The Online Photographer

Congratulations Keck Contest Winners!

I'm pleased to announce the winners of the Keck Photo Contest:

David Jacobs

Melissa O'Shaughnessy

David Boyce

We'll have a Print Offer of all three of the winning prints, with the proceeds of the sales being the prize. (You'll see the winning images at that time.) The Grand Prize Winner, David Jacobs, also wins a week at a luxury condo in Hawaii courtesy of an anonymous reader (to whom many thanks).

In addition to the Contest Winners' Sale, we have two other Print Offers planned soon: One is a single, small silver print, called "The Card Game," the best or "signature" photo my 84-year-old father took during a lifetime as an enthusiastic amateur and semi-pro (a businessman, he wrote and illustrated articles for travel and food magazines on the side). The other is that we have an agreement in principle to offer some of the uncommonly beautiful, lyrical landscape work of Kate Kirkwood, with fine prints by Ctein.

We'll be doing the same thing again with the Contest Winners' Sale as we did with the Keck Contest. Any buyer of a print from that sale will be invited to submit work for a future sale*.

As I said before, I was very impressed both by the high average quality of the submissions and with readers' obvious printing skills. There were many outstanding submissions; choosing winners was uncommonly difficult. It was a satisfying experience for me to see so much nice work and so many beautiful prints (although I think my choices will be very controversial and will lead to much discussion. I hope no one's feelings will be hurt).

Thanks again to everyone who participated, and congratulations again to David J., Missy, and David B.

Mike

*The reason for the restriction is to limit the number of submissions. The 228 prints we received for the Keck Contest were about right for me to handle; an open submission might draw thousands of prints, which would overwhelm me.

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Keck Contest Finalists

Here are the names of the finalists in the Keck Contest:

Michael Farrell

Jeff Johnston [no relation]

Sherrie Larimore (2)

David Boyce

David Jacobs (2)

Jamie Pillers

Bill Tyler

Melissa O'Shaughnessy (3)

Jakub Pitha

Rob Spring (2)

Nick Kiest

John van Rosendael (2)

Eli Burakian

Andre Yew

R.A. Krajnyak

Kristoffer Tripplaar

Don Ross

Neil Slater

George Barr

Elisabeth Spector

Larry Gebhardt

Markus Spring (2)

Thomas Paris

Ken Jensen (2)

Arne Cröll (2)

David Paterson

If you look in vain for your own name, take heart. The competition was fierce; there were many fine photographs and many fine prints submitted. I have had the devil of a time doing the judging. Many of the non-finalist entries were very fine.

Also, there were a number of people who submitted outstanding work that I just didn't think was exactly appropriate for a print sale, which is what we're aiming for here. Joseph E. Reid gets an Honorable Mention on this score, and so stands for a number of others as well.

I might add that it's been a great pleasure for me to see so much nice work "on the paper" so to speak.

I've already chosen the winner and first runner-up, who will be announced shortly. First I have to select a second runner-up, which I'm having trouble with (I need help; it's why there are often multiple judges for contests, to offer different perspectives and tastes and give all the judges others to push against—sometimes clarity comes from the cauldron of dispute).

Finally, I'll add that I could have gone any one of several ways with winning picks.

We'll have a sale of the three winning prints, with the grand prizewinner also being offered the free week at the luxury condo in Hawaii donated by an anonymous reader.

Two hundred and twenty-eight prints were submitted altogether. I'll offer a few random thoughts about entering contests, seen from a judge's perspective, soon.

More news soon.

Mike
(Thanks to everyone who entered)

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Bill Mitchell: "Never heard of any of 'em."

Mike replies: Until now.

Rod Graham replies to Bill: "Haven't heard of George Barr? He does some beautiful, thoughtful work, and is an excellent writer and teacher. Might want to Google him. Several good photography books to his credit."

Very Cool News! (Hawaiian Vacation Contest)

Big news! One of the buyers of Phil Rosenberg's Mauna Kea Hawaii print is going to get a WEEK for FREE at a luxury condominium in Hawaii! Located 45 minutes up the coast from Phil's coffee plantation.

Seriously—it's the gift of an anonymous reader who wants to help with the New TOP HQ fund drive.

Everybody who buys one of the prints from the current print offer (either signed or unsigned) will be invited to participate in a competition. Competitors' work will be evaluated for its suitability for a single-image print sale on TOP. The winner of that competition will receive the week for free at the luxury villa in Hawaii pictured above, and they'll have their own print sale on TOP in the fall—which, if the gods are smiling, should pay the rest of their vacation expenses.

There will be some "fine print" (the other kind)—for example, the winner will have to use the condo before November 2015, and it's subject to availability. But the above is the gist of it.

Cool, huh?

Mike
(Big thanks to Anonymous)

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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And the Winners Are...

Nigel Robinson

$1,000 First Prize

The judge noted that "this contest asked for photos on the subject of work, and none of the entries said 'work' more definitively than this one—two big guys caught in the act of doing the roughest kind of job. Formally, the curve of the curb and paving stones, echoed by the curve of the hose, help focus the eye."

-

Sherrie Larimore

$500 Second Prize

The judge called Sherrie's picture "an excellent and non-obvious street shot...the colors are exceptionally good, and the reflections add a nice abstract element."

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Peter Brian Schafer

$100 Third Prize

The judge said of Peter's picture, "you could tell endless stories based on this one shot: about women, about men, about sex and its symbolisms...about commerce, about work, and about grace and beauty."

•     •     •

Congratulations to the winners, the finalists, the semifinalists, and indeed everyone who stuck their neck out and put their work out there. Most especially, thanks to the guest judge (who prefers to remain anonymous), and to the anonymous donor of the prize money.

We hope this has been an interesting and informative little interlude for everyone, and a nice way to kick off the fall season of 2013.

Mike

The winners' comments...

From Sherrie Larimore: "I'm so pleased to have my photo chosen as a winner among such competition! There were so many terrific photographs. Thank you very much to Mike and the judge for the time and consideration they put into this. The contest was such an honest and real process from start to finish. I've learned a lot from all the commenters and I'm delighted with how much this has refreshed my ideas about evaluating photographs. Thank you again to everyone who contributed!"

From Peter Brian Schafer: "As I said in the Finalists thread, that I very much appreciate the opportunity to participate in this contest. It's been gratifying to read the comments of the readers and of the judge—ideas, thoughts, and even confusion that I hoped to provoke, as I was filled with ideas, thoughts, and confusion doing the project. I also feel fortunate to have my pic shown with others that I like a lot, particularly Vincent Manna and Turkey Man. The Dahiana pic is from a series I'm still working on. The current edit can be found here. And I also have a shorter edit in a slideshow set to a song. There are indeed many stories from these women's lives, most very ordinary; one of those stories is having loved and lost.

"The contest called for pictures of people working and that's what's here for all to see, even if it requires opening more than your eyes. Thanks again to Mike and the judge and the anonymous donor. It's been a lot of fun."

From Nigel Robinson: "Wow, this was unexpected! I'm delighted with the result, and especially with the generosity of the comments. I feel like I have graduated from the TOP School of Photography. Thanks to Mike and our anonymous judge and donor, two more people working. I hope you both enjoyed the process and result. My son Stuart, who brought my attention to the scene, is enjoying his new 1/16 scale digger, a replica of the one he found so fascinating."

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Nick Van Zanten: "Yay to Nigel! A very well-deserved honor. And thanks to you Mike for initiating this; it was fun from beginning to end."

Mike replies: You're very welcome Nick, and I'm glad you had fun. I feel obliged to point out that I didn't initiate it...it was the idea of the donor of the prizes, who approached me with the idea.

Matt Miller: "Those 'big guys' haves curves as well. The curved back of the man running the hammer brings sympathy pains to mine. Congrats to the winners!"

Picking Winners

The Guest Judge of our recent "People Working" contest has left the choice of picking the winners (and awarding the substantial $1,600 in prizes) up to me.

Gulp.

It strikes me as more or less an arbitrary choice; none of the six finalists strike me as obviously "better" than the others, in the sense of being clearly more deserving of reward.

Anyway, I've been going around and around. I'll have a decision for you tomorrow.

Mike the Ed.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Michael: "Well, Mike, what the Brits say when they are enjoying Schadenfreude: better you than me, mate! But I can also say that these are absolutely splendid shots and any one of them is an education in itself. So don't worry: we'll just enjoy the result."

We Name Names

...The photographers' names have been added to Batch 1 of the "People Working" contest semifinalists. Have a look!

UPDATE 5:20 p.m.: The names have now been added to the photos in Batch 2.

UPDATE 6:40 p.m.: The names have now been added to the photos in Batch 3.

It's rather slow, painstaking work to match the pictures back up with their names, and I hope I've spelled everyone's name correctly. If I haven't, a) my apologies, and b) please shoot me a quick email so I can correct it.

By the way, I don't know if I mentioned this yet, but we got a lot of really nice submissions that didn't make the semifinal batches. I would say there were about three times as many photos as we selected that could have plausibly made it into one of the three batches. Also, there were six or eight submissions that I never was able to see. I tried to alert every sender if the JPEG didn't come through, but some we never got.

So—as always with contests—don't be discouraged if your picture wasn't chosen. Judging isn't arbitrary, but it is a matter of each judge's taste and discretion.

We'll post the six finalists early next week, along with the judge's explanation of why each selection was made. (Until we do post the finalists, please don't comment about your own picture.)

The way we picked next week's finalists was that the judge and I both picked our own top six, and the three pictures that were on both of our lists made it in. Then we each picked three or four we really wanted to see on the list. I conceded one of his choices, he conceded one of my choices, and then he let me pick the sixth—which I did, but I chose it from among the choices he'd already indicated.

As you might expect, I'm hoping that it's the discussion of our choices that will be the more rewarding part of this exercise, as opposed to any hard ideas about "better and best" to which such judgements pretend.

Mike
(Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest!)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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