believe this was the Wildlife POTY.
Now, I have no affiliation whatsoever with the SLPOTY but if you read how that is done the judging seems to be very transparent and very fair. The quality of work in that competition is, for me, how the LPOTY used to be.
Is this all sour grapes you might ask? Nope. I just thought I'd pass on a little knowledge that some of you might find interesting
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