Animals Nominees – Michael’s 2013 Photo Contest

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Another GREAT set of images. The animal category is always really interesting to me because there are a lot of images of birds, dogs and cats, but there are also a number of truly unique & interesting animals. I allowed the 3 peacock images as one example of something I see as a judge; occasionally you see an absolutely stunning image, which in it’s own right would place very high in any contest, but when other photographers have submitted nearly the exact same image, it becomes extremely difficult to single out which one is better, and in some cases, such as the traditional ‘Sunflower’ shot I tend to see every year in the Macro category, I tend to not advance similar images to the next level of judging because they are too similar and what that means to me is, they didn’t find some thing to differentiate themselves from others.

I look for ‘Show Stoppers’ something that makes me literally stop everything and study the image carefully. Occasionally words will just pop out of my mouth like ‘WOW….’, ‘Amazing….’ etc. Sometimes I cannot even put my finger exactly on why they are so good, but when I start involuntarily making these exclamations, they typically go to the finalists.

If your image didn’t make the cut, this is a GREAT learning opportunity to study the ones that did, and ask yourself how you can improve in your own images.

Congratulations to all of our excellent nominees!

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Another GREAT set of images. The animal category is always really interesting to me because there are a lot of images of birds, dogs and cats, but there are also a number of truly unique & interesting animals. I allowed the 3 peacock images as one example of something I see as a judge; occasionally you see an absolutely stunning image, which in it’s own right would place very high in any contest, but when other photographers have submitted nearly the exact same image, it becomes extremely difficult to single out which one is better, and in some cases, such as the traditional ‘Sunflower’ shot I tend to see every year in the Macro category, I tend to not advance similar images to the next level of judging because they are too similar and what that means to me is, they didn’t find some thing to differentiate themselves from others.

I look for ‘Show Stoppers’ something that makes me literally stop everything and study the image carefully. Occasionally words will just pop out of my mouth like ‘WOW….’, ‘Amazing….’ etc. Sometimes I cannot even put my finger exactly on why they are so good, but when I start involuntarily making these exclamations, they typically go to the finalists.

If your image didn’t make the cut, this is a GREAT learning opportunity to study the ones that did, and ask yourself how you can improve in your own images.

Congratulations to all of our excellent nominees!


Portrait Nominees – Michael’s 2013 Photo Contest

Portraits are probably the most common subject in all of photography. The portrait category is definitely one of the most popular categories with the most entries. The diversity and beauty of the human face is limitless. It was very hard to narrow it down. It comes down to technical photography skill and originality. There are so many great pictures in this set. Great job to all of you!


Landscapes Nominees – Michael’s 2013 Photo Contest

This slideshow contains over 350 amazing images- Please allow a few minutes for the slideshow to load and prepare to have your mind blown

Over 2,000 entries in the landscape division, one of the best sets ever for my photography contests. There were hundreds more that were extremely good that had to be cut simply because of the level of competition in the category this year. I would say the vast majority of these photos could be award winning, so I have to be really, really picky on what advances and what doesn’t.

Big Congratulations to all nominees. If you didn’t make the cut, study these images carefully and find out what you can do to improve your game. Can you imagine the challenge of narrowing these down to 20-30 images?


January Prize Winners for 365 Contest

Today I’m excited to be kicking off the start of my 365 Club. Many people have already started participating and that qualified them for January’s prizes. Congratulations to this month’s 365 contest winners! They will received a copy of my Photoshop Crash Course available at my online store.

If you’ve ever struggled with the complexity of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, want to get better, or are just starting out, this is the course for you.

Photoshop Crash Course Training Tutorial Download Only
Photoshop Crash Course Training Tutorial Download Plus DVD

Congratulations to 365er’s: Col Taylor, Dennis Allard, Kirstyn, Danielle Hattori, and Antonio Barges!

For February I’ll be giving away a Michael The Maven Sky Cam Adapter! We have a very limited number of the 3D printed adapters available for ordering so if you’ve had your eye on one, now would be the time to place your order.

Thank you for your participation and prizes will continue to be given out every month! If you’d like to be a part of the club you can check out the site here.


Sports Nominees – Michael’s 2013 Photo Contest

The sports category is action packed exciting. I was happy to see how diverse the pictures were this year. There’s everything from surfing to sailing, extreme sports to baseball. A very big “thank you” to all who took the time to enter and congratulations to all the nominees.