Film Photographer of the Year 2017...?

Would you be interested in entering FPOTY 2017?

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Carl Hall

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I’ve recently been thinking about the old FPOTY competition and how it worked before it was merged in with the regular POTY. I do really like the new format of POTY and think it works well, but I still miss the monthly themes and ongoing challenge to score points. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be shooting much film in 2017, at least in the first half anyway, so I’d like to organise a Film Photographer of the Year competition so that I can still participate in F&C. I’ve had a think about how it would work and I’ve come up with the following:

Nice and informal like our current challenges. 12 monthly themes over 2017. Photos must be entered within the month long period that each month’s entry thread is open, but the photos can be taken at any point from when the themes are announced up until the final date for the month. After each month, I will create a poll thread which will run for 7 days and give everyone a chance to vote for their three favourite images in a similar way to the NOF challenge that we all love. Points are then awarded to each place (I’m thinking 10 for first, 8 for second, 6 for third etc), and these scores are added to the overall table. At the end of the year the winner is the one with the most points. Keeping it simple, like us :D

By allowing photos to be taken throughout the year, this will hopefully let those who don’t use a whole roll of film in a month enter. Instead of having one month to take a photo and get it scanned, you’ll possibly have several months, or even a year for December! The only month that might be an issue is January where you’d still only have the one month, but I’m thinking we could allow photos to be taken from when the themes are set at the end of this week, giving an extra week or more for January?

In order to pick the themes, I’ll gather fifty or so from around the internet and post them in a poll, then members can vote for the favourite five/ten over a few days. The top 12 then get put in a random order and set for each month.

What are everyone’s thoughts? I’d really like to organise this competition, but it would need a decent amount of entries to make it worth bothering. Would people be interested in this?
 
That actually sounds like a good plan to me Carl. Reasonably straightforward with a nice bit of leeway in the timing, should work well.

Andy
 
..or you could make it so easy even slow coaches will enter by just choosing "the four seasons"
 
excalibur2 said:
..or you could make it so easy even slow coaches will enter by just choosing "the four seasons"
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I think there needs to be a bit of a challenge to it Brian, you need to at least have to give it a bit of thought.
A bit of leeway in the date for entries in the first couple of months would probably be a good idea though.
 
I like the sound of this! Especially it being cumulative through the year, makes sense :)
 
Andysnap said:
I think there needs to be a bit of a challenge to it Brian, you need to at least have to give it a bit of thought.
A bit of leeway in the date for entries in the first couple of months would probably be a good idea though.
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Well yes Andy but just thinking there are probably quite a few photographers like me who just can't go out and say "I'm going to take a winning shot today"...so with the law of averages over a longer time there is a chance of getting a very good shot even by accident.
Just as well this challenge wasn't for last summer as my best shots for that season might have been at the peek meet and I haven't even had the film dev yet as I'm waiting to use up another film in the RB o_O:rolleyes:
 
I don't think that there are many of us who think we can take a 'winning shot' every time we go out but if you have a list of themes you can be thinking of them when out with a camera. Remember Brian that you are in a better position than some of us as you don't have to go out to work. I leave for work in the dark and head home in the dark as well at this time of the year so during the week my photography time is pretty much zero.
 
Andysnap said:
I don't think that there are many of us who think we can take a 'winning shot' every time we go out but if you have a list of themes you can be thinking of them when out with a camera. Remember Brian that you are in a better position than some of us as you don't have to go out to work. I leave for work in the dark and head home in the dark as well at this time of the year so during the week my photography time is pretty much zero.
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Indeed it's alright for me but still difficult to produce winning shots even using two rolls a month (gotta take advantage of Asda before they close the film dept ;) ) ..... Well I'm out today shooting and hopefully will post a little story and mystery with a series of shots.
 
excalibur2 said:
Well yes Andy but just thinking there are probably quite a few photographers like me who just can't go out and say "I'm going to take a winning shot today"...so with the law of averages over a longer time there is a chance of getting a very good shot even by accident.
Just as well this challenge wasn't for last summer as my best shots for that season might have been at the peek meet and I haven't even had the film dev yet as I'm waiting to use up another film in the RB o_O:rolleyes:
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That's surely the challenge of a competition with deadlines Brian? Having a theme and a set amount of time to get the best photo you can. If you can't get a masterpiece in that month long window then you enter the best one that you have. If we all just kept taking photos until we got a winner then we'd be waiting for years!
 
Or decades in my case. :D
 
I think I might manage an entry or two.
 
Carl Hall said:
That's surely the challenge of a competition with deadlines Brian? Having a theme and a set amount of time to get the best photo you can. If you can't get a masterpiece in that month long window then you enter the best one that you have. If we all just kept taking photos until we got a winner then we'd be waiting for years!
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Ok I'm in (y)
 
Carl, this looks good to me, I'm in!
 
Just a thought - but how do we on TP see them if not a digital image?

Obviously you scan them somehow - so do we see the 'actual' film images as a scan of the prints you've made with no post-scanning changes, or do we see scans of the negs/slides that could have gone through lots of work in Photoshop? Or even scans of the negs/slide with no changes at all allowed (other than reversing the negs)

In my film days my prints were SOOC - except the lab processed them without any input from me, whereas my mates did the processing and touching up themselves, which was obviously better - well when they had a clue what they were doing :D

Policing the purity is a problem, or do you just trust each other?

Dave
 
simon ess said:
Yes

Because we're like that.

And we don't overthink it.
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That's great then :)

I still couldn't enter as anything I shot would be a lab print rather than my own as I've never had a darkroom, and the lab wouldn't have my vision would they

The idea of a film POTY is great though - good luck with it :)

Dave
 
DG Phototraining said:
I still couldn't enter as anything I shot would be a lab print rather than my own as I've never had a darkroom, and the lab wouldn't have my vision would they
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You have your own approach and perception, as have we all.

If you feel yours prevents you from entering into the spirit then you are, quite rightly, correct to avoid it.
 
DG Phototraining said:
Just a thought - but how do we on TP see them if not a digital image?

Obviously you scan them somehow - so do we see the 'actual' film images as a scan of the prints you've made with no post-scanning changes, or do we see scans of the negs/slides that could have gone through lots of work in Photoshop? Or even scans of the negs/slide with no changes at all allowed (other than reversing the negs)

In my film days my prints were SOOC - except the lab processed them without any input from me, whereas my mates did the processing and touching up themselves, which was obviously better - well when they had a clue what they were doing :D

Policing the purity is a problem, or do you just trust each other?

Dave
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The easy way to police purity is to not police it at all. In my view the negative is simply the raw image and the basic starting point for a photo. Whether you decide to wet print from the negative or scan it, and then edit or not edit, it doesn't really matter. As long as the image starts on film I think that's the only rule we really need.

DG Phototraining said:
That's great then :)

I still couldn't enter as anything I shot would be a lab print rather than my own as I've never had a darkroom, and the lab wouldn't have my vision would they

The idea of a film POTY is great though - good luck with it :)

Dave
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You totally could enter- I expect the majority of photos in FPOTY (colour at least, probably not B&W) will be lab scans which are then tweaked/edited to some degree by the photographer to achieve the image they want. Grab yourself a film camera and join in ;)
 
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Mine are almost certain to be lab scans. While I've given some vague thoughts to self-developing (B&W at least), it's not at the forefront of what I want to do. Although it's more expensive to pay for lab processing, the fact that I have Peak Imaging within walking distance (and can drop a film off in the morning and pick the processed negatives up for home scanning in the afternoon) means I have an easy alternative. The only real post processing I do in Lightroom is cropping and straightening, and maybe some minor tweaks to contrast and highlights, but that's down to personal preference as I like to keep them as close to straight out of camera (whatever that means, given the lab processing) as possible.
 
I'm in too Carl. Having the extended timing for entries will be good as I don't always get whole rolls finished quickly (usually because I'm still building the camera but..). Thanks for setting this up mate, I'll vote in the themes thread when I'm at my laptop later.
 
Not forgetting that a film challenge is more difficult for the ordinary filmie compared to a digi competition, as with digi you can take a 100 shots a day, on various subjects, for a month and the chances are that something VG would turn up o_O reminds me of the saying "that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time, would type the works of Shakespeare" :D
 
Right I'm in, I promise to try harder this year!

and for continued purity and to ensure I'm not cheating I'm afraid you'll all have to come round to mine to see the masterpiece each month. In lieu of a trip to Edinburgh each month you can just award me maximum points each. :D
 
Have I missed something? Because this sounds almost exactly like FPOTY16 which was a noticeable failure this year. Maybe the set of themes was offputting, but we didn't get far enough into the year to find out, really. Not even a poll for the few entries that were made.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very much in favour, and really like the idea. But I do think we should have an idea how to avoid whatever it was that made last year's not work...
 
ChrisR said:
Have I missed something? Because this sounds almost exactly like FPOTY16 which was a noticeable failure this year. Maybe the set of themes was offputting, but we didn't get far enough into the year to find out, really. Not even a poll for the few entries that were made.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very much in favour, and really like the idea. But I do think we should have an idea how to avoid whatever it was that made last year's not work...
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I hold my hand up for that one Chris, it was all a bit haphazard and ill thought out. :coat:
 
I think 12 themes is far too optimistic. How about 4 themes but you submit 3 photos with submission taking 3 months? So you have 3 months for each one.

I don't think the seasons idea is a bad one really. Winter now and submission is end of March. Spring has end of June. Summer is end of September and Autumn is end of December. Nice and simple. It's basically be arsed to take 12 photos over a whole year :)

Filmies are glacial in getting round to anything.
 
Sorry, being a thick badger I'm struggling to understand... are you suggesting that we have 3 months to take (or find in our archives) 3 photos of the same subject, and submit those photos? Eg, if the subject is 'egg timers' we'd submit 3 different photos of an egg timer? If so, it sounds a little dull (unless you're really fond of egg timers!)? :confused:
 
No. If you have a broad category like the seasons then 3 photos will be different enough. If you did it with a narrow category it wouldn't work at all. Or just submit 1 after 3 months. Either way I think every month is too often.
 
You may well be right about 1 per month, people will probably start off well but could fall by the wayside once the novelty wears off and life gets in the way? Perhaps every 2 months might work better, with 2 photos per entry/subject? So 12 pics in all but 2 months to take, develop and submit. I know people could skip a month if it was 1 per month, but it would be nice to encourage as many people to enter as possible. Anyway, I'll go with whatever people decide... or at least try to, if I can cope with the subjects! :whistle:
 
Or you could have one entry per month but no theme. This way people are free to submit whatever their best shot was that month?
 
We used to manage 9 or 10 film challenges per year it has kind of slipped since we collectively started doing the ptoy. It's tricky to hit a deadline but that's part of the challenge.

Having said that I don't currently have functional computer which might make scanning a trifle tricky.
 
.......remember guys winter time is the worst when probably the weekends is the only time some have spare and it does take some determination to go out in the cold or rain. Alright for me and was taking shots today as I pick the sunny days in the week\month (y)
 
srichards said:
I think 12 themes is far too optimistic. How about 4 themes but you submit 3 photos with submission taking 3 months? So you have 3 months for each one.

I don't think the seasons idea is a bad one really. Winter now and submission is end of March. Spring has end of June. Summer is end of September and Autumn is end of December. Nice and simple. It's basically be arsed to take 12 photos over a whole year :)

Filmies are glacial in getting round to anything.
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I don't understand how doing seasons would give you more time to take photos? I can't take an autumn photo until autumn starts, and then I'd have a couple of months to take one at best. If we had the theme "churches" set out for October for example then I'd have ten months to get that photo from now.

It's different having 12 themes that you have to start and end within a month, but being able to take them over the entire year means you do really get a lot of time. The first couple of months would be a bit tighter obviously, but for the rest of the year you get from now until then to get a photo. If I can't get a photo of a church between now and the end of October, or a photo of a train before the end of July, then there are bigger issues than a lack of time, and nothing would make FPOTY workable

I'm happy to do whatever the majority want, so if 12 themes is too much then we can change it to less :) I just know from experience that if you make the time length longer then everyone will forget about it and rush during the last month anyway
 
I agree. I think the point for me is to have a challenge, make me go out with a theme or two in mind and think about what im taking. Yes, the first couple of months might be tight but the way Carl has described the voting it gives everyone a chance even if they miss the odd month. I like it. :D
 
Carl Hall said:
Photos must be entered within the month long period that each month’s entry thread is open, but the photos can be taken at any point from when the themes are announced up until the final date for the month.
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Are all 12 themes going to be listed at the beginning , ie January, or will we get to know at the end of each month for the following month?

I could be tempted to join in with this although I too have concerns over how easy or not it's going to be for folk to stick at a shot a month for the full twelve months.

A few years ago i did a 52 challenge on film, admitedly it was with 52 different cameras, nonetheless that was extremely difficult to keep up to.

One frame a month in comparison would theoretically be easy but Im not so sure.

I'll follow the crowd as it were, but I'm wondering if a small amount of "quality" shots as against a vast "quantity" of shots ( that may not have the same effort put into them simply due to time pressures), is perhaps not a better idea.
 
I think if were going to have a proper monthly FPOTY then as Carl has outlined it works for me
I understand the desire fir quality not quantity but it's 12 shots we're talking about. If we cant sort out 12 over 12 months then somethings wrong.
 
I think Carl was going to get all 12 themes up at the beginning then you can shoot them at your leisure. First couple might be a stretch but after that its all gravy. :D
 
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