APOY 2011 Round Three – Streets and Walkways
Your chance to enter the UK?s most prestigious competition for amateur photographers
Please visit the APOY11 home page to find all the rules for entry, terms and conditions, the APOY entry email address, and the disclaimers that must be copied and pasted into an email entry.
Entries must be received by 5pm on 28 April 2011
We received a staggering 2,250 entries for Round one of APOY 2011 and we?re hoping for an equally impressive response to Round three, Streets and walkways. For this round we?d like you to send in images featuring thoroughfares, such as roads, streets, highways, paths, alleyways, avenues and lanes. The winner of Round three will receive a fantastic Canon EOS 60D and EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens kit that?s ideal for street photography.
As always, we?re looking for images of an innovative subject photographed in an original way. Points will be awarded for interpretation of the theme, technical excellence and creativity.
Below you?ll find some ideas on how to start photographing streets and walkways, plus a table outlining the themes for future rounds, the closing dates and the issues in which the results will appear. The closing date for this round is 29 April 2011.
The top three winners from Round three will each receive a fantastic Canon camera and the top 30 highest scoring images will appear in AP 28 May 2011. The scores from the top 50 images will be published on our website.
photo by Mat Gallagher
For a chance to win the prestigious Amateur Photographer of the Year 2011 title and £5,000 worth of Canon equipment as the overall prize, send your entry to us now. All the information explaining how to enter can be found on our website (see below). Please remember to use your full name as the file name when you save your image.
You will also need to paste the disclaimer into the body of your email (this can be found on the APOY homepage) and include a couple of sentences telling us where and how you took your image. Don?t forget to include a daytime number and your full address otherwise we won?t be able to contact you in the event that you win. The streets are brimming with photo opportunities, so what are you waiting for?
The street photography theme for this round is one of the oldest in photography. Since the days of Walker Evans, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, photographers have documented life on the streets. From gas-lit backstreets to romantic boulevards, streets and walkways have provided enormous scope for photographers for decades.
For this round we want you to concentrate on capturing the roads and thoroughfares themselves. While we?re not asking you to ignore people entirely, we are looking for images that focus on the streets or walkways rather than candid shots of passers-by. A pier featuring a silhouetted figure at sunset would fit the brief, but a street portrait where there is not an obvious walkway would not. The street or walkway can be in a city or the suburbs. You could try photographing from a high viewpoint to make people on the streets below look like ants or you could use a long exposure at night to capture car light trails on a busy road. Think about whether your scene would look more dramatic in black & white or whether colour would be a better choice. Most of all, try to be original in your interpretation of the theme.
photo by Mat Gallagher
Vantage Point
As with other genres of photography, your shooting position is key. For instance, an ordinary road photographed from eye level may lack interest but from an elevated viewpoint it may suddenly become more dramatic. Alternatively, a low angle may capture the hustle and bustle of a busy street far better than a standard viewpoint. Once you have decided on the scene you want to capture, think carefully about where you intend to position yourself and your camera.
photo by Mat Gallagher
Leading Lines
We?re used to seeing leading lines in landscape photography, but it is a device that can also be used in non-landscape images. Streets and walkways make perfect leading lines, so you might like to have a go at incorporating these into your composition. A series of steps, a curving bridge or winding pavements are just some of the subjects you might like to explore.
photo by Gemma Padley
Framing
The way you frame your shot will have a huge effect on the final composition. Knowing what to leave out as well as include requires careful judgement. Likewise, balancing a number of potentially conflicting elements in the frame also needs a little thought. You may like to try framing your shot to make the most of patterns and shapes created by intersecting roads or to direct the viewer?s eye to one part of the frame. Be adventurous and don?t feel you have to stick to traditional framing.
1st prize
Our first-placed winner will receive AP?s Product of the Year 2011, the 18-million-pixel Canon EOS 60D with EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens worth £1,349.99. You can produce stunning stills or Full HD movies using the EOS 60D?s vari-angle LCD screen and advanced creative features that include a toy camera effect and soft focus. And when light levels fall, the EOS 60D offers an ISO range of up to 6400 that is expandable to 12,800 for those environments where using flash is undesirable. Meanwhile, the lightweight and compact EF-S 17-85mm lens covers a 27-136 (35mm equivalent) range and features a 3-stop Image Stabilizer, giving the lens an effective maximum aperture of f/1.4-2.
2nd prize
Our second-placed winner will receive Canon?s 10-million-pixel PowerShot S95 and case, worth £399. With its HS system and f/2 lens, the S95 excels in low-light conditions. Other features include 720p HD Movie capability, raw capture and 7.5cm (3in) LCD screen, while the Lens Control Ring allows quick manual control over functions such as zoom, aperture and shutter speed.
3rd prize
Our third-placed winner will receive Canon?s PowerShot A3300 IS, worth £149. Wrapped in a sleek metal body, the 16-million-pixel A3300 IS has a 28mm wideangle 5x zoom lens, a 7.5cm (3in) LCD, and smart auto and easy modes that detect 32 scene types. High-quality movies can also be recorded in 720p HD format.
Please visit the APOY11 home page to find all the rules for entry, terms and conditions, the APOY entry email address, and the disclaimers that must be copied and pasted into an email entry.
Entries must be received by 5pm on 28 April 2011
In association with Canon
