Topic 1: Let’s get ethical (haha)

Sal Cincotta

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2017/04/28/ethics-conversation-sal-cincotta-just-won-his-own-photography-contest

“The answer is simple for me. I am a competitor. Competition pushes me and it pushes the people around me to raise the bar. I have been entering competition for 7+ years… Why would I not enter ShutterFest? I want it to be a major competition and if I don’t believe in it enough to enter – why would others? While I realize everyone may not share this philosophy, again, it’s pretty standard.”

“We are all hired to judge the event,” he said. “Each with a different line of work and portrait photographers judge portrait, wedding judge wedding. I judged fashion, engagement and beauty and landscapes. There are four judges to every room. Everything is blind judging, no names, no information. About 97% of our judging was within 3 or 4 points of one another,” Rojas explained. “Judgement was based on only what they saw, nothing else. So being so close in judgment to me, was huge,” he emphasized. “Any of us can challenge a judgment on an image and call for a rejudge of an image. Total throughout the day, we had that happen less than 10 times and we judged about 300 images. So for us to be that close on blind judging was huge.”

Souvid Datta photo of child sex slave being raped used to advertise a contest

LensCulture and the Commodification of Rape

Souvid Datta plagiarized a photo from Mary Ellen Mark

Photographer Souvid Datta Appears to Have Plagiarized Mary Ellen Mark

Topic 2: Jeff: Surface Laptop

13.5” 2256 x 1504 PixelSense display (beautiful)

14.5 hours battery life

Surface Laptop (Core i5)

Specs: 128 GB SSD, 4 GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 620

Color: Platinum

Price: $999

Specs: 256 GB SSD, 8 GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 620

Colors: Burgundy, Platinum, Cobalt Blue, Graphite Gold

Price: $1299

Surface Laptop (Core i7)

Specs: 256 GB SSD, 8 GB RAM, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640

Color: Platinum

Price: $1599

Specs: 512 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640

Color: Platinum

Price: $2199

Jeff’s Thoughts

No TB3??? Come on! Actually, where is all the TB3 we were supposed to be getting in 2017 in general!

No USBC ports, proprietary Surface Connect for charging

Like 2016 MBP, not enough RAM

Touch screen but no 360 degree hinge to make it feel more like a tablet?

Copying Apple, including the terrible price to performance, paying a premium for style

Tripod Roadshow Information

Manufacturers:

3 Legged Thing (Albert tripod)

Acratech (Nomad and GP ballheads)

Benro (multiple products)

Feisol (tripod & tabletop tripod)

FLM (awaiting specifics on what they are sending)

Induro (multiple products)

MeFoto (three tripods)

Novoflex (ball head, possibly some macro accessories)

Oben

Really Right Stuff (BH-40 ballhead)

Sirui (two tripods, two ball heads, a mini tripod)

Slik (two tripods)

Vanguard (two tripods)

Locations:

June 16 – Valley Forge National Park

June 17 – PA Center for Photography – Doylestown, PA

June 30 – Gettysburg, PA

Early July – Coastal North Carolina (Surf City, NC)

July 21 – Central Park, NYC

August 07 – Erica Coffman’s studio in Ohio