Talented students from across the area showcased the natural beauty of the Island Paradise for the Key Biscayne Lions Club Photo Contest, and the winners were honored by the service club.

Even though this year the photos submitted didn’t meet the technical requirements for the cover, the artistic quality of the young photographers came through and the top selections were:

–First Prize – Daniela Yuste. MAST Academy

–Second Prize – Ethan Sullivan. Ransom Everglades School

–Third Prize – Isabella Paz. Immaculata-La Salle High School

–Creative – Ethan Sullivan. Ransom Everglades School

–Sunrise – Alana Salazar. Immaculata-La Salle High School

–Composition – Gustavo Emilio Ortiz-Penzol. Immaculata-La Salle High School

–Sunset – Lara Zadeh. MAST Academy

–Lifestyle – Valentina Capote. Ransom Everglades School

–Exterior – Francisco Pages. Immaculata-La Salle High School

–Nature – Lara Zadeh. MAST Academy High School

–Panoramic – Daniel Badash-Campana. MAST Academy

–Wildlife – Nicolas Velosa. MAST Academy

Judges were Robert Gentilini from the Lions Club; Malena Assing, photographer; Diego Camejo, freelance filmmaker and photographer; Maritza Minor, photographer for Key Biscayne Magazine; Leo Quintana, photographer; and Kiko Ricote, commercial photographer.

Special thanks to all the students that participate for sharing their photos.

For more information contact Nora Camejo at (305) 775-250, kblions@icloud.com or click here. 

April 17, 2023

The Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA) has quietly removed the Creative category winner after the entrant, Boris Eldagsen, admitted to using AI to generate the image and declined the prize.

Eldagsen entered his now-disqualified award-winning image, The Electrician, into the contest without disclosing the usage of AI. His aim, beyond perhaps generating publicity, is to ‘find out if the competitions are prepared for AI images’.

They are not,’ he writes on his blog. ‘We, the photo world, need an open discussion. A discussion about what we want to consider photography and what not. Is the umbrella of photography large enough to invite AI images to enter – or would this be a mistake? With my refusal of the award I hope to speed up this debate.’

When the organisers contacted Eldagsen to inform him of the win prior to the announcement, he claims to have sent them a link to his Instagram account and website, where he’s transparent about using AI to create ‘synthetic images’. He presumed the organisers would discover the truth, although no one bothered to check – which seems like the minimal due diligence such a prestigious photo contest should take.

Here’s an excerpt from an in-depth interview with German photo publication, ReVue:

‘Then I said: Beware! If you had looked at all the things I’ve sent you, everything would have been clear, but I now feel the need to re-emphasise that the image was created using artificial intelligence. I did compete with photographs at the Sony World Photography Awards for several years, but without much success. Now I have used my photographic knowledge from 30 years of experience to generate images instead.

I’ve been doing my experiments for more than a year, a kind of stress test for Artificial Intelligence, and if you come to the conclusion that you don’t want that, we’ll give a prize to someone else, it would be okay for me. But if you’d say we want to use this as an opportunity to think into the future, then I’d be happy, and would offer myself as a conversation partner to discuss how festivals and competitions should prepare themselves for the current challenge. ‘

Interviewer: And their response was?

My offer to discuss the matter was not accepted. On the day of the press release I have received a lot of enquiries and the agency CREO, which organises the award, contacted me via email. I sent them a statement, which they did not use. Instead, they communicated a generic response that said something along the lines of «we support the dynamics of photography and artistic freedom». So they weren’t actually interested at all in a discussion. I followed up again this week and was told, well, we have interviews on our blog from time to time, maybe we can do something there. I think this is a historic opportunity.

Photography has taken on a life of its own as a visual language. The visual language of AI, reminiscent of photography, will live on independently – separate from photography – but will in turn permeate photography pervasively, influencing it either directly or indirectly! A precise term, however, for the emerging AI-generated images is still lacking.

The ReVue article goes in deep into Eldagsen’s creative process, which combines AI and AI outpainting with photo editing processes like inpainting, as well as his views on AI, photography, and more. Worth a read.

World Photography Awards ‘censors’ Hong Kong protests

Eldagsen is a respected photo media artist who has lectured and shown work around the world, including in Australia at the Centre of Contemporary Photography, Australian Centre of Photography, Melbourne University, Photography Studies College, RMIT, and Monash University.

He highlights this is a watershed moment in photography, as its the the first AI generated image to win a prestigious international photography competition. More so than the so-called ‘historic’ moment claim by Sydney AI agency, Absolutely AI, which recently won DigiDirect’s measly Weekly Photo Competition.

Eldagsen has worked as a photo artist for 30 years, and throughout his career appears to be an artist who is willing to embrace various image-making processes and push boundaries. When AI image generator technology emerged in the last 12 months, Eldagsen began experimenting and AI imagery is now the focus of his work.

In a blog post about the SWPA award win, he acknowledges that ‘AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this. They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award.’

According to Petapixel, Eldagsen even travelled from Berlin to the awards ceremony in London, walked on stage without invitation, hijacked the microphone and briefly spoke about what happened.

‘I expected to have a short moment on stage, as an open competition category winner,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t. They only asked the overall open competition winner on stage. Then they had dinner break. After dinner break before the 2nd part of the show started I went straight to the host. Told her that my image was selected as a winner for the creative category / open competition and if I can say something.

‘As she was taken by surprise I did it anyhow. That’s it. No response. The 2nd part started, the show must go on. I stayed until the end. No one from SWPA or CREO approached me, no one was interested in communicating with me.’

While SWPA hasn’t released a statement to acknowledge Eldagsen’s disqualification or refusal to accept the award, it has removed his picture from the printed exhibition and from the website.

By Isabella Qian

Colour in photography plays a vital role to adding artistic elements. Throughout the development of cameras and photography technology, we only achieved obtaining multi-coloured photography in the later stages. Photography was invented by Nicéphore Niépce in 1822 and was then called Heliography. Niépce applied a coat of asphalt bitumen on glass or metal, hardening when exposed to light. The plate is then washed with oil and the hardened areas remain, forming the image. The first photograph in history is Niépce’s View from the Window at Le Gras (1827).

Colour photography was only created in 1895, drawing on James Clerk Maxwell’s colour additive theory. The colours in the photography were produced by adding various proportions of red, green, and blue. Later, American photographer Frederic Ives invented a photography system based on three colour-separation negatives using colour filters called Kromograms. Irish physicist John Joly improved the Kromogram system by combining all three colour filters by creating extremely fine lines of red, green, and blue onto glass plates, showing colours on the screen. However, both the Kromogram and Joly processes were too complex and expensive to carry out, hence failing to be accessible to the public.

The first commercially successful screening process was invented in 1907 by brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière, called Autochrome. Autochrome was developed with colour-dyed pulverised starch grains spread over a glass plate and with charcoal powder filling the gaps in between the grains. This process was soon widely utilised and soon other microscopic colour filters started to appear on the market using different geometric patterns using grains.

Often, colours are associated with certain emotions, such as cooler tones are being associated with melancholy and isolation and warmer colours representing energy and passion. Colours in photography are often similarly manipulated to create these certain effects. American photographer William Eggleston, considered to be the pioneer of colour photography, used colours to carry out poetic artist intentions. One of Eggleston’s famous works, Greenwood, Mississippi (1973), features a lightbulb on a red ceiling created by dye-transfer processing. The colour red is used in this photograph to create a sense of unsettling beauty with dimmed lighting and popping red colour. Eggleston described his photograph as if “it is like red blood that is wet on the wall”.

Colours can also be perceived differently in people’s eyes. For example, critics have said that Eggleston’s work is overly simple and boring just focusing on the portrayal of one single colour. In later times, such use of colours has been applied films, such as David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003), and Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides (1999), creating a sense of unease using striking colours.

Black and white (BNW) or monochrome photography deduced the element of diversity in colour in artistic expression. However, BNW photography often emphasized presenting other elements of photography such as form and contrast. Even though various colours, such as complementary and analogous colours can be used in photography to emphasize certain elements in photography, colours can also be distracting for human vision processing.

Japanese photographer Daidō Moriyama is well known for his BNW photography works. He once mentioned that “black-and-white photography has an erotic edge” which we can observe from his work. Often employing strange compositions, such as the extreme facial close-up in Eros or Something other than Eros (1969), or the bizarre viewpoint of an obscure alleyway in Yokosuka, A Japanese Town (1971). Such unusual compositional choices heighten the emotions portrayed by the artist’s choice of only using black and white, forcing the viewer to pay more attention to the forms, shapes, space, and textures of the photography.

Overall, colours in photography are actively utilised in various ways to present the artist’s intention. With the development of the use of colour in photography, we can see more possibilities in expression in this specific artistic medium.

Illustration by Anna Kuptsova

There’s some controversy in the photography world as an AI-generated image won a major prize at a prestigious competition, PetaPixel has reported. An piece called The Electrician by Boris Eldagsen took first prize in the Creative category at the World Photography Organization’s Sony World Photography Awards — despite not being taken by a camera. Eldagsen subsequently refused the award, saying “AI is not photography. I applied […] to find out if the competitions are prepared for AI images to enter. They are not.”

Eldagsen’s image is part of a series called PSEUDOMNESIA: Fake Memories, designed to evoke a photographic style of the 1940s. However, they are in reality “fake memories of a past, that never existed, that no one photographed. These images were imagined by language and re-edited more between 20 to 40 times through AI image generators, combining ‘inpainting’, ‘outpainting’, and ‘prompt whispering’ techniques.”

In a blog, Eldagsen explained that he used his experience as a photographer to create the prize-winning image, acting as a director of the process with the AI generators as “co-creators.” Although the work is inspired by photography, he said that the point of the submission is that it is not photography. “Participating in open calls, I want to speed up the process of the Award organizers to become aware of this difference and create separate competitions for AI-generated images,” he said.

Eldagsen subsequently declined the prize. “Thank you for selecting my image and making this a historic moment, as it is the first AI-generated image to win in a prestigious international photography competition,” he wrote. “How many of you knew or suspected that it was AI generated? Something about this doesn’t feel right, does it? AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this. They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award.”

Shortly thereafter, the photo was stripped from the show and competition website and organizers have yet to comment on the matter. Eldagsen actually traveled to London to attend the ceremony and even got up on stage (uninvited) to read a statement in person. 

It’s not clear if the organizers knew the work was AI-generated or not (Eldagsen said he told them it was). In any case, rather than shrinking from the situation, they should be embracing it. AI-generated art has entered the culture in a huge way over the past year, with AI winning both photo and art competitions over the past few months. Eldagsen’s piece is bound to create conversations about how to handle it, particularly when it encroaches into traditional mediums. 

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BREMERTON, Wash. — The Walla Walla ferry ran aground Saturday afternoon outside of Bainbridge Island on Rich Passage, stranding over 600 people for hours. During that time, people were coming up with all sorts of things to pass the time until they could board off the ship.

Britt Jazek, a photographer out of Port Orchard, was on her way to a last-minute proposal photo shoot in Seattle went the ship stopped working.

“What could happen on our ferry ride? I have tons of time,” Jazek said.

She says things were concerning at the beginning, but people quickly started to relax and talk to each other to pass the time. She says when she was people-watching, she noticed some people were incredibly dressed. She found out they were supposed to go to a Naval ball in the area, but of course, their plans changed.

“But then there was a bunch of beautiful people dressed to the 9′s, right? Like suit and tie,” Jazek said.

She came up with the idea because she had all of her gear to see if they would like their pictures taken. She had to get permission from the captain before taking pictures.

“I have the gear. I have the time. You deserve to be documented because this is a piece of art,” Jazek said.

She says that was the last place to think of a photo shoot, but she knew she had to do something to cheer people up.

“It was all so comical. It was so much fun and it was so light-hearted and the photos ended up looking great,” Jazek said.

In all, she says she did about 9 free photoshoots on board. But, she believes the photos she took tell the story of how a bunch of strangers came together during a weird and difficult situation.

“And I feel like the situation was less than ideal, but I got to see the best of humanity and I wouldn’t change my experience for the world,” Jazek said.

The Walla Walla remains out of commission and it’s not clear when it will be back up and running.

©2023 Cox Media Group

• One of the highest prizes among mobile photography awards
• The awards also offer winners training, and exhibition opportunities
• World renowned photographers including Alec Soth, Tang Hui, Tina Signesdottir Hult, Wang Jianjun, Yin Chao, are among the prestigious judge panel

SHENZHEN,CHINA – Media OutReach – 17 April 2023 – OPPO, a leading global technology company, officially launched the imagine IF Photography Awards 2023, a mobile photography competition that pushes the boundaries of creativity beyond the limits of existing images and expressions.

One of the Highest Prizes in Mobile Photography Awards

The vision of “Beyond the Image, Beyond Imagination” reflects OPPO’s commitment to driving progress through technological innovation and igniting the creativity of users worldwide. OPPO’s professional mobile photography technology is designed to inspire maximum aesthetics and inspiration, empowering non-professional users to create timeless masterpieces.

As a testament to OPPO’s commitment to inspiring mobile photographers, the awards offer one of the highest prizes in the industry. The OPPO imagine IF Master of the Year (Golden Award) includes a prize of CNY160,000, participation in the Hasselblad Image Training Camp, and international photo exhibition opportunities. There are also four Silver Awards (CNY 60,000), ten OPPO Bronze Awards (CNY 20,000) also offering attractive prizes as well as opportunities for training and exposure.

Additionally, there are four Honorable Mentions in each of the eight categories as well as Partner Channel Awards and Monthly Activity Awards to include more inspiring works.

Prestigious Global Judges

OPPO has assembled a prestigious panel of judges composed of world-renowned photographers who bring diverse perspectives and extensive experience to the competition.

Among the distinguished judges is Alec Soth, one of the most famous contemporary photographic artists and a member of Magnum Photos. Pete Lau, Senior Vice President, and Chief Product Officer of OPPO, adds his valuable insights to the panel. Tang Hui, a top Chinese portrait photographer, and Hasselblad Master, brings his wealth of experience to the judging process. Tina Signesdottir Hult, an internationally recognized art photographer and Hasselblad Master, also graces the panel with her discerning eye. Wang Jianjun, a top landscape photographer and member of the Chinese Photographers Association, lends his expertise to the competition. Yin Chao, a top Chinese fashion photographer, and Hasselblad ambassador brings his expertise to the judging process.

Eight Categories to Explore Artistic Expressions

The competition features eight different entry categories, including The Distant View, Portrait, Night Scenery, Colors, Landscape, The Taste of Memories, Light & Shadow, and Chapters of a Life, aimed at inspiring creativity among OPPO users worldwide.

Submissions for the OPPO Imagine IF Photography Awards 2023 are open until 24:00 GMT on July 25, 2023 and can be made through OPPO Imagine IF official website, or partner channels-500px.

For more information, please visit the official OPPO Imagine IF Photography Awards website at https://imagine-if.oppo.com/en/

Hashtag: #OPPO

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About OPPO

OPPO is a leading global smart device brand. Since the launch of its first mobile phone – “Smiley Face” – in 2008, OPPO has been relentless in its pursuit of the perfect synergy between aesthetic satisfaction and innovative technology. Today, OPPO provides a wide range of smart devices spearheaded by the Find and Reno series. Beyond devices, OPPO also provides its users with the ColorOS operating system and internet services such as OPPO Cloud and OPPO+. OPPO has footprints in more than 60 countries and regions, with more than 40,000 employees dedicated to creating a better life for customers around the world.

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BELLA VISTA — Rick Tramposh will be sharing his expertise on gardening and photography Thursday at the meeting of the Bella Vista Photography Club.

The topic of Tramposh’s presentation is how and what people can plant to attract birds, butterflies and bees to their gardens, creating opportunities for close-up and macro-photography.

Tramposh was a Master Gardener with the Kansas State University Extension in Johnson County, Mo., a suburb of Kansas City, for 17 years. During that time he was on the Speaker’s Bureau, where he spoke and taught in a variety of venues about landscaping, soils, bulbs, annuals, perennials and other horticultural topics. All of that was in addition to helping build landscaping and gardens in the community with other Master Gardener volunteers.Seven years ago Tramposh retired to Bella Vista. He has been a member of the Bella Vista Garden Club and is also a board member of the Bella Vista Photography Club.

The photography club meets from 6:30-8 p.m. the third Thursday of the month at First Community Bank located at 1196 U.S. 71 in Pineville, Mo. Meetings are free and open to the public.