P3D Re: What wins the Gold Medal?

["Dr. George A. Themelis" <DrT-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>A feisty crowd tonight...

Always!!!  :-) 
    
>They told me that a picture of a bird feeding its young took the Gold at
>Oakland.   I don't know how typical that is of a gold medal winning shot.
>I certainly do not know what typically wins the Salons, as I've never seen
>one, nor won one.

I have not won one nor plan to do so in the near future :-) but I have 
seen a few salons and I can assure you that the gold metal can be all
over the board.  Tabletop, portrait, flower, scenic, nature... It can
be anywhere.  Judges are humans and are quite unpredictable.

>The work that went into Pixie took a good forty hours total.
>But enough of my sob story.  I realize that good action or travel photos
>require at least as much effort, if not much more!  

You are being sarcastic here, aren't you? :-)  40 hours to get there
and perhaps 4 seconds to take the picture.  That's the travel photo
I have in mind... But this brings the interesting question:  Can a 
travel "snapshot" compete with a picture that took 40 hours to set up?
The longer it takes to think, setup and execute an idea, the better
the results should be?  Photojournalism means to snap the picture
when you see it, with little time to think about it.  How can these
pictures compete with artistic, creative and elaborate tabletops?
That's why there is a PJ PSA division.  But stereo is a specialized
field on its own and such subdivisions are out of the question.

Boris, if you want to see some great table top work to get inspired, 
check out the work of Stan White!  It is available in VM reels that
you can buy, and a program that can be loaned by PSA.  Stan's work
proves to me that there is much more than technical expertise in
table top photography.  There is something called creativity...
No matter how hard I try in tabletop photography, I don't think
I can match a small percentage of Stan's creativity.

>I'll be doing those
>soon enough, just as soon as I get that hand held, motor wound,
>electronically synched auto-focus twin rig set up.

What's the problem?  Haven't you heard of something call a "Realist"?
:-) :-) :-)

-- George Themelis


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