International Street Photography Award 2012

Posted by Brett Jefferson Stott

THE STREET PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
International Awards 2012

The International Street Photography Award is looking for exceptional international photographers that display a unique style and depth of work in the genre of street photography. The genre crosses over into portraiture, documentary and art photography.
See the 2011 winners

What is street photography?
The London Street Photography Festival defines Street Photography as:
“Candid photography which captures, explores or questions contemporary society and the relationships between individuals and their surroundings.”

PRIZES & CATEGORIES
The international winner will receive £2,000 cash PLUS a solo exhibition in London PLUS an all-expenses paid trip to the exhibition launch and awards ceremony in London in June 2012 – total value £10,000.
Selected finalists will be exhibited and one image from each entrant will be showcased in a digital display in the same gallery.
The first 500 applicants will be automatically entered into a draw to win some fabulous prizes including: a signed print from one of the 2011 exhibitions, an Olympus PEN camera, £100 Blurb voucher, a Crumpler Muffin Top camera bag, photo-books by Magnum and Thames & Hudson. Categories include an overall winner, a runner up, and 10 finalists.

ENTRY FEE
£30.00
• Participants from certain countries receive a 50% discount on the entrance fee.
• You can submit between 5 and 8 images within the fee.
• One image from ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS will be displayed on a large screen during the Awards exhibition and profiled (optional) on the LSPF website.
• ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS who enter will receive a £28.95 voucher to print their own book with Blurb, which expires on 31 March 2012.
• FEEDBACK: For an additional £15, LSPF can provide written feedback by an Award judge on your submissions. Choose the “Written Feedback” drop down when you submit your images to the Awards.

REGISTER ONLINE

APPLICATION DEADLINE
05 January 2012

How to handle criticism

Yesterday I read an interesting article in a photo magazine talking about criticism and how to handle it. It was a nicely written article and as I was reading it I realized that, maybe unlike most photographers, I really didn’t have to deal with criticism.
Its not to say that I didn’t get any negative criticism but it was not my work that was ever criticized it was my ideas about non.photography that irritated a few people and even sparked some anger in a couple of beautiful souls.
True, some people don’t feel comfortable straying away from the herd, but I think they dislike it even more when someone else does. However, I often find that this type of criticism actually fuels me, helps me stick to my ideas and it even drives some of my ideas further into the extreme.
Come to think of it, I do have one short criticism-of-my-work story to share with you.
It happened in 1997 when after a few years of living in Los Angeles I decided to put together a website (www.streetsoflosangeles.com) to share my view of this city through pictures I took while bike riding. It was a website about the city, not the photography, and the photos where just there to help me share my view.
It was all nice and mostly fun until I received an email message from a photography professor. He absolutely hated my pictures and claimed I had no idea what I was doing. This was absolutely true. But as it always happens in my life, disapproval pushes me in the exact opposite direction, into the realm of “I’ll show them!”
Obviously I knew he was right, and that I was not a photographer, but that doesn’t mean I cannot take great pictures, right?
So instead of having a normal and sane reaction to his criticism, you know, just telling him I’m not trying to be a photographer and then moving on with my life, I essentially began developing my non.photography approach and never quite looked back.
Imagine what a great loss to the world of photography it would have been
had I indeed listened to him

I know, most articles, books and “professionals” will tell you, you should listen to criticism and try to learn from it. They will also tell you that constructive criticism improves your photography.
I’ll tell you what, the only thing that will improve your photography is YOU and YOU doing your thing just the way it feels right to YOU .
That’s it.
Negative analysis of your work, or what is sometimes politely referred to as “constructive criticism”, should be avoided if not ignored.
Yes, there are types of advice that might do you good, but this kind of advice you will only get from your friends and perhaps a couple of strangers who really appreciate and care about your work.
These are the people who will give you true constructive criticism and you can definitely listen to them.
But other than that, criticism should be ignored as it will only divert you from the true nature of your artistic SELF expression.
(Btw, the above mentioned professor who criticized my photos; After a period of great debates he said that in fact he only wrote to me because he thought I showed “a remarkable potential” to grow and become a great photographer. )
You go girl!

How to handle criticism

Yesterday I read an interesting article in a photo magazine talking about criticism and how to handle it. It was a nicely written article and as I was reading it I realized that, maybe unlike most photographers, I really didn’t have to deal with criticism.
I believe it has a lot to do with my approach to photography (non-photography) when a perfectly exposed picture is not necessarily a good picture and when the practice of taking pictures follows an inner drive instead of a set of instructions created by someone else.
I mean, how can people criticize my pictures without appearing a bit foolish? How can you tell someone their picture is, for example, not composed correctly when this person doesn’t care and maybe even promotes off balance composition?

Its not to say that I didn’t get any negative criticism but it was not my work that was ever criticized it was my ideas about non-photography that irritated a few people and even sparked some anger in a few other beautiful souls. True, some people don’t feel comfortable straying away from the herd, but they even dislike it more when someone else does.
But anyway, I find that this type of criticism actually fuels me, helps me stick to my ideas and it even drives some of my ideas further into the extreme.

The only time I did get any negative criticism to my photographs was actually before non-photography was born, when I took pictures but didn’t think I was in any way doing photography.
It happened when after a few years of living in Los Angeles I put together a website to share my view of this city through pictures I took while bike riding along the streets. It was a website about the city, not the photography, and the photos where just there to help me share my view.
It was all nice and mostly fun until I received an email message from a professional photographer, who was also a professor of photography in a university somewhere. He absolutely hated my pictures and claimed I have no idea what I was doing. This was absolutely true. But as it always happens in my life, criticism pushes me to the exact opposite direction, into the realm of “I’ll show them!”
Obviously I knew he was right, and that I was not a photographer, but that doesn’t mean I cannot take great pictures, right? So instead of having a normal and sane reaction to his criticism, you know, just telling him I’m not trying to be a photographer, or maybe quitting taking offensive pictures like this I essentially began developing my non-photography attitude and never quite looked back.

Imagine what a great loss it would have been had I indeed listened to him!

I know, most articles, books and “professionals” will tell you, you should listen to criticism and try to learn from it. They will tell you that criticism improves your photography.
I’ll tell you what, the only thing that will improve your photography is you, and you doing it, you doing your thing just the way it feels right to YOU. This is it. Negative criticism should be avoided if not ignored.
Yes, there are types of advice that might do you good, but this kind of advice you will only get from your friends, people who know you and strangers who really appreciate and care about your work. These are the people who will give you true constructive criticism and you can definitely listen to them.
But other than that, criticism should be ignored. It will only divert you from the true nature of your artistic SELF expression.

(btw, the above mentioned professional photographer who criticized me; we exchanged emails for awhile, me always arguing how one will be better off not to follow the rules, and him defending the existence and necessity of these guidelines for “good photography”. After awhile I created the non-photography site, sent him a last farewell email and was then surprised to learn that he only wrote to me to start with because he thought I showed “a remarkable potential” to grow and become a great photographer. )
right!

Now, criticize this.

What Print on Demand should you choose?

When it comes to Print on Demand one of the first questions the future-bestseller must answer is; which Print on Demand service is the right one for them?
In the last few years the number of POD services grew a lot which is great as it created a larger spectrum of choices but it is also confusing because it created a larger spectrum of choices.
So basically your first task is to scan through these services, see what they offer, read reviews, and choose the right one for you. Essentially conduct your own little research.
It is very much recommended that you choose your publisher before even beginning laying out your book because you want to make sure you are designing your book according to their requirements.

Some of the POD services, like Booksurge , Xlibris and others, require that you to purchase some kind of a publishing package from them, basic package starts at $799 at Booksurge, I’m not really sure what’s the point of it, but whatever, I’m sure it somehow works for someone.

Other POD services, like Blurb and mypublisher require that you design your book using their desktop application which I find to be quite limiting since all your design work is confined within a file that can only be used with their publishing services.
Not such a good idea.

This leaves us pretty much with Lulu and CreateSpace.
Both services let you create your own PDF, DOC, RTF etc, and then upload your content to their server. Both don’t charge you anything upfront and they print your books once they are purchased. You keep your share of the loot and everybody is happy.

There are two main differences between these two:
1) Lulu offers to sell your book as a download which makes your book available for just about everyone because the price of a download can be kept low. For example, my own bestseller,
No Rules Streets Photography is sold as a download 4 times more than its print version. CreateSpace doesn’t offer a download version.
2) When you publish your book with CreateSpace your book is automatically assigned an ISBN number and is published on Amazon and as a part of the service it also includes the “Look inside” the book feature. Lulu offers an ISBN number and the Amazon promotion only if you purchase their Distribution package which costs around a $100, takes forever to establish and you need to do some work, like adding the “look inside” feature on your own (which btw, a pain in the neck!)

OK, so the Grand question now is which one should you choose?
And the answer is….both!
Yes, actually, why not? Since both of them accept a PDF file, with just a little bit of adjustment your file will work just fine with both of them.
This way you get the benefit of offering your book in a download edition while also enjoying the exposure (and sales) through Amazon without any further expense or effort on your part.
And this should never be an under-rated quality.

Photography or art?

Dear Nitsa,
I love all your work but I am wondering why you are interested in changing or even destroying your pictures? Aren’t you ever happy with your pictures and want to leave them ‘as is’?   Mark

The answer to your question, dear Mark, has something to do with the role of photography. I’m not an expert on the history of art but it seems to me that until photography came around, art was a serious medium that was used to depict portraits and landscapes in a very responsible manner. But once photography assumed this important job, the artists were free to begin doing abstract and other types of visual interpretation. So photography was pretty much left with making portraits, landscapes and documenting events. This is very nice and nothing is wrong with it. But this doesn’t mean photography can’t be used in other ways. Despite its scientific and mechanical nature, it can even be an artistic medium.
Now, you call it “destroying your pictures” but I see it as “presenting my images in a non-traditional form” which is just one step in the process of making photos. This is why I prefer the term “making photos” and not “taking photos”. Photography can be a process of creating something artistic which is shaped by many steps such as: choosing the camera and film, locating the image, selecting the desired settings, making the exposure, developing and printing the photograph and finally presenting the image.
It is never “as is”. I’m not even sure what “as is” really means.
The bottom line is that photography does not have to be confined to a single limited view of its function and it should always be characterized and defined by the individual photographer.
So mark, I tried answering your question seriously, I hope it works for you.
Now, excuse me, I have to go destroy, I mean, distress a print or two.