Just in the nick of time, and with a huge amount of help from my abundantly talented wife Naomi, I have completed and published my first e-book “A Roadtrip Through Southeast Australia”. This was done as part of the Solo Photo Book Month project, or SoFoBoMo.

Please download and enjoy the book by clicking on the cover below:

I couldn’t have done this book without the moral and creative support of Naomi. She is responsible for laying out the book and creating the PDF that you see above. She really made my photos look so professional, and easy to browse. Through her hard work, the book looks much better than I could have done by myself, so I want to express my deep gratitude.

I hope you all enjoy my first e-book! If you have participated in the SoFoBoMo project, please send a link to your book and I’ll promote it here for you :)

I’m back!

It’s been an extremely busy couple of months, but I won’t go into that right now. More importantly I have to tell you about a cool project I’m participating in, and invite you to do the same, before time runs out!

It’s the SoFoBoMo, or Solo Photo Book Month.

This fantastic idea gets photographers to produce a book from their work, within a one month period. The book is intended to be an electronic book in PDF format, so there is no printing expense. There is no competition and no prize, just the satisfaction of seeing your work in book format, and displaying it to the world along with all the other participants. You can read the full details here: http://www.sofobomo.org/2009/.

For the lazy, here it is in short:

• Photographers have one month to produce an electronic book featuring their work.
• There is a two month window, ending June 30th.
• Sign up at the above site to participate.
• Upload your PDF to the site when you’re done, to share with the world!

I’ll be posting my book here, of course, and anyone readers of this blog who participate, I’ll feature your book here in a post as well! There’s only just over a month left, so you’d better get started! Sorry I left it so long to let you know :)

The topic of my book is the driving holiday Naomi and I just came back from. The image above is one of the photos that is likely to appear in my book. I can’t wait to see yours!

Secret ingredient:

Paperclip

It’s been a while since we last had a project here, so I thought it was about time. In the past, the Iron Chef Photographer projects have been very popular, and in the wake of the recent Australian Canon Photo5 competition with the same concept, I thought it would be fun to do another. For those who are new to the blog, the Iron Chef Photographer projects challenge everyone to take a creative or compelling photograph featuring a mystery subject. This time, the item is a paperclip.

Your submissions must be a photo of a paperclip or paperclips. By this I mean that it must be the main subject, or the focus of the image. It can be any kind of paperclip, the traditional kind, plastic coated or one of the new modern designs. It can be in its original form, or bent into an interesting shape. It can be by itself or combined with other objects, perhaps as a craft project.

You can go for any of a number of styles of photos too. You could simply take a beautiful photo of a paperclip, or you may want to use it in a clever way that conveys a powerful message. Maybe spell out a message directly by bending the paperclip into letters, or perhaps use the paperclip to demonstrate some amazing scientific principle. Its up to you.

The item, however, MUST be a paperclip. This excludes staples, pins, spring clips, clamps or any other kind of fasteners that one would not call a paperclip.

To participate in the project, simply take your photo, upload it to your Flickr account, and tag the image: lpncironchefpaperclip by the closing date of December 25th AEST

Project rules

• The photo must contain a clearly visible paperclip or paperclips as the subject or focus of the composition.
• This must be a physical and literal paperclip, or its impression.
• The subject of the photo must be appropriate for a general audience. Implied artistic nudity is acceptable, but not more than that. The final decision about entry appropriateness is mine.
• Use any camera that you like.
• The photo must be taken within the period of the project: Dec 1st – Dec 25th AEST.
• I will be accepting ONE and only one entry per person, so pick your best shot.
• All photos are to be uploaded to Flickr – this is for practical reasons to allow me to easily display the images. Flickr accounts are free, and I highly recommend one to all photographers.
• Entries must allow access to “All Sizes” (set in your Flickr preferences by default), otherwise I have to use a workaround to save the image.
• Submissions will be identified and linked, there are no anonymous submissions to this project.
• The vote will determine the winner of the Public Choice.
• Unlike previous projects, there will be no judges selecting winners this time.
• To submit your photo as an entry to the project, it MUST be uploaded to Flickr and given the tag: lpncironchefpaperclip
• You agree to the Terms of Entry
• These rules may change at any stage during the project if I feel that it is necessary.

Whether a photograph is appropriate is finally up to my discretion. If I reject an entry, I’ll give a full explanation why. You may take another photo and submit that in its place. It pays to submit your entry early!

Judging

Once the due date has passed, I’ll collate the entries and make a voting page where the photos can be seen by everyone. Readers will choose their favourite entry and place a vote for it. Voting will close on DECEMBER 30th (midnight AEST) and the results will be posted to the blog the next day.

Make sure you read and agree to the Terms before submitting your entry.

Links

You can see the submissions as they are uploaded here.

You may discuss the project and share your photos or any alternatives you choose not to submit in the Learning Photography with Neil Creek Forum.

Have fun and good luck!

Terms: Any photo that you submit remains your sole property. I (Neil Creek) make no claims of ownership or copyright. By submitting your photo, you grant me the right to include a copy of the photo, or a thumbnail of the photo in future posts on the blog (Neil Creek – Photographer) for the purposes of conducting the project, or to be used as an illustrative example in other future blog posts, or for the promotion of this project elsewhere on the blog or on other sites not controlled by me. In all cases all photos displayed for any purpose will be properly attributed and links will be provided to the creator where possible. You also agree to allow me to place advertising on pages on this blog where your photo appears for the purposes of promoting a prize sponsor, or general advertising on the site, without any compensation. Voting results are final. Any information collected as part of this project will be used only for the purposes of running the competition, and for the promotion of future projects. Your information will never be sold or given to third parties. You agree to allow Neil Creek or his representatives to contact you in future via your Flickr account to notify you about points of interest regarding this project, and to advise you of future projects. By clicking submit on the form above, you acknowledge that you have read, understand and agree to these terms.

The Canon Photo5 competition has come to an end and the winners posted, but not without controversy!

I should preface this post with the disclaimer that I was an entrant in the competition, and I was very proud of my entries, confident that I had a good chance of making it to the finalists with at least one image.

Questionable Judging?

In my admittedly biased opinion, I think the judges did a poor job selecting finalists, but this was also partly due to the separation of all entries into two divisions: Amateur and Professional. The judges were asked to choose five images from each object category and for each division, for a total of 50 images, from the approximately 8000 entries.

I presume the decision to split the entrants into two divisions was perhaps to address concerns that by allowing professionals and amateurs to compete on level ground was unfair to those without access to expensive equipment and years of experience. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the number of amateur entrants far outnumbered the professionals, by as much as 20 to 1 or more, and yet they were still competing for the same number and value of prizes. The end result was that professionals were guaranteed a greater chance at winning a prize, due to the far smaller pool of images. The final quality of the professional finalists selected also reflected this much smaller pool of images, with the amateur finalists displaying on average far superior images.

As for the choices made by the judges, many have found them difficult to understand, myself included. Some of the images selected were (once again, in my opinion) unimaginative, not the best example of a particular concept, or quite simply bizarre. Among the fifty, there were indeed some exceptional photos, but the overall quality of entrants seemed to me to be only slightly above the average of all of the entrants, and not the cream of the crop.

Technical Issues

On top of this, there were some problems, that seemed like teething troubles one would not expect to find in a competition run by such a big name as Canon. Some rules were changed or “clarified” mid-competition, others were unclear even up to the due date. Images submitted were displayed as they were entered (after a 48 hour delay, presumably for screening), leading to complaints that later entries could copy the concepts of earlier ones. I personally have no problem with this, as I think the best entry of a particular concept should be selected, and users had the opportunity to change their entries up to the closing date.

Finally, some have described technical and user interface problems with the voting mechanism. While I didn’t have any problems myself, I agree that the interface used for displaying and voting on entries suffered from poor usability.

A Worthwhile Competition

Despite the problems and issues that I have described above, I think that Photo5 is an excellent competition, and I would like to see it continue in the future, perhaps with some tweaks. Canon are to be commended for running such a complex competition, and especially for the concept which encourages photographers to get creative with a mystery object and whatever equipment they have on hand.

I thoroughly enjoyed looking through all of the entries and being impressed, amazed and inspired by the many different interpretations of the objects provided by Canon. I have experimented with this concept myself with the Iron Chef Photography projects that I have run in the past and intend to revive soon.

Photos Deserving Recognition

It’s a little hollow of me to criticise the judges for their choices if I don’t “suck it up” and have a go at judging myself. Also, I would like to see some more of the possibly unrecognised photos submitted to the competition get some acknowledgement. As such, I looked through all of the entries (yes, all approximately 8000 of them) and I have chosen my favourite of each of the objects overall. I wish I could link to the photographer’s web pages, but Canon didn’t ask that information of entrants. If you would like to know more of the details of the photos I have selected below, please click on the thumbnails to see the entry on Canon’s site.

Ribbon by Sanchia	Crayon by Nicole Pragasm	Bubbles by Indigo	Umbrella by Dark Orange
Candle by Russell Arnett

And just in case you missed them, these were my entries:

Ribbon

Crayon

Bubbles

Candle

Umbrella

Update: Canon have linked to this post from their Photo5 blog! By acknowledging and promoting awareness of constructive criticism of their competition, I think Canon have demonstrated a significant degree of professionalism and sincerity in their engagement of online communities. Congratulations and thank you Canon for your honesty.

The top 50 selected images from approximately 8000 submissions have been selected by the judges and the Canon Photo5 Competition entrants are now online for voting. You must be registered at canon.com.au to vote.

http://www.canon.com.au/photo5/gallery/default.aspx

Unfortunately none of my photos were selected as a finalist. Although I disagree with some of the judges’ selections, there are a few outstanding photos among the finalists. I encourage everyone to go and vote for their favourites and help encourage creative digital photography.

This is my entry for the Canon Photo5 competition, with the tea light candle:

I really like this photo. The mischievous side of me enjoys the slightly sacrilegious message. I also like how the image can be looked at on different levels, and interpreted in different ways. Do the horns represent the man’s dark side? Or is the photographer trying to comment on a dark side to religion as a whole? Is this an attack on religion or a warning to the pious. Those who know me probably know what I think, but that’s less important than what you all think!

The idea for this photo was hard to come by, but kind of popped into my head as soon as I started thinking about shadows. The execution, however, was a lot harder. I originally thought I’d fake the light and the shadow with a flash just out of shot, so that I could get a nice sharp, clean image. However, after many failed attempts to get the shadows just right, I decided to just have a look through the viewfinder with the candle only. I was beginning to think the idea wouldn’t work

A few experiments (with long exposures and high ISO – challenging in itself) showed promise, and we eventually got a shot I was reasonably happy with. The main problem was that the shadows of the hands looked like hands, not the horns I wanted. In the end I relented and used photoshop to sliiiightly change the shape of the shadows, and instantly, Danny – my patient model – had horns!

Here’s the un-edited photo, so you can see how little was actually changed:

Details:
Canon 350D
Tamron 24-135mm @24mm
2.0sec at f3.5 ISO1600

This is my entry for the Canon Photo5 competition, with the cocktail umbrella:

A fairly straightforward photo. The idea came to me as I was driving to visit Naomi in hospital. I took the umbrella with me in case I thought of anything I could shoot the umbrella with in the hospital. I thought, at first, of putting it in the plastic drinking cup Naomi has there, but then the idea of the cocktail of drugs Nomi takes came to mind.

Naomi isn’t taking all of her normal drugs right now while in hospital, due to the antibiotics, and I didn’t have our cool measuring up with me either so I took the shot at home. I first took a simple photo of the concept structure, then spiced it up with a bit of flash magic. The result is a photo I’m pretty happy with, and a concept that I don’t think any other Photo5 entrants have used! I can also use this photos in my photo essay Naomi’s life with arthritis.

Here’s the setup:

On a white sheet of card curled up as an infinity sweep, I placed a black speckled tile to look like a bar counter top, and give a reflection of the “cocktail”.

On the left pointed at the background, is a Vivitar 285HV at 1/16th with a blue gel and 50% neutral density gel (to cut down the brightness an extra stop).

On the right, another Vivitar 285HV at 1/16th, bare and with cardboard barn doors to control the light spill and lens flare, points back at the cocktail.

On the left, a folded sheet of A4 white paper acts as a reflector to fill in the shadows on the left of the cocktail.

Settings for the submitted photo:
Canon 350D
Tamron 24-135mm @ 135mm
1/125/sec at f/10, ISO100

This is my Photo5 entry for “bubbles”, and description. It’s my least favourite of the five.

In my mind, this looked awesome. I love the concept, and the idea of repeating patterns of nature on these vastly different scales blows my mind every time I think about it. But unfortunately, putting the two images side-by-side, they just have no visual impact at all. I’ve submitted the photo as I couldn’t think of anything better in the little time I had left, but I feel disappointed that I couldn’t express the awe I feel about the idea in my photo.

Here’s the set-up photo:

One truly great thing about this photo, however, was the ease with shich I was able to get permission to include someone else’s work in my image. Once I had the idea, i searched the net, and found the image I wanted to use. I emailed the site asking if I might be able to use the image for the Photo5 competition, and within a day I got a wonderful and encouraging response. Thank you kindly to August Evrard, Department of Physics, University of Michigan, for the use of his simulated image!

Then I emailed Canon, asking if I could use someone elses work as a part of my own entry for the competition – with written consent from the image owner. Again, within a day I had an answer from Canon, and they graciously allowed me to use the image so I could execute my concept.

I was expecting to hear no response, a delayed response or a negative response from both parties, but I was pleasantly surprised by both! Thank you so much to both August and Canon. I only wish I could have done better!

This is my submission for the Canon Photo5 competition, using the crayon:

I’m very excited about this photo. It’s one of those ideas that popped into my head, and all the way through, from organising to shooting, to the final result, everything pretty much ended up how I originally imagined it. Everything just went right!

Once I had my idea of a girl with angel wings drawn on a brick wall, I had to find my angel. If you’ve seen some of my previous shoots, you wouldn’t be surprised when I thought of Annie. I was thinking of the dress she wore in the “Gentleman Discovers a Doll” shoot, or something like it. When I asked her, Annie guessed what I was thinking, but alas had recently sold that dress. She was not worried though, as she thought this would be a great excuse to make a new outfit, especially for the shoot! Needless to say I was thrilled, and I think in the end, the outfit was perfect! Especially impressive was that she completed it in about a week!

I had a brick wall in mind from a previous shoot with Darren, though I was a little concerned that passing authorities might think we were vandalising the wall. Darren and Colin had a more appropriate wall near where they live, in an alley away from the public eye. They also generously offered their house as somewhere Annie could change, as well as assisting on the shoot with lights and ideas. They were also good bodyguards :)

They also helped us clean up afterwards :)

These are some of the other photos from the shoot that didn’t make the cut:

Here are some behind the scenes and setup photos taken by our wondeful assistant Colin:

This is one of my Canon Photo5 Entries and the description I submitted with it.

The proverbial “Red String of Fate” ties soulmates together. This has been a very difficult year for Naomi, who has long suffered with arthritis. She is in hospital fighting infection in her knee, the latest in a string of medical problems she has endured recently. The ribbon represents our bond, which goes beyond frailties of the body, and will carry us through hardship. Together we have and will overcome much, our love giving us strength.

The 450 character limit on the description is very difficult when there’s a story that goes with an entry! I had to trim this one down by about 50% from what I originally wrote.

My appologies for the lack of entries lately, but after Manifest I caught a very nasty cold which turned into a chest infection. Whatever energy I had was exherted on processing the thousands of photos I took at Manifest. I’m on the mend now, and will have some Manifest entries for you to read soon!

Thank you for your patience!