On Assignment with Towner Jones Photography - 2010

Introduction

There's a magic hour in the morning and in the evening, just after the sun rises and just before it sets, the we photographers treasure. During those "golden hours", light just seems to be in our favor and colors saturate to produce gorgeous images. Photographing during that brief window is a challenge and it's the inspiration for this year's assignment.

Towner Jones Photography is pleased to introduce our Second Annual "On Assignment" Contest entitled, "Your Golden Hour". Like last year, the contest requires the submission of multiple images (six this time) for judging in a number of different categories, but this time there's a catch... you have one hour to capture your photos.

More Details

1) You select a theme and email it to: oa2010@townerjones.com by August 15, 2010 at midnight EDT.

2) I'll approve or help you refine your theme, and respond by email.

3) You pick any single hour between when you get your theme approved and the contest deadline to capture your 6 images. (FYI - that's an image every 10 minutes for one hour) Though "golden hour" inspired the concept for this year's contest, you are not required to capture your images during that time. Any hour is acceptable. I'll be checking the capture time in the metadata, if your images were go over the one hour time allotted, they will be disqualified.

4) Post process as much or as little as you like.

5) Email your images in JPEG format to: oa2010@townerjones.com by August 31, 2010 at midnight EDT.

6) Sit back and hope you win.

Sounds simple enough, right? Well as any professional photographer will tell you, the introduction of a deadline takes things to a new level. Make sure you plan your shoot ahead of time, make sure your gear is ready to go, and make sure you've got a vision before you start snapping. The clock starts when that shutter first snaps.

Guidelines, Suggestions and Miscellaneous Thoughts

1) A bracketed 6-exposure HDR does not count. I'm just going to shoot that down before someone asks.

2) Telling some sort of story with your 6-images will earn brownie points in my book and with the judges.

3) Judges? This year's panel is still in the works... they'll be announced at a later date.

4) Judging Criteria?

• Technical Quality
• Relation to Theme
• Creativity
• Time Restriction
• General Appeal (this encompasses all qualitative nuances at the judges' discretion) 

5) I humbly request that you ask any questions you have as comments to this post so all can benefit from my responses.

Prizes

You guys always want something, don't you? Well considering the difficulty of this year's assignment you're justified, and I've enlisted the help of some fantastic sponsors to make it worth your while. And I have to say, they really stepped up... with generosity that has made prizes for a runner-up possible this year as well as an awesome Grand Prize!  

Grand Prize

• Plug-In Suite 5 from onOne Software
• 8x8 Press Printed Album with 20 sides from WHCC
• $150 Gift Certificate to BorrowLenses.com
• SyncBackPro Software from 2BrightSparks

Runner-Up

• Plug-In Suite 5 from onOne Software
• $75 Gift Certificate to BorrowLenses.com

GOOD LUCK!!!!

This year's contest is brought to you with the generous support of these companies - please show your appreciation and ours by supporting them with your business.

New Blog Sponsor: White House Custom Colour

Towner Jones Photography is excited to announce that White House Custom Colour has become our newest corporate sponsor. Already a close partner supporting numerous past projects including last year's "On Assignment with Towner Jones Photography", and Towner Jones Photography's exclusive photography printing partner, WHCC has recognized Towner Jones Photography as a resource in the photography community, and has formalized the working relationship by sponsoring the site. Look for product information, exciting deals, and great giveaways as WHCC continues to support Towner Jones Photography in the future.