NSW Parliamentary "Plein Air" show

[Ross Chambers]

After licking my wounds for a week or two and very likely joining the vexatious correspondence list for complaining that they don't, for your $30 entrance fee, pay you the courtesy of a "thanks, but no thanks" e-mail I went along to have a look.

The exhibition is in Parliament House, Macquarie Street, prepare to be frisked btw.

Yeah, some are quite good, but the "committee" does have a taste for full on overwhelming skies and major Photoshop "sharpening" and lots and lots of colour.

Anthony Browell's contact printed 8x10 glows in monochrome, caught my eye.

A few film photographers of artistic repute around town didn't bother entering.

Sometimes it does seem a dilemma: to make something a panel of judges will like from past selections (this is the second year of this prize) and maybe win $10,000 or stick to a style of your own--and that isn't easy in a world of millions of images--for better or worse.

As a glutton for punishment I submit to the APUG mob my entry.

Regards - Ross

 

[Ross Chambers]

Whoops, messed up the attachment.

 

[Tony Egan]

Overheard recently some advice given to a group of camera club members asking how they could improve their photography..."STOP COMPETING WITH EACH OTHER"!!

Hmmm, I think I'd give your photo a 'credit' Ross

 

[Michael W]

I entered a work that also wasn't accepted. Some years I don't enter any comps and other years I enter everything. I got the impression that the judges for this prize are looking for a bit of everything.

 

[sharperstill]

I thought they were very commercial looking images in the selection this year. More like travel pics than landscapes with heart. Disclaimer: I too was rejected and pissed about the utter lack of correspondence after entering. My entry was pretty but unpretty too...

Jon

 

[tomalophicon]

Ross, I like your picture. It's calming, for some reason.
Jon, I like your picture too. It has the opposite effect. Where was it taken?

 

[hoffy]

I give you all tens!

 

[tony lockerbie]

We could have the Apug prize for you guys, no oversaturation allowed. Like the two entries so far. That shot of yours Jon really caught my eye, great details of the devastation! Could that be on top of Brown Mountain down here in the southeast?
Tony

 

[sharperstill]

I'm glad it has the opposite effect! It's part of my Apocalypse Now series, due to exhibit at Point Light next year. It was taken out in the Oberon area (Hume's forest). I love going snow chasing out there when my amateur-meteorologist friend gets it right.... When he doesn't it's a long futile drive...

Jon

 

[Ross Chambers]

Overheard recently some advice given to a group of camera club members asking how they could improve their photography..."STOP COMPETING WITH EACH OTHER"!!

Hmmm, I think I'd give your photo a 'credit' Ross

I have been through the awful camera club experience in a club not so far from your precinct.

The competing thing is at the heart of this club movement. I found that getting your print up at top left of the display of the night paid off, the visiting judges were usually fatigued by the time they reached the bottom right pics.

I have a kitsch trophy from that time featuring a naked member of Australia's first people, complete with boomerang and pampas grass (?) proclaiming my prowess as "Winner--Large Prints--IWPS 2005" which I hide in a very dim corner of my darkroom.

As for the Parliamentary Prize, it's ten thousand bucks; worth the gamble for the $30 investment, I guess.