The best pictures from October's entry
Enter this month's competition. Discuss the pictures
here
(November's competition is now closed)
A dozen of our Olympus UK-sponsored Greek Gods photo competition entries from last month, based on the theme of the ancient Greek god of Hermes, attracted the judges' attentions in particular and they are displayed in a
gallery below, but the clear winner was Chris Roberts' "Swan in Scotland".
Swan in Scotland
Chris is from Wales, but his picture was taken in Scotland. Chris explained: "My photograph was taken in Scotland this year and is based on Hermes' wings in the body of a swan."
As winner of the second month of our year-long Olympus-sponsored photo contest, Chris nets £500 worth of Olympus equipment of his choosing from his local Olympus Photo Imaging Experts (PIX) dealer, which is Cameraland, Royal Arcade, Cardiff.
Chris' picture also goes forward to the grand finale next summer to find the overall champion, who will win a £2,000 luxury holiday in Greece, courtesy of Olympus UK.
In Chris' picture, the perspective of the platform disappearing into the water, the reflection of the detailed sky in the still water and, of course, the swan's back-lit outspread wings all conjure up a magical scene.
Two of our three judges placed Chris first and the other, our guest judge for this month,
Simon Joinson, prolific book author and editor of
Total Digital Photography magazine, placed him second.
Simon's number one choice was a mesmerising picture of a hummingbird entered by Gregor Rankin. Gregor, who comes from Glasgow, took the picture in South America.
"I took this in the Costa Rican cloud forest at Monte Verde – it's slightly cropped from the original," explained Gregor.
Hummingbird
Simon commented: "The hummingbird image jumped out from the rest of the entries. It shows both technical mastery and a careful eye for composition, but most of all I felt it fitted the brief perfectly. Top notch!"
Overall the quality of October's entries was a very encouraging improvement over
September, which certainly made judging tougher.
Here is the thumbnail gallery of the twelve pictures that comprised the three judges' top five choices. Just click on a picture to see it displayed larger. If you are interested in entering this month's competition, click here.
Do you think you are up to it?
Enter this month's competition
Discuss the pictures
here
Digital Photography Now and Olympus UK Greek Gods Photographic Competition Rules
(See September's winner and runners up
here and October's
here.)
The competition is comprised of twelve monthly contests. The winning entry each month will be entered into a grand finale at the end of August, 2004.
The competition is only open to residents of the UK and Ireland.
Each monthly winner's prize is a voucher worth £500 that can be used in full or part payment of Olympus brand goods at any of the 170 Olympus Digital Experts stores throughout the UK and Ireland. An equivalent voucher to the face value of Euro/€750 will be provided if the winner chooses to use it in Ireland.
The overall winner of winners will be awarded a holiday in Greece, for two people, including, flights, transfers and accommodation, valued at £2,000. No cash alternatives for any prizes offered are permitted. All prizes must be used within one year of issue.
To enter the monthly heats, entrants must submit their entry by midnight, GMT, on the last day of the calendar month in which the heat is being held, unless otherwise stated.
An entry must be a photographic image supplied in digital form. It is a condition that the image entered was taken by and is owned by the entrant. Along with the image entrants must write a brief, one-sentence, description of how the image relates to the theme of the ancient greek god featured in that month. Entrants must also name an Olympus Digital Experts (PIX) dealer (your nearest dealer can be found at http://www.digital-experts.co.uk).
To enter your image you must use the official email address: [email protected], attaching your image in JPEG format no larger than 1MB in size. All entries will be automatically acknowledged. If no acknowledgment is received, try again.
Copyright remains with the photographer, but a condition of entry is that permission is granted to Digital Photography Now and Olympus UK for use of the entered image, if required, for promotion of the competition only.
The prize winner or winners for each heat will be informed by email within one week after the closing date. The overall winner will be informed via email before the end of September, 2004.
The winner must acknowledge his or her win within three weeks of being notified via email or the prize may be re-allocated to a runner-up.
The name of the winner may be published on Digital Photography Now after he or she has acknowledged their win.
Only one entry per person, per month is permitted. However, if you have not won a previous month's heat, you can enter again during a subsequent month.
Winning entries will be selected by a panel of judges. The decision of the panel is final and no correspondence regarding the result will be entered into.
Direct and indirect employees, staff and their relatives, of Olympus UK, or the publishers of Digital Photography Now, or advertisers or sponsors of Digital Photography Now, are not eligible for entry into the competition.
We reserve the right to disqualify any entries for any reason.
We reserve the right to modify these rules without notice. (Last modified, 12th November, 2003)
How do I enter the competition?
(November's competition is now closed)
(See September's winner and runners up
here and October's
here.)
Just follow these 3 simple steps:
1. Find the location of your nearest Olympus Photo Imaging Expert (PIX) dealer. This is easy - just click
here to get to the PIX site which has a national dealer guide.
2. Choose or create a picture to submit. The competition is very loosely themed on ancient Greek Gods. This month's featured mythological deity is Artemis.
Artemis Artemis was daughter to Zeus and Leto. Apollo is her twin. Artemis is associated with wild things and hunted using silver arrows. At the same time she was regarded as protector of the young.
Artemis was a virgin goddess, being the goddess of chastity, but she's also closely associated with, of all things, childbirth. This is because her own birth caused her mother, Leto, no pain.
This month, we're defining a single clear theme for you to base your entries on and as Artemis is the goddess of
WILD things, the theme is 'WILD' - be it wilderness, wild animals or other wild scenes, the choice is yours.
3. Send us your entry! You can do this via
[email protected]
Your picture can be either a JPEG or TIFF image up to 1MB in file size. If you aren't sure how to format your picture for email, contact us via the same address for some advice.
Don't forget to include the name of your nearest PIX dealer, plus a simple sentence about how your picture relates to Hermes.
And that's it!
If you win one of the £500 monthly competitions being run until September 2004, your entry will go head to head with the other 11 monthly winners to compete for the grand prize of that £2,000 holiday in Greece.
To double check the competition rules, click
here.
GOOD LUCK!
