Competition
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INTERVIEW
35th Annual Nikon Photo Contest You’ve got until 15 December to enter one of the world’s top photo competitions with some amazing prizes to be won. This year’s lead judge, Stephen Mayes tells us more
MEET AWINNER Dina Bova: Dina won the Grand Prize 2012-13 with Elegy of Autumn (right). Howdid you feel when you heard you’dwon? Winning a Nikon Grand Prize for a photographer is the same as winning an Oscar. This is a tremendous recognition, a pleasure and an honour. And although I have already received several hundred awards in different countries, I did not expect such recognition. I found it hard to believe that out of 100,000 images from 153 countries, my work was chosen. It took me a while to calm down. What advicewould you give to this year’s entrants? First of all, I believe it is important to remember that photography is an art – and not a sport. In art, you can’t faster than others. In photography, you just need to be yourself. Do not try to please someone or to predict someone’s tastes. Enter work in which you have invested your heart and soul. What impact has winning had on your life? It gave me great exposure: my work got lots of press coverage and I was invited to give TV interviews and lectures. I also had a fantastic trip to Japan for the awards ceremony – a really unforgettable experience and I hope to go back one day. And of course, I was awarded with great new photography equipment. jump higher than everybody or run
Interviews by Megan Croft
How did you come to be lead judge this year? I was an observer at last year’s judging and I was excited by the variety and quality of the work submitted so I was thrilled when Nikon invited me to join the 35th Contest panel of judges. I have a long history of working with photography of different styles including journalism, fashion, art and commercial work so I bring a broad vision across many different types of photography, plus experience of judging including nine years as secretary of the World Press Photo competition. The keys to a successful competition are great images, strong judges and an excellent organisation. The Nikon Photo Contest has all these things so it was an easy decision to join the team! What’s expected from you as lead judge, what does your role entail? I have only one vote and it carries no more weight than any other judge’s. My job is more as a facilitator, to make sure that every judge is heard and that no judge dominates the process. There will be some difficult decisions and I have no doubt that the judging will be passionate, which is when it will be necessary to organise the discussion and to ensure fair consideration of different perspectives.
What’s your approach as a judge? It’s easy to be intimidated by the number of images but a strong jury makes the process easy. The judges have great experience and they will quickly identify the images they like, so the early rounds are relatively fast. The more difficult part comes later when they’re all good! At this point the process slows and the jury will spend more time looking more carefully at each image and discussing their qualities. There is only one theme this year (home), leaving theother competitioncategoriesopen. Does this make judging more challenging? Categories are only a mechanism to organise the process. Having fewer categories makes the organisation more difficult, but it makes the competition sharper because images will be evaluated only on quality, not on the category that a photographer chose to label the work. Is it becoming more of a challenge to shoot fresh and innovative images? In a strange way, having more images in the environment actually makes it easier to be innovative. If you look you will see that many photographers copy what they’ve seen before. Innovation comes by looking at what’s been done before and breaking the cycle and rethinking the
approach, making it new again. There’s still plenty of opportunity for innovation!
What does it take for an image to impress you? Passion! What really makes me stop is when I see that a photographer is passionate about their subject and they have the emotional courage to talk about it and the technical skill to express it. What do you think of the competition being opened to entries from all digital devices, including smartphones? It’s really exciting that Nikon has opened the competition to all digital devices. They are speaking the language of photography! For you, what are the ingredients of a winning image? I want to feel the photographer’s passion for the subject and for the image!
Innovation comes by looking at what’s beendone before and rethinking the approach
π To find out more, go to www.nikon-photocontest.com.
ABOVE Elegy of Autumn won Dina Bova the Grand Prize in Nikon’s Annual Photo Contest 2012/13 and led to her work gaining worldwide exposure. RIGHT This year’s lead judge, Stephen Mayes is looking for passion in entries to the 35th Nikon Contest.
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Issue 14 | Photography News
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