Judge: Ian Walls
Submit your best image and submit one image for each Shot Of Year trophy: "Digital Open" , "Digital & Print Black & White/Monochrome" , "Print Open"
MCC Shot Of Year for the 2023/2024 club year. The results are presented as 3 places - 1st, 2nd and 3rd. The 1st placed image is awarded the trophy. :
- Only one image can be submitted as long as it hasn't been previously submitted into any previous years Shot Of Year competitions. This is entrusted to you to ensure you keep within these guidelines.
Please submit the one image under SET subject. When submitted ot the judge, the image will not be graded.
The judge will be asked for results and critique. Depending on the volume of images, this might be restricted to just critique. The results will not be included in the end of year totals for MCC certificates.
Open
Set Subject
Hi Marlborough, it's Ian Walls here from the Christchurch Photographic Society. Thank you for your opportunity to have a look at your images in your shot of the year competition. There's a huge range of pictures in there and I enjoyed the fact that there's a wide variety of styles and presentation medium that you've done.
I'm not entirely sure how this competition generally works, as I was given the opportunity to grade each of the images with, you know, honors accepted and all that sort of stuff. But as well as that, I was asked to give first, second, and third, um, place getters and the implication again was that the first place getter is what it's all about.
What I've decided to do is to not award any of the other grades, to just comment on all of the images in an audio form. So I hope that works for you, but at the conclusion of each of the sections of commentary, I have given first, second, and third placings, as asked for. So they're going to come at you in the order that they were presented to me.
At the conclusion, you'll find out who the winners are. I hope you have a great evening with this. I hope that the commentary is of some use to you because I enjoyed looking at them and working through the sets. Thanks again
PRINT OPEN:
This section is the open prints and there are nine prints in this section.
All dressed up in Tokyo. I love this explosion of colour. The bright reds on the side highlighted with the gold and then the purple and the little fellas kimono dress really works well. He's sitting there in right off centre in the middle but he's highlighted as an exclamation line between the sort of paper door screen on one side and, the ornate looking door and red background on the other. But what really makes it sing is that awesome looking look on his face. We're drawn in with all the other compositional elements and then we just see the look on his face and he looks, to me, pleased as punch and I really enjoyed this picture.
Alpine Gentian. Picture of these little flowers up in the hills I'm guessing and you've chosen an arrangement of four of these and they're all similarly in focus. My suggestion is that perhaps if you'd chosen one of them and emphasised that a little more strongly, that might have given us an area of through which to step in one of them to really concentrate on. The bottom left one seems to me to be the most powerful one, so if you were down a little bit and looking into that, that might have added a little bit of depth to the composition here. And the other thing is that the print has presented a little darker and the whites are a little muddier than I think you would have liked to really strongly emphasize the gorgeous colours in these little flowers.
A River Runs Through. This is really an interesting effect and because it's clearly been made at night time with the stars shining there and the stars are all a little bit soft so there's some movement in there so it's probably a quite a long exposure which has created the cool colours in the background. Probably I think from the lights of the cars going past perhaps or maybe there's a township over there I'm, not sure what it is, but it's added a warmth into the hills which looks really appealing and is a little unusual and then the emphasis of the river running through and forming the whole thing is, is what ties the whole thing together. So that works really well. The thing's just a little bit soft to carry this effect off as well as you could potentially do it. I don't know whether there's been a little bit of movement in the shutter with that long exposure or what, what it is, but the images could be more crisp and would be more effective.
Moody Coast. And you've chosen to frame the Moody Coast with the foreground flowers, which I think is a technique which has worked really well, it gives some depth to the presentation and draws us in as we come across towards the other side. If you're drawing us through, you're not drawing us to anywhere strongly enough. The cliffs on the far side are sort of they're moody in that they're hidden in the rain clouds effectively and the whole thing's a bit soft. The other thing that's happening here is the print itself is a little bit muddy in terms of its presentation and lacking in punch and a little bit dark. So I suspect if it was brighter, and the contrast was increased. I think that that would outline that closest headland more strongly. And that would more effectively produce what you're trying to show us.
Pied Stilt. Which has been captured really, really well. I enjoy the counterplay here. You've created a strong landscape effect in the presentation of this picture. And you've put the stilt itself right in the middle of the frame, which is a fairly static position. So you've put this, the bird in a static position, but that really emphasizes in contrast with this interesting pose that it's making. It's out there fishing or doing whatever it's doing, but every element of the bird is twisted in one way or another. So, that it's become somewhat of a contortionist, and the strong line from a beak aims down into the water where, where it's looking, and we do get that strong presentation. The rest of it's really simple. We just get a night, a little bit of foliage in the foreground which draws us in to the picture. The bird is sharp in the middle, and the background fades away in the background. So really well put together picture. I enjoyed this a lot.
Riding The Visible Breeze. I really enjoyed the creativity that went into this picture. Some ICM effect in the background with an overlay of some texture that gives us that sort of horizontal lines. And then you've superimposed over the top of that, the gannet in the foreground and the group of seagulls in the background. For me in this picture, the gannet pulls me visually a bit much. I like all the other work that's gone into the background with the slow shutter speed and the lines and the textures and the colours and then the seagulls superimposed, sort of fall into the background by the really strong component of the gannet. I just think, the balance is a little bit out for what you're trying to achieve.
The Big Little Race! Is a wide view of a huge optimist fleet, so it must be at the nationals or some sort of championship of some sort, and there's clearly a bunch of chase boats and support people there all cheering on and you know, it's about the action. That works really well, and you've given a superb overview of the situation. In terms of the individual elements of energy, that's a bit lacking. I think you could see in a sort of a tighter composition, if you saw a few boats sort of duelling with each other, you would get a better representation of the energy. But that's not what you're presenting. You're telling us about the whole thing. And I think you've handled that really well, And you do show us the wide range and the huge numbers of boats that are here today.
Ward Beach. Beautifully presented, soft silky water, and nicely captured rocky outcrops. My eye is drawn through the frame. With the silky water pulling me up through the little gap and then I go around to the left of that strong crop and then I disappear off to the distance and in the distance is a little rock which is nicely lit. And creates a focus point on the horizon. So I like the journey that you take me on this, and with this. And the balance that you've created between the highlights in the in the rocks in the foreground and on the little spots within the rocks and the warmth and the sunset in the distance works really well.
Down In The Valley – additional print.
And there was another picture in the box that wasn't on the list you sent me and that's called Down In The Valley so I'll give a quick critique on that and include it in summary of what I'm looking for. You've climbed your way up to the top of the hill and you've got a great view across to the sort of flat top mountain in the background, which you've framed really well with those poplars. So I think this is a great place to be standing. You've found an interesting line of clouds that sit on the, on the mountain top and that kind of works really well. I'm drawing through that the whole way across and the colour pairing between the warmth of the, the lightish coloured greens and the blue with the little tinge of colour in the cloud works really well in this situation. I enjoyed this. It's a soft ethereal looking landscape.
Welcome Swallow with the Oil Painting effect – missed and not sent to the judge. Really sorry about that.
The trophy winners and place getters were presented at our August club evening (and AGM) on 8th Aug 2024.
Trophy - PRINT Shot of Year 2024
2nd - All Dressed Up In Tokyo – Frank nelson
1st - Pied Stilt – Michelle Brown
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