Neil Creek – Photographer

A fantastic response!

The second project has been a huge success! With the exception of one problem, this project was bigger and better than the first. There were more entries, thanks largely due to some promotion of the project by Brian of Epic Edits. The project submissions were very high quality with some truly outstanding work. The interpretation of the project goals were varied and imaginative. I’m thrilled to have seen such an enthusiastic response!

A problem

There was an issue which arose during the voting process. My intention for allowing the readers of this blog vote to select the “winner” of the project was for a number of reasons:

• To give everyone a reason to look at all the submissions
• To give everyone a chance to express their opinion on how good they thought the submitted photos are
• To eliminate my own personal bias and taste in photography influencing the choice of winner
• To get a feel for the tastes of the general readership of the blog
• To encourage participation in the blog, so readers feel part of the process rather than just observers

For this to work, people had to vote for the photos they liked best, and thought matched the theme of the project best. I never really expected, especially considering that there is no prize, that people might be tempted to vote for photos taken by people they know, rather than the one they liked best. If an entrant asks a lot of friends to vote for their submission, then that photo is being rated highly for that reason, and not because of the merits of the photo itself.

Soon after voting commenced it became apparent that some of this kind of “get lots of friends to vote for you” behaviour was happening. There are no rules against this, only my request that readers vote for their favourite photo. I struggled for days with what to do, if anything, about what was happening. In the end I have decided that since no rules were broken, and accusations would only lead to alienation, to let the vote conclude without interference.

A compromise

I have decided that the best way to move forward is to apply something of a “best of both worlds” approach. For this project, and untill a better way of doing things is found, if ever, there will be two “winners” for the project. The winner of the poll will be the “People’s Choice”. There will also be a “Judges Choice” winner. For this project, I am the judge. In the future there may be other judges, or possibly even a panel of judges.

Ultimately I would like to offer prizes for the projects, and if the winner is determined solely by public vote, then that makes biasing the results by soliciting votes too tempting. Deciding by judges choice will be the only fair option, so trialing that method now will let me test it out right away and allow the possibility of prizes even sooner.

Two Winners

Congratulations to our two winners, Oleg and Rami!

Rami was awarded judges choice for a number of reasons, in approximate order of importance:

• Fully representing the project theme in the photo, and giving an everyday scene a completely new perspective through the low position of the camera
• The ground texture, obvious from the low view, enhances the strong, single vanishing point perspective established by the rows of buildings
• With it’s delicious monochromatic colour scheme, this photo is all about contrast and texture, something once again emphasised by the low viewpoint
• Putting the horizon on the centre line and the vanishing point dead centre of the photo is a bold, but ultimately successful composition choice

Iain

Angela Alston

Janne Moren

The full results can be seen here.

Consider the less-seen perspective

I think it’s clear to anyone looking through the submissions to the project, that taking an uncommon perspective adds interest to a photo. An uncommon perspective can be used in many ways, to give many different emotional qualities to a photo, but above all, it attracts attention, due to an uncommonly seen view. Don’t limit yourself to standing height, or even knee hight. Try putting the camera where you wouldn’t obviously expect it. You won’t always get a great result, but when you do, it’ll have an impact that a “typical” viewpoint cannot.

The next project for March will be on the topic:

Come back tomorrow for details on March’s photographic project, open to everyone with a camera and creative way of seeing the mundane. What will the secret ingredient be?