Banff Competition has changed

For those of you who were planning on submitting to the 2011 Banff Photography Competition, the guidelines and contest have changed. It is now a photo essay competition focused on adventure. Unfortunately,there is no mention of a contest for landscapes, wildlife and nature images. like it or not, it is more in tune with their film festival, which is no mainly sports/adventure driven.

Check it out:

http://www.banffcentre.ca/mountainfestival/competitions/photo/2011

Carl--yeah as a former entrant/winner i got an email a while back telling me of the changes. I have mixed feelings--i didnt really like the categories idea (cause i dont like fitting images into categories) but i even wrote an email back to the director saying that i was concerned that this might leave out a lot of fantastic images (which are often single "lucky" shots with no connection to a 'theme') The answer i got back was basically "this is new to us and we arent putting any limits on how the entries are presented beyond the basic theme and entry rules". So, the impression i get is they are open-minded about it and looking for creativity. One could reasonably argue, for example, that a series of wildlife images were quite the mountain adventure. If i were a judge, i certainly would value that creative effort more so than a series of people climing up a glacier, but it remains to be seen whether the Banff judges are looking for something outside the box. They have in the past, IMO. I like a good challenge, so count me in!

I don't think its a bad idea, in fact, most awards and grants are based on a series or portfolio of images, rather than a single image. Personally I think that the winners of this new system will be better photographers in general. I agree that some nice images will not be seen. I think they have adventure images, with people, in mind. Probably next year they will have a different theme.