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Photography Contest: Winner’s Announcement

Hello fellow Photographers!

So here we go finally with announcement of the winners for nTOPAZ ‘LONG EXPOSURE with a TWIST’ Photography Contest. My first contest as an nTOPAZ curator has come to an end. I felt extremely honored and happy do be hosting the contest and say thank you to nTOPAZ for all the efforts of supporting ART at the steemit platform.
It was a pleasure to see many great entries coming in especially during the last day of the contests duration. The only down side is the number of winners has a limit and some artist also handed in several extremely good entries, but I only choose one photograph per artist. With no longer small talk I say thank you to all that participated.
The Hit List was chosen to follow certain criteria…

1. Originality: Obviously the photos had to be not plagiarized
2. Surprise: The hardest aspect I know – “the element of surprise”. Showing us something we may not have seen in one or the other form.
3. Composition: Composition is quite important in any photography. The shooting point, how the final photo is cropped, etc
4. Techniques, degree of difficulty: Sorry, but definitely just a selfies were not about to pass through the judging rounds. Yes, those are basically portraits, but you know…
5. Creativity: The great question what can you do in the few seconds the shutter is open? Or minutes? Here I looked for aspect of composition, display skills and some unusual techniques or the will to try something totally new, which can be used in long exposure photography.
6. Overall Wow: See it! Love it! Don’t care about minor mistakes or how many up-votes it got.

Let’s get to see the winner’s!

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1ST PLACE AND 3000 nTOPAZ tokens

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Congratulation to @lightcaptured

for the art work at https://www.ntopaz.com/artwork/17574

The photograph that gave me goose bumps, when I read the description. I thought yes there is the twist I was looking for. Definitely most unusual long exposure of all entries. For me it surpasses some with a few more up-votes by its unique story. We are talking about a 7months exposure.

The other entry that he submitted was also way up in my list.

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2ND PLACE AND 2000 nTOPAZ tokens

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Congratulation to @petramuilenburg

Lights on Castle Island: https://www.ntopaz.com/artwork/17706

When thinking of long exposures I of course imagined and hoped we see some light paintings in the contest. Petra just delivered one extraordinary example with just hat entry. This picture made it easy for me to rank high in the contest, because it was also seen by many others as an outstanding piece of art with depth and color. Also not to forget the human factor!
Thank you for your contribution.

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Congratulation to @stepko

Lighting a toy model
for the art work at https://www.ntopaz.com/artwork/18000

This is an impressive example of light painting and camera rotation in one very well executed and super clean 721 single exposure. Different techniques and great composition, well received also by all of you and honored with many upvotes. My compliments!

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3RD PLACE AND 1000 nTOPAZ tokens

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Congratulation to @barbarabezina

Los ojos de atrás
for the art work at https://www.ntopaz.com/artwork/18049

The dynamic move of the models face until she looked at me .. that was it. Very well used seconds! Here i can reward it with the 3rd place. Thank you for participating.

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Congratulation to @dawnoner

for the art work at https://www.ntopaz.com/artwork/18147
"Tokyo Nights : Uchikanda, Chiyoda-ku"

Super last minute entry but I think it had just the “WOW factor” for me to surpass the up-vote count consideration. I know what it means to light paint in a city with such light pollution. I have the greatest respect also for the calligraphy talent @dawnoner displays here. Well deserved Hit List.

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Congratulation to @axeman

for the art work at https://www.ntopaz.com/artwork/17551
The Unleashing Force

Expecting lots of sea-scapes, yet there were not so many. This one even for what I expected, was something different. I respect the different more artistic approach to what normally seen in that category.

Please don’t be disappointed if you not made it into the winner’s realm. The curator’s team and I appreciated each and everyone’s entries.
Stay tuned for more contests.