Is It Worth Entering The Landscape Photographer Of The Year Competition?

February 19, 2020 in Landscape Photography, Night Landscape Photo

Warning! These Landscape Photographs Will Make You Feel Like You’re A Terrible Photographer!

I used to enter photographic competitions until I realised my money was better spent on learning more.

When you look at the incredible quality of the photographs made by these international photographers, it almost dumbs you down and puts you in your place. It’s actually difficult to become inspired by them because they’re just so damned good and I think to myself that the places these guys and girls are making photographs are pretty much not accessible to me or the average human being without lots of available time, lots of money for travel and the ability to support yourself while out there making photographs about pretty places on Earth.

So these are my initial thoughts and then when I look at the pictures again, wow, they’re simply amazing. Shall we look at them now?

Ok,

Here are the winners from the 2019 competition…

Bonaire, Dutch Carribean by Sander Grefte (Netherlands), Second Place

Badain Jaran Desert, China by Yang Guang (China), Second Place.

Bláfellsá, Iceland by Oleg Ershov (Russian Federation), Winner

Gruissan, France by Magali Chesnel (France), Winner

Grizzly Lake, Yukon, Canada by Blake Randall (Canada), Third Place.

Fleswick Bay, England by Oleg Ershov (Russian Federation), Winner,.

Kimberley, Western Australia by Mat Beetson (Australia), Top 100,.

Eastern Sierra, California, USA by Carlos Cuervo (United States), Top 100.

Lençóis Maranhenses, Brazil by Ignacio Palacios (Australia).

Lençóis Maranhenses, Brazil by Ignacio Palacios (Australia), The Abstract Aerial Award 2019..

Page, Arizona, USA by Craig Bill (United States), Top 100,.

Bronte Beach, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia by Gergo Rugli (Australia), Top 100.

Madeira, Portugal by Anke Butawitsch (Germany), The Lone Tree Award 2019.

SpaceX rocket exhaust plume, Sierra Nevada, California, USA by Brandon Yoshizawa (United States), The Heavenly Cloud Award 2019..

Ramshead Tor, Kosciuszko, New South Wales, Australia by Blake Randall (Canada), Third Place.

Sharqiya Sands Desert, Oman by Peter Adam Hoszang (Hungary), Third Place,.

Central Balkan, Bulgaria by Veselin Atanasov (Bulgaria), The Snow and Ice Award 2019..

West Mongolia by Ricardo Da Cunha (Australia), The Wildlife in Landscape Award 2019.

See what I mean!!!

They’re quite amazing aren’t they?

Now do you feel inspired to go outside and make some landscape photographs?
My own personal style of landscape photography has been born out of isolation. I have never had the money to travel to these heroic and trophy like locations, so have always had to make do with my local environment.
I have rural farmland surrounding me and I’m in the middle of the urban sprawl of a small market town in the middle of England.

I try to make the best of my surroundings, regardless of where that is and still encourage you to do so as well.
Once you understand photography and all the rules and all of the different ways of breaking the rules, making photographs wherever you are becomes much simpler.

You learn to see the beauty of life and not just in the pretty parts of the planet.

So it’s a choice on whether you wish to enter your work in to the LOPTY competition but remember how stiff the competition is and look at the level your work has to rise to, even for consideration to be shortlisted amongst about 3,400 pictures. You also have to pay for the privilege of entering, as you do many photography competitions these days but that’s a whole different story that I have strong thoughts about.

Maybe another time!

By Paul Hands.

Inspired by an article written by Jessica Stewart (18,2,2020), https://mymodernmet.com/international-landscape-photographer-contest-2019/?fbclid=IwAR3xoaagEHpDR6A_8wNKzo6W42RjOWYdHs-xLn8ZIcdMvWB3v0ZPpOUstMo

Sublunary - Alien Invasion of Planet Earth

April 17, 2018 in Fine Art Photography, Night Landscape Photo

Fine Art Photography meets Visual Stories

Sublunary - Part 2

As a professional photographer, Father to the most beautiful little toddler in the world and Husband to an equally beautiful Mother; I find it difficult to get out and make personal work.

In 2017, I graduated from University with a High 2:1 in a BA Hons in Photography & Video degree at De Montfort University, where the idea for this project was born. I began with a long period of time in the library, scouring art books and photographic archives, learning about who, what where, when, why and how specific bodies of work was made.

Surprisingly, I came across some painters and other Fine Art Photographers that worked in similar fields to my research. One in particular that sticks out in my mind was Photographer Erasmus Schroeter and Painter Max Ernst.

I was also heavily inspired by my lecturer (Kosovan) Lala Meredith-Vula who is a contemporary fine art photographer with international recognition. Lala's ideas about my work and how to get the best out of me was first class and Lala's self confessed crazy mind was a perfect match for the project I had stuck in my head. She knew just how to get me excited about my own work.

So the body of work for Sublunary began. I created a series of landscape photographs that followed the narrative of an imaginary alien invasion of the planet Earth. A tall order you might think? I just needed the right level of inspiration and a camera. At the end of creating the work for my degree, I put it all together in a short movie with a spooky sound track that I created myself. You can watch that below.

I'm now about to embark on a much longer journey that will see me creating a whole new body of work for Sublunary Part 2. I'll be using my experiences from the first part of the project and will be digging deeper in to my imagination.

Here's a sneaky peek at my first experiment for part 2...

This is called 'The Mute' and features a landscape photograph that has been manipulated in camera by myself. I added the red light using the brake lights on my car and chose this location for the crazy tree that could be morphed in to any kind of other worldly creature. The reverse side of the road sign represents having nothing to say, to be muted and to be stunned by the experience of an alien invasion. You will see that I've also added a strange shaped metal frame on the right. This represents an alien being and is the shape of a large humanoid or key hole. It is hollow and appears invisible with the exception of the outer edges.

The scene is lit like a stage as if the play is being carried out and has undertones of humour, not to be taken seriously. It's a project that I can literally play and have fun with. I have a list of locations, that I've been building, so you can watch to see how this develops.

De Montfort University bought the first 5 prints of this project and hold them in their permanent art collection on campus. You can also read more about this project here.

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Home to Home

February 18, 2018 in Night Landscape Photo, Landscape Photography

Night Landscape Photographer England

Home To Home

This series of pictures are part of the experimental stage of what could potentially become a new project.

"I leave home and return, that's the single most repetitive thing I do".

The other night I left home to go and make a series of night landscapes around my local area between Hinckley and Coalville. My search was for the unusual quirkiness surrounding our towns and villages. Some man made and some natural with street signs, giant posters in the middle of nowhere and concrete bollards in-between such beauty in the landscape.

February News

New Clients:

I'm pleased to welcome new clients Hinckley BID, BJL Group, Morris Homes, ARO PR and Marketing and JJ Churchill on board.

Also this month I'll be working on new assignments for two existing clients; Mode Transport Planning and the SFB Group.

More work will also be going in to the application to Grants for the Arts through the Arts Council for a major Environmental Portrait project I'm hoping to work on this year.

If you'd like to keep up with my news or get my blogs and pictures delivered to you via email, subscribe here. Facebook are messing around with the algorithms for pages and a lot of Creatives are not able to share their art. So this is one way for artists to stay in touch with the community.

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