Why Did the Winners Win?

^Grand Prize: Fifteen of August Street
Prize: Ricoh GRDII and a trophy

Hong Kong's official dealer for Ricoh, Laikok, has given out the final verdict on the winning entries of its 2nd Ricoh Photo Contest Hong Kong/ Macau. This year the contest was themed on the new faces of Macau.

^First Runner-up: New Face of an Old City through the Lens
Prize: Ricoh CX1 and a trophy

Sometimes, probably much like me, you may wonder in what way the winners manage to win with their photos. Here I have quite a lot of question marks.

^Second Runner-up: Evolution
Prize: Ricoh R10 and a trophy

The clue, comparable to a debate competition, lies in the adjudicators. A local professor who have trained up the debate teams of different universities to win in a matter of consecutive years confided to the audience on a talk that he taught the team members to study the background of the adjudicators and debate in a way relevant to them.

Some Recommendable Honourable Mentions

^The West Bay Bridge / Construction and Reconstruction

A renowed artist-designer in this part of the world whom I am acquainted with said to me that when it came to competitions, what mattered most was the taste of the adjudicators. He himself has won numerous awards in the design industry and once voted the Most Outstanding Young Person of Hong Kong.

The best photos do not always win, that is to say.

^The City of Dreams / In Blossom

So, the pointers from these observations are, firstly, to win a photo contest, know your adjudicators. The most convenient and practical way is through studying the past winning photos of the same competition.

^Beware of Pick-Bucket

The second thing is to make your photo stand out in composition so that the image is visually captivating. Also, you make post-process the photo to tune the colours attractive. The point is to attract the adjudicators to pick your photo among the hundreds of entries.

The third thing is to give your photo a proper and smart title. Surely, your photo will never win if it isn't a good photo and isn't conveying the prescripted theme. Otherwise, these three pointers could maximise the chance of your entry to get into the final in a photo contest.

Before we start off to photograph for a photo contest, paying attention to these pointers will stand us in good stead.

Of course, there are the category of you-never-know finalists. So, the professor and my friend are very right: it is the adjudicator who counts. Some example follows below.

Honourable Mentions in an Intersting Way

^Stick Together in Macau on a Rainy Day

^A White Bird

^A Modern Building in a World Heritage Setting

^The Never Fading Blue Sky

^The Eldery and a Child

A Real Hero

(Grip On Reality: This photo was taken on my way to work. I was walking past trucks parking on a cul-de-sac when the ropes caught my attention. The light was right, the colour was right and the criss-crossing pattern was perfect and I held up my GX200. People passing by checked me out and wondered what could be made out of such a boring scene. To me, the fun in photography is that the photographer makes something interesting out of what is not obvious to most at the scene. The ropes tied in knots somehow reminded people I know who are in the grip of the recession) You must have also known a friend or two, or even yourself, being baffled by the spiral downturn of the economy. Bank went bankrupt and the rich was faced with a shrinking wealth. A friend of mine has just had his salary cut by over 10% and some of his colleagues started to be shed. But, wait. Was this done really for the sake of continuing the business? Or is there a factor or greed in it? I wonder whether the

New Low Prices

The window shopping some hours ago has almost provoked my AgIDS illness. Just in case you’re in Hong Kong or are coming here, and have the money to burn (All in HK$/ body only): GX200 = $3,280 GRD2 = $3,380 LX3 = $3,180 G10 = $3,280 Prices are available form a gear shop on the 1st floor of the Mongkok Computer Centre. Besides these new low prices, I found that Wing Shing Photo (55-57Sai Yeung Choi St., MK Tel: 2396 6886/ 91-95 Fa Yuen St., MK Tel: 2396 6885) is offering a Sony A700 + Carl Zeiss Lens package for HK$9,980 (hopefully, a bargain will make it some hundreds cheaper).

Eye Contact

(Leica D-lux 5) The digital era may make it easier to end up with fave shots. Even lousy photos may be turned likable after a few clicks in the post-processing workflow. But if digital advancement or amendments have any bearing on the cultivation of personal style, no photographers will need to discover his or her own photographer’s eye. Undoutedly, this is out of the question. Only with a trained photographer’s eye can we give a thinking gaze and capture an eternal moment, in our unique style. Style is the soul of a great photo. A few posts have been written in GXG to touch on the topic of photographer’s eye. Instead of finding an answer, which would require academic discussions, the posts are intended to give my general reflections and spark interests in moving towards further exploration of the topic. The posts can be viewed after the links: 1) Photographer's Eye: Storytelling 2) Photographer's Eye: Little Show of Observing 3) Photographer's Eye: Sight-Worthy 4

GX GARNERINGS

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