Humanistic: Thoughts on the 10th Ricoh Photo Contest

Ricoh's serious compacts have a distinictive quality to them for which one word immediately springs to mind: unassuming. Surely a camera doesn't make a photo – it is the photographer's spirit that does – but as birds of a feature flock together, several of the GRDs and GXs users whom I as a stranger spoke to on the street had some similar quality of modesty. Such a character was also reflected in their images too.

As I browsed the gallery put together by Ricoh with works selected from different Ricoh users (accessible by clicking the above picture), I found the same thing threading through the selected works – unassuming as well as humanistic.

The reason I spoke on this topic is that the 10th Ricoh Photo Contest is on. We may get our Ricoh cameras and do some good shots. But how about starting from making a list of the winning elements? I have briefly looked through the winning entries of the previous contests, and came to one conclusion: the winning photos mark a humanistic quality which I will relate to words like petite, everydayness, calmness, household, environment, commonplace and, of course, unassuming.

Good luck!

Comments

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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