2007 holography contest .......

The 2008 Contest is Now Open!
dave battin

2007 holography contest .......

Post by dave battin »

I thought i would bring this up now. a few thoughts for next years contest;



Best reflection hologram



Best transmission hologram



Most technical/scientific



Most artistic



Overall best liked



And it is a good idea to have theme (as everyone starts out the same), maybe we can vote on this one?





no previously copywrited hologram



new holograms created for the contest
Tony

2007 holography contest .......

Post by Tony »

I think this is a great discussion thread, and it's definitely the right time to start thinking about next year's contest. But maybe this thread ought to be in a different heading, either 'General Holography' or the '2006 Contest' headings.



Colin/Michael - maybe move it?



I'll post a real reply after you decide...
dave battin

2007 holography contest .......

Post by dave battin »

Tony wrote:I think this is a great discussion thread, and it's definitely the right time to start thinking about next year's contest. Colin/Michael - maybe move it?...


yes, it should moved that was my thought to post it here first and let them decide where and when to put it???
MichaelH

2007 holography contest .......

Post by MichaelH »

Tony wrote:I think this is a great discussion thread, and it's definitely the right time to start thinking about next year's contest. But maybe this thread ought to be in a different heading, either 'General Holography' or the '2006 Contest' headings.

Colin/Michael - maybe move it?

I'll post a real reply after you decide...


It's up to Colin. I'm not a moderator here.
Colin Kaminski

2007 holography contest .......

Post by Colin Kaminski »

This thread will be moved to the contest forum once the voting has been closed. I have many thoughts on this subject.
Colin Kaminski

2007 holography contest .......

Post by Colin Kaminski »

So for 2007 I want to have some more rules. I think the informal nature of the contest has worked well so far but to grow I think we need to do a more intricate score and have formal judges. Also I think the judges should see the actual hologram and not just an image.



I would like to see points for Technical merit, Processing skills, Composition, Overall etc. I think a perfect score would be 100 and should be made up from the catagories. I think 5 judges that are not entrants and experienced holographers would be acceptable.



What do you guys think?
JohnFP

2007 holography contest .......

Post by JohnFP »

Colin, has anyone coordinated with Kaveh about next years meeting? If not, even so, a perfect time to judge the holograms would be during the next meeting. That way all the holograms can be at one place at one time and can be seen in person. Maybe we could set up a gallery of the entries. Even a little advertising and a free public viewing if it is still set to take place in a public place as stated.



I was going to look into a hall here but I believe you had something going already. Any updates?
Tony

2007 holography contest .......

Post by Tony »

Well, here’s the running commentary to go along with my contest entry. First, here’s a list of positive things the happened in the course of working on my contest entry:



-I decided to try a new (to me) technique to try to get an ‘edge’ in the contest. This was supposed to be a multichannel hologram, a la Saxby’s Cheshire Cat, where the dog was to disappear depending on viewing angle. I actually got the technique to work, but decided in the end that the ‘special effects’ detracted too much from the artistic expression of the hologram, so I discarded the ‘disappearing’ part. Luckily I had made a regular H1 so I could do this later. So I did teach myself how to do this technique. It required development of some new technology in terms of my plate holder setup and the ability to mask off sections of the plate.



-I tried new materials for my original subject, which included doll furniture in a ‘kitchen’ made of foam core. While I doubted the stability, I found that foam core provided adequate stability for H1s. Turns out doll furniture is a reasonable scale for 4x5 holograms.



-I tried a new H2 orientation. Historically, I shoot horizontal H1s to provide maximum lateral perspective, and vertical H2s. The ‘disappearing’ feature required a wider field of view laterally on the H2, so I had to develop a way of making the H2 come out horizontal (which meant it had to be vertical in the copy setup.)

-When my H1 came out dim, I had to make my longest ever exposure for the H2 – 3 minutes – which I had to test on my table (see other post).



-We got to see 9 great holograms! The contest edfinitely succeeded in spurring activity, and seeing the results was great.



Now for the ‘down side’ of the contest effort –



-I think the limitation on subject matter is too restrictive, while the lack of limitation on time of origination of the entry is too unrestricted. I think that if (one of) the goals of the contest is to get people 'back into making holograms after a long summer off' then we should require that the holograms be made during the contest period. The fact that the winning entry, while a very wonderful and unusally good hologram, was made 9 years ago, shows that if a holographer happens to have a hologram in their collection that matches the subject matter, they have a successful entry.



Better to leave the subject matter more open, but restrict the time period to that of the contest.



-The strict limitation on subject matter means that my entry probably isn’t my best hologram. This is because no matter how technically proficient I may become, there’s always an element of chance – in both the technological and artistic processes. I get very excited about some subjects, only to find that I was unable, for some reason, to make it come out the way I wanted. Other times I just sort of noodle around with a subject, only to have the technological and artistic ‘wheels of chance’ both come up big winners at the same time. I’ll be posting some of my better shots in the gallery section to illustrate what I mean. I’m sure others will agree that they are superior to my contest entry – made during the same time frame, but of other subject matter.



I'd like to see more activity all year long, not have to wait until October 15, 2007 to see the next great batch. How about we have a monthly mini-contest (with smaller or no prizes at all). Then the winners (top 2,3 etc) from each month could be entered in the yearly contest.



Also, we need more guidance in scoring. Whether it be done online by everyone looking at photos, or in person by experts, there needs to be better definition of what we are looking for in a winning hologram. There's definitely an artistic ingredient as well as a technical score, and both of which need to be factored in. Also, the copyright vs original question needs to be answered. (I vote original works only, i.e. no part of the subject matter can be stamped with (c) anywhere.)
DJ Mathson

2007 holography contest .......

Post by DJ Mathson »

I agree with Tony on several things, but I think it is a good thing to have a restricted subject matter. If it is too broad it gets boring. It is more difficult to get creative when you have limits. Though sometimes it actually helps you to get more creative, since you have something to focus on. It might also get easier to compare the holograms. Sure, there would probably be better holograms with no limitations, but I think the fun thing is to see what people come up with through their imagination and the resources they´ve got. I for one was not able to participate with a great technical hologram, but still I like this more than that I would have had the possibility to participate with any hologram I´ve made. Of course the thing is to find the balance between a too broad and a too narrow subject category. Maybe we could have several categories?



I´ve competed in several photo marathons. During 12 hours you shoot 12 subjects. One picture for each subject, and you only get one chance. You start at 12 noon when you get a film to the camera and the first three categories. You have to shoot them in sequence. At 3 PM you get the next three categories and so forth. The categories can be like: love, light, two and two, portrait, water, children etc. In this case you really can talk about both time limit and subject limits and you definitely have to work your imagination. There is also an amount of chance involved when you finally press the shutter for that single shot. You never know if the image will turn out the way you imagined until it is processed. This makes it even more exciting. There is a winning image in each category and an overall best picture. It is very interesting to see what the other participants come up with.



I agree that the holograms should be made for the contest or never shown in public or at least within a time frame. Or maybe a category open for all holograms.



Michael has made a beautiful work with the contest but to make it even better I believe we need to get more participants. How do we do that?
dave battin

2007 holography contest .......

Post by dave battin »

The need here is to make the contest more “novice friendly” with more categories

Like made with 5mw or less no spatial filtering, so even if they don’t participate the newcomers will see what can be done using only the basics.





I am still building the holography forum display, almost ready to unveil. I have the local library ,will allow it to display there, and I’m good friends with the owner/editor of the local newspaper. The unbiased judges would be good thing. I would even think to ask Sam Moree at the NY Holocenter, Doris vila and Jody burns would do it(who are very local )……….they would be happy to act judges.maybe the holocenter would even give us a weekend to judge/display. i could make it work.



In order to live judge the holograms all entrants would be donating their gram for the cause and then later on that year auctioned off or as a prize for next years contest....





what do you guys think.....
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