The new year signals a fresh start to our competition. Scores are back to zero, everyone having the same starting point. As we kick off another year-long series of contests and challenges, we hereby introduce what's new in our competition for 2015. PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2015 Our Photographer Of The Year competition is not really new, as we held it last year (2014), but we have updated it, including tweaking the scoring system for some activities. Here are the details for this year's POTY : POTY Mechanics:
Points/Scoring System - Ways how to accumulate points for POTY competition :
+ 7 points - 2nd Place + 5 points - 3rd Place + 3 points - 4th Place + 2 points - 5th Place (No additional points for 6th place onwards)
+ 15 points : 1st Place + 10 points : 2nd Place + 7 points : 3rd Place + 5 points : 4th Place + 3 points : 5th Place
+ 20 points : 1st Place + 14 points : 2nd Place + 10 points : 3rd Place + 6 points : 4th Place + 4 points : 5th Place Bonus points : + 10 points : if included in Honorable Mentions list + 20 points : if included in Finalists list + 30 points : if Grand Prize winner
+ 15 points : 1st Place + 10 points : 2nd Place + 7 points : 3rd Place + 5 points : 4th Place + 3 points : 5th Place
Special Case Focus Bulacan has overseas-based members. Obviously they will not be able to attend PhotoMeets and accumulate points for contests based on those. To give them consideration and a chance to somehow compensate for their situation, they will be given special points for the following:
TEAM COMPETITION We will be having team activities and competition every quarter. Participants will have to work in teams in shooting a theme or specified activity, and battle other teams in producing the best output. Team designation will always be random, as an element of surprise and to give members an opportunity to work with a bigger number of co-members (as compared to having the same set of team members). Team Competition activities lined up for 2015 are the following : 1st Quarter - February : Prenup Shootout 2nd Quarter - May : Band Shoot 3rd Quarter - August : Glamour Shoot 4th Quarter - December deadline : Focus Portrait Project As always, we will put the entries to a vote. VERSUS TOURNAMENT The VERSUS tournament is a head-to-head competition, pitting Focus members against one another in an ultimate challenge. The objective is simple : produce a better photo than your counterpart, advance to the next round, and keep on winning until the end. The tournament will have 64 participants - all Focus official members. The members are ranked 1st to 64th with the Photographer Of The Year 2014 scoring as basis. The top seed (1st) will battle the lowest seed (64th), the 2nd seed will battle the 63rd seed, so on and so forth, until the 32nd seed versus the 33rd. For the brackets and seedings, please check : http://challonge.com/focusversus Each round will be an elimination - meaning for each matchup, there will be a winner (who will advance to the next round), and a loser (who will be eliminated from the competition). So for the 1st round, there will be 32 matchups, and 32 winners who will advance to the 2nd round. Until we reach a final two to determine the ultimate winner. What will the participants shoot? They will be given a photography genre as theme, but with a twist. These themes will be announced at the start of every round. Each participant will be given two (2) months to produce an output/entry. In effect, each round will last two months. 1st Round : (64 participants) - 32 matchups [January-March] 2nd Round : (32 participants) - 16 matchups [March-May] 3rd Round : (16 participants) - 8 matchups [May-July] Quarterfinals : (8 participants) - 4 matchups [July-September] Semifinals : (4 participants) - 2 matchups [September-November] Finals : (2 participants) - 1 matchup [November-December] Who will pick the winners? VERSUS entries will not be voted on publicly. Instead, matchup winners will be determined by the number of votes that entries receive from a panel of judges. We will have a set of three (3) mainstay judges who will select winners from the 1st round until the Finals, and two (2) guest judges for each round. For every round, there will be a total of five (5) judges who will select which entries are better in each bracket/matchup. Other conditions : - If no entry, opponent wins by default and advances - Entries cannot be taken from Focus Bulacan PhotoMeets/activities/other contests - Entries should be taken at duration of the theme/round (old photos not allowed) - Keep RAW or unprocessed JPEG files for verification (if necessary). Entries that cannot be authenticated via EXIF data shall be disqualified, no questions asked. The VERSUS tournament will award points that count toward the Photographer Of The Year competition. (Let's be clear : winning the VERSUS challenge does not make you Photographer Of The Year, but your chances will improve tremendously.) The points you get will depend on the round you reach : 1st Round : 3 points 2nd Round : 7 points 3rd Round : 12 points Quarterfinals : 18 points Semifinals : 24 points Finals : 30 points Champion : 40 points The champion shall also get a trophy and a photography item (to be announced during the semifinals). Are you ready? First round theme to be announced soon! Good luck to all the participants. With all these contests, we are sure our members are in for a fun-filled 2015. Let's all keep shooting and challenging ourselves to get better. (Or we could take the easy route : shoot the same-old, same-old photos, admire our own work, and believe that we are improving even though we are not doing anything new. Like the famous quote, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." ) We'd rather challenge each other. |
Competition is fun
At Focus Bulacan, we strive to improve every member's photography skills. One way to do this is to constantly challenge each other with photo contests. All competition is posted here, for voting and for announcement of results. Good luck! Archives
March 2024
Categories |