Shutter Mike Photography

Photo District News (PDN) and Artists Wanted are presenting the One Life International Photography Competition. This competition seeks to answer the question “What does the world look like through your eyes?” Amateur and professional photographers are invited to submit their photographic work that reflects their world and tells their story.

Photographs can be submitted into one of four categories:

People -Portraits, Self- Portraits, Conceptual, Candid

Places -City Imagery, Landscapes, Travel Photography

Things – Still Life, Studio Images, Macro Images, Micro Images

Ideas – Conceptual, Artistic Imagery, Narrative Series

The prize packages are pretty extensive for this competition.

Grand Prize

1) Your photography published in PDN magazine.

2) A New York City photo reception.

3) An around-the-world trip or $10,000 cash

Category Winners – One in each

1) Your photography published in PDN magazine

2) Canon EOS Rebel T1i EF-S 15mp IS Digital SLR Camera Kit

3) Lifetime portfolio website on see.me.

People’s Choice Award

$2,500 Cash

And now for the fine print…

Must be 18 or older to enter.  There is an entry fee of $10 per image and you can submit up to 9 images.  Or you can pay a flat $95 entry fee and submit up to 20 images.  Entry deadline is midnight on July 29, 2011.

Get started now!

It is time again for the Sony World Photography Awards.  It was just a few months ago that the 2011 Open Competition Winners of the Sony World Photography competition were announced.  Now the 2012 Open Competition has been kicked off.  There are ten categories for amateur photographers to submit there work to; Architecture, Arts & Culture, Enhanced, Split Second, Low Light, Nature & Wildlife, Panoramic, People, Smile and Travel.

A winner will be selected in each category as well as one overall winner.  Category winners will receive:

• Title of “Sony World Photography Awards category name Winner“
• Winning image showcased in the winners exhibition and the winners book
• International exposure on the WPO website
• Global media coverage
• Sony digital SLR camera equipment

The overall winner will receive:

• Title of “Sony World Photography Awards Open Photographer of The Year”
• $5,000
• Winning image showcased in the winners exhibition and the winners book
• International exposure on the WPO website
• Global media coverage
• Flights to London, 2 nights accommodation in a hotel and VIP tickets to attend the Sony World Photograpphy Awards gala ceremony on 26th of April 2012
• Sony digital SLR camera equipment

You have between now and January 4, 2012 to enter.   Get all the details and enter you photograph here.

Mark your calendars, Sunday, June 5th is World Environment Day.  Established in 1972 by the United Nations, World Environment Day is designed to raise awareness of the environment and enhance political attention to and public action on world environmental issues.  In recognition of the day, Brazilian based Vale, the world’s second largest mining company, is sponsoring a photography contest.  The photography contest entitled, “Eye on Sustainability,” calls on photographers to capture sustainability and environmental issues.  Although this year’s contest has a theme of “Forests: Nature at Your Service” participants are encouraged to draw inspiration from any sustainability related areas and submit their photos into one of three categories:

• Wonders, celebrating what needs to be preserved
• Challenges, showing examples of threats to long-term sustainability
• Solutions, looking at real-world examples of today’s best practices for living sustainably on Earth

Three winners will be chosen and will be featured in a special advertising section of the December 2011 issue of National Geographic.  In addition they will receive a Nikon D3100 camera and a framed, signed print from National Geographic.

In celebration of World Environment Day on June 5th get your cameras out there and capture an image that signifies sustainability to you; from what is at risk today to what is being done to preserve our earth environment.  Entries will accepted through August 31st and can be submitted online http://www.nationalgeographic.com/vale/eyeonsustainability.

It is time again for the National Geographic and Energizer Ultimate Photo Contest.  Last year’s winner was the perfect combination of perfect timing, a dedicated photographer, photographic skill and just a dash of luck.  There are six categories in which you can submit photos for this year’s contest; Animals/Wildlife, Nature/Weather, Travel/Cultures, Family/Community, Arts/Music, and Action/Energy.  If you are ambitious you can even enter one photo per theme.  All the nitty gritty details and contest rules can be found here.

The judge in this year’s contest is National Geographic photographer, Jim Richardson.  His work has been featured in 45 National Geographic stories as well as TIME, Life, the New  York Times and many more.  You can check out a gallery of Jim Richardson’s photography for inspiration and get you set for winning one of the first place prizes and hopefully the grand prize.   The 6 first place winners, one in each category, will get a prize package made up of several Energizer battery requiring gadgets.  For the lucky grand prize winner they get a National Geographic vacation package for two to their choice of Alaska, Bhutan, or Morocco.  (I’ll take Bhutan)

Oscar winning director Ron Howard and camera giant Canon have teamed up for Project Imagin8ion.  This photography contest sets out to find 8 photographs to inspire the 8 themes of a Hollywood short film by Ron Howard.  The 8 themes (and the 8 categories to submit your photographs) are setting, time, character, mood, relationship, goal, obstacle and the unknown.   You can submit entries for the Setting, Time, Character and Mood categories from May 22nd through June 2nd and to the Relationship, Goal, Obstacle and The Unknown categories from June 3rd through June 14th.

The 8 winning photos will be used as inspiration for an element of the short film by Ron Howard.  In addition the winning photographers will win a trip to New York City for the film’s premier along with Canon equipment.

Hubert Januar’s winning photograph in the Sony World Photography 2011 Open Competition may stir some emotions in parts of the world where cock fighting is not the (legal) norm.  But a photograph that can evoke an emotional response or spark a debate is one of the best kinds of photographs.  And from a technical perspective he did it right; from capturing the split second action of the birds to choosing black and white to convey the mood, this photo is very well done.

Carlos Henrique Reinesch from Brazil won the Sony World Photography 2011 Open Competition in the smile category with his image titled A Blast of Color. Reinesch explains that the colorful wrist bands being sold by the smiling street vendor are tied to the church fence behind the man after making a wish.

Chumlong Nilkon captured the winning photograph in the After Dark category of Sony’s World Photography 2011 Open Competition.  Entitled Yee Peng the image shows the lanterns of the Festival of Light as they float off into the night sky.  Nilkon says “We believe that [the lanterns are] symbolic of problems and worries floating away.”

The winning entry in Sony World Photography’s 2011 Open competition for the panorama category belongs to Wolfgang Weinhardt.  The image was taken in Agra, India and Weinhardt describes it as “A single soul stepped into history.”  Is it about this lone person in red being in the right place at the right time or the historic significance of the Indian architecture?  Or is it left up to the observer?  In any case, the image speaks volumes and is beautifully composed.

The photographer behind the winning image in travel category of the Sony World Photography Open Competition 2011 is James Chong from Singapore.  His entry titled Going to Work captures the light beautifully as it finds its way through the trees to the farmer and his oxen below.