As much as I hate to admit it I have come up completely empty this week. This was not for lack of effort. I went out into the world and snapped a good many images, but none of them tickled my fancy once they were back home on the monitor. All in all they amounted to a big, fat... Ack!
So I went in search of an image and came up with this one from the depths of my photographic past.
Titled Winterberry, this shot was entered into an online photo contest on a site called Dpchallenge back in November of 2004. The theme for the week was impressionism, and my image placed 21rst in a field of 39 with an average score of 6.2. Not bad, considering the talent that trickles through there.
Those were the days...
I used to spent a lot of time with sites like Dpchallenge, but I have largely given them up. Just like going to school, they were fun, a great learning experience and all that, but I am rather glad to be done with them. I still keep up my membership to read the forums, and I still feel compelled to enter a competiton once in a while, but for the most part I just don't have the urge to mix it up with that crowd any longer. There is some good stuff going on over there, though. Mighty good. Just be sure to look back through at least the top 100 (200?) images of each challenge. You never know where you'll find the real gems.
3 comments:
I'm with ya on the 'glad some things are done.' Routines get boring after a while... keep up the good work :)
I like this a great deal and I too have spent hours doing different projects for different sites including DPchallenge and I just never seem to do them anymore. More of a timing issue for me at this point than anything. I do enjoy doing them and need to get back into them. It is what makes me grow I hope. I always enjoy seeing your work and your spin on things.
I do not think art is a competitive sport. And I specially deny that it is a student government contest. Perhaps there is a value to having Simon, Paula, and Randy pick the best photographer from a pack that enters themselves in a talent scout show. Well actually they pick the gaggle that "The People" will choose among.
I think Henry Ford put it best when he said, "If I asked The People's advice, I'd have built faster horses."
Emily Dickinson couldn't get published in her lifetime.
We are in an age when "professional" is an accolade. But until only recently there was an exalted spot for amateur standing. Most of the greatest scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries were amateurs. Even today, we have been taught to distrust the findings of scientists who receive money for their research from the very industries which will utilize their discoveries.
I say... use the internet to find your audience... your salon.. your friends. Develop a band of mutual admirers who can both support you and truly appreciate you And grow...
Growth is a good thing, particularly to enhance a distinguished amateur standing.
BTW... I'd be so tickled to make an image like this one... I cannot praise any image more.
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