Contest Photographing Idea...

[Quality Pen]

So I'm looking at these beautiful pens our community made this year for the bash.

Bravo! What a great, talented community the IAP is!

One thing that I can't help but think is "that's a great pen!... I wish the photos looked better!" :biggrin::redface:

I thought... maybe for future competitions there could be some photography "standard" that could help both the voting participants as well as the "playing field" for the contestants.

So, the ideal way would be to have a single person photograph the pens in exactly the same environment. But that's probably unreasonable due to both being more costly and time consuming (presuming there is no lost mail).

But, what if we could standardize things a bit? For instance, here's my thinking-off-the-top-of-my-head idea...

• pens must use the same/very similar stand (like this one http://www.penturners.org/forum/att...149288-2015-git-done-contest-poll-entey-2.jpg )
• Along with the similar stand, there is a choice of straightforward background choices - black or white or grey
• have a set number of photos and...
• like other pageants there are "mandatory poses" :biggrin: (sides, macro shot, capped & uncapped, etc)
• finally, there is one "artistic" photo where you can include props and photograph as you please

Overall, the idea of this is to help maximize the focus on the writing instrument as well as create a more even playing field despite vastly differing photography abilities. Not only that, but I think it would be EASIER to judge things fairly in this fashion.

 

[toddlajoie]

It sounds like a great idea, and it was done to a certain extent in the blank creation contest where specific photos of the blank were required. It would certainly take one of the variables away from the contest entries, but there are many others. I have often thought that the single photographer idea would be a great one, were time and money not an issue.

Unfortunately with photography, there is a lot that goes into the photo beyond props and pen angles, equipment being a big one, and the person's ability to be photographically creative with what they have to work with. There is just no way to fully equalize a cell phone photo with no lighting to a full blown DSLR with nice bright lights. Don't get me wrong, fantastic photos can be take with cell phones under the right conditions (you would be surprised at some of the photos in the Pen Photo contest that were taken with cell phones, I know I was!!!) but doing that requires almost as much, if not more, effort/knowledge about taking photos with cell phones as running a full DSLR/Lighting setup.

In previous years, some contests were judged by a small panel of IAP members, and in my contests we gave points for various aspects of the photos (concept, composition, technical aspects, etc) and that way a person with a great idea and great composition but not top end equipment, could have a chance against people with better equipment, but less thought put into the other aspects. When I'm voting in these contests i try to look beyond the photo quality and evaluate the item as much as I can on it's own along with any descriptions given, but with voting by IAP members, this isn't really a practical expectation.

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with the issue you raise, and I have thought about it over the past few years of the Bash (and considered offering to be the person who took all the photos), but have not come up with a solution I think would work and be practical. I'm glad you brought it out for public discussion, so other people may weigh in on it with ideas you or I hadn't thought of, or even to make the rest of the members a bit more thoughtful in voting to de-emphasize the photo quality when evaluating the entries (other than the photo contests of course...:biggrin