What are your feelings about this....

kbg32 said:
I just believe he wants to sell his books.

After all, as I wrote, HE invited me, told me which images to submit via my online portfolio. I never hide the fact that my images were processed through CSxxxx. My images are not processed like Instagram filters!
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Are you sure you are not giving away the rights for your pictures by submitting them? I'd be very careful. All of this seems strange to say the very least. Have you had a close look at the fine print (also on the back of the page...)?

I am also not a friend of a lot of post processing. I basically do in LR what I could be done also in the darkroom, just much better and more sophisticated. I do not alter the content of my images. But his position is extreme and you might also call it BS.
 
Full of @$%*.
Like stated before, every digital camera adjusts images without you knowing, this contest could basically be the battle of which camera adjusts the image the best before spitting out a file.
 
Curator/style....

Curator/style....

Hi, as i read he does admit PP, but in some limits...he does admit B/W conversions...

I have to admit i don´t like some kind of PP and have my own rules for it , for instance i never add any sharpenning to the image but i use a lot recovering highlights...

I think it´s a matter or styles not about being right or wrong...just plain style thang...

In art galleries and mueseums there´s a guy in charge of curatorships, he sets basic rules and the boundaries of a given exhibition...
This is the same case he admits some class of PP but no other...and so he might say he accepts nudes only or portraits or any other kind or style...

In this particular case the guy has a "commercial" reason for not accepting the style of pp you use....he sells books about not using certain kind of PP....so i think you´d better take your shot back and look for a contest in which you feel completely free and supported!!!

Cheers!
 
One read of the competition organiser's letter and the 'language' used puts me in mind of scam letters coming from Nigeria.
RAW files are there to be manipulated to produce a final image, not to provide a finished image straight from the camera.
RUN A MILE AS FAST AS YOU CAN FROM THIS GUY,
is my suggestion.

jesse
 
What is interesting, he asked me for specific images he saw on one of my websites. I sent them to him, and he wondered why when he clicked on them, they opened up Photoshop CS2 on his MAC and not an image previewer? It made me wonder, why on earth would any professional just keep an old version of Photoshop on their computer? I do, as I have CS3-CS6. Older versions operate plugins that are no longer supported by newer versions. Made me think as well that he is not very digitally versed, hence, only camera processed jpegs, of which he is a big proponent of.
 
kbg32 said:
What is interesting, he asked me for specific images he saw on one of my websites. I sent them to him, and he wondered why when he clicked on them, they opened up Photoshop CS2 on his MAC and not an image previewer? It made me wonder, why on earth would any professional just keep an old version of Photoshop on their computer? I do, as I have CS3-CS6. Older versions operate plugins that are no longer supported by newer versions. Made me think as well that he is not very digitally versed, hence, only camera processed jpegs, of which he is a big proponent of.
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Tell him to change his default settings so the jpeg images open an image viewer. :D

Seriously though, it may be his contest, his rules, but it's your image, your vision. I'd say withdraw your images.
 
Competition organisers do not ask people to enter specific images. Photographers choose which pictures to enter for competitions, not the organisers. BEWARE!!!!
 
I am pretty sure that there is no "competition". The person is looking for good photographs to fill a new book and make money with...
 
Sure it is his competition, but come on, what a load of utter garbage!

Find me a straight print without dodging and burning from the Normandy beaches shot by Capa, or a Spain shot by Taro without any darkroom tweaks. Almost all had basic work done to produce prints that carried the tonal range and relationships necessary to convey the message intended. This is obvious when you look at the contact sheets.

I am not going to pull my punches: the organiser is an utter berk. He knows nothing about photography, the history of photography, or the technical side either. I don't care how many books he has produced. In the contrasty light I shoot in, if I relied on JPEG only I would be in serious trouble due to limited dynamic range. Its hard enough with raw files to convey what my eye sees from shadow to highlight. This is one reason I still love B&W film under such conditions: there is so much in the neg I can work with later when enlarging.

My bottom line is this: if you do not use the tools you have (raw file flexibility etc) you are either working to tight deadlines and with volume (JPEG) or missing out on a great deal of image potential that is sometimes needed just to get an image to look as you see it. How far to take things is judgment and I could understand a competition organiser wanting to see RAW files to see if, in their opinion, a reasonable level of manipulation had been exceeded. Anything more is puritanical garbage with an agenda.

This is why I don't enter small competitions run by people whose standards and experience I have no respect for.
 
We only allow black and white conversion without any processing, and cropping for the award.
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I like this part most. I am sure those pictures all look great :)

I also think they just trying to sell those books...
 
So, I went to this guy's website, curious about the details of the contest. He doesn't state the details, except to say that the "standard" by which the contestants' images will be judged are derived from his book, and says "Learn about the standard we follow from our book". His book is titled "The Quintessence of Photography: Understanding Composition."

Giving him the benefit of the doubt (for just a moment), perhaps his objection to image manipulation has to do with not wanting photo-collaged images (clone stamp out the coke can and add a giraffe, for example), but rather wants the compositions to be derived in-camera. Fine.

But still, I'm with Roger on this. Sounds like a "business model" intent on selling his books (which, after all, would better help a person understand the "standard" by which the contest is judged). And I'm not sending anyone my raw files for a contest, either.

~Joe
 
i find it pretty fresh that he's asking for a RAW file for the sake of not getting a processed image, when it is practically impossible to open a RAW file without applying any post processing to it. ;)
 
I visited his website. It appears he is trying to educate passionate beginning amateurs into becoming better photographers. There's nothing wrong with that, as an idea, but there's no point in keeping anyone at that level of expertise.

Because you know how to take a picture and post-process it to get the results you want, you have advanced past his target audience.

He made a mistake when he requested the submission - but he's probably doing the best he can to hustle a few bucks the best way he knows how. I do not think harm was intended by him, but he does have an agenda to push (his magazines and books), and your work does not fit into that agenda. It's best just to part ways.
 
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