“Every great inspiration is but an experiment…”
— Charles Ives, composer
Convention doesn’t cut it when it comes to this year’s version of Photopia.
The theme of ‘Experiment’ this year for the annual photo contest and organizers expect that will bring a plethora of diverse, outside-the-box visual ideas.
“If ever there were a time to cut loose from the conservative, to out unorthodox, this is it,” says organizer Jamie Bowman.
Each year, the image contest/show brings together imaginative photography, top-technology televisions, and the public.
“Photographers can interpret ‘experiment’ in diverse and ingenious ways,” he added. “As organizers, to pin that down might be to curtail creativity.”
The contest culminates in the Photopia show June 3, with the hundreds of submitted images rotating across a series of big-screen televisions, a piece of the larger Elevate arts festival in downtown Courtenay that week. The prize-winners will be named during the one-day Photopia show.
The contest is now open for submissions (see below) and the May 19 entry deadline is coming soon.
And, apart from the contest, there are other ways to participate photographically this year.
A rocket-ship photo booth is being readied for set-up outside the library on June 3.
And, Elevate-goers are encouraged to shoot all the action, the details, the fun and faces of the festival, then immediately upload it to Instagram, using the hashtag #elevatearts. A special computer program will collect all those real-time images to show immediately on one of the big TVs in the library. Organizers hope to install a second real-time screen elsewhere in downtown Courtenay.”
Photopia contest entries can be submitted online until 6 p.m. May 19; details and the online entry form are below Images can also be burned to a CD or DVD or loaded onto a thumb drive, clearly marked ‘Photopia entry’, and dropped to Second Page Books on Duncan Avenue.
London Drugs and McKays Electronics are again stepping up to provide top-of-the-line, big-screen digital televisions for the show, plus prizes.
“The impressive high level definition really brings the digital images to life,” said Bowman. “With all those in one room, it’s almost image overload.”
Also adding to the prize pot are sponsors Sure Copy, Staples, Best Buy, Affordable Framing, Horne Lake Caves and North Island College.
Entrants 18 and under have their own Youth category, but all ages are invited to enter the open category. Manipulated photos have their own sub-categories in both youth and open. All categories are under the overall theme “Experiment.”
This year, the images will all be judged without the judges knowing who took each image; entries will be completely anonymous to the panel, without watermarks. To have a name watermark appear on their images in the Photopia exhibition, submitters must submit two copies of each entry, one with the watermark and one without.
Winners will be chosen by a jury of photography experts. The panel includes local pro photographer Lisa Graham, Comox Valley Camera Club president Kerry Dawson, and certified photography judge Bob Ell.
The judges look for how well an image fits with the ‘experiment’ theme, plus how it conveys thinking and emotion,” said Bowman. “And of course a ‘wow’ factor is important, as are overall composition and technical achievement.”
Details of the prizes up for grabs will be announced soon.
‘The Experiment’ is also the overall Elevate festival theme. Elevate arts festival is created as a “container for diverse perspectives … to engage and ask tricky questions about our community and world around us, to test hypothesis, however wacky, and to make and celebrate our mistakes and our discoveries,” said Meaghan Cursons, spokesperson for the Elevate umbrella.
[su_heading size=”24″]Submission essentials:[/su_heading]
Entry Deadline: May 19, 2016, 7pm.
The Elevate Arts Festival reserves the right both to refuse artwork deemed inappropriate and to use winning submissions for future, non-commercial promotion of Photopia and Elevate the Arts. Thumb drives, CDs and DVDs can be picked up after June 8.
READ and complete the entry form below
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