The winner is Derek Cookson of Royal Oak, Michigan. Congrats, Derek! A wedding and portrait photographer, see his blog for the kind of work he’s doing. He even posted about his win. Along with three PocketWizard Plus III transceivers, Cookson also won a copy of Peter Hurley’s The Art Behind the Headshot.
Nice job, Fstoppers, and way to go, Derek. We hope to see some great Plus III-enhanced shots soon!
PocketWizard Photo Products partners with SmugMug to create the first
PocketWizard Photo Contest
POCKETWZARD PHOTO CONTEST 001:
Show us how you MAKE IT POSSIBLE™ using PocketWizard Wireless Triggering Systems. Submit a photo which was simply not possible to take unless you were using PocketWizard radios.
Photo must be taken with a minimum of one off-camera flash triggered using PocketWizard radios.
Here is a new video that adeptly explains what to expect on the Mark Wallace US Meetup Tour #mwtour
Aaaaaannd… Mark is welcoming ALL shooters with open arms – including Nikon shooters. It’s a hands-on learning event:
The Miami event is this week! There are some seats left – sign up now. Finally, if Mark isn’t coming to your area, why not vote for it! The city/town with the most votes on Dec. 25th wins!
Most swimming photography is divided into two categories: those that use flash on camera and those who shoot available light. Belgium-based photographer going by the blog (en Francaise, naturellement) name ”Haristobald” (EDIT: a.k.a Martin Boland) approached it differently, creatively and produced a hot video showing precisely how he made the images. To boil it down to its most basic description, he used two off-camera strobes and a black background. The lighting is dramatic and so are the photos. Check it out
Deep thanks to every single enthusiastic photographer out there! You are all stars in our book. You made 76 videos during the contest, and your creativity and passion are applauded by us. Thank you all for sharing and participating. Choosing was a very hard process and so many more of you deserve some recognition for your efforts. So, look forward to some post-contest features from other outstanding efforts.
We’d also like to extend deep thanks to David Hobby at Strobist. His passion for teaching, photography and sharing is something in which we are honored to participate with this contest.
His Web site is www.temptingf8.com. (We don’t know if he has vanity plates with the same cute word play, but he obviously should.) Jerry took his model, ifer (pronounced if-er) to an abandoned brick factory. What they found was a fantastic assortment of backgrounds with which to work. Then, to get even more f8full (sorry) they dripped, threw and spattered paint all over ifer and the walls behind her. The highlight of the shoot was when they found an abandoned canoe (a what?) floating in a pool inside the factory. Jerry used Cactus triggers (see, we’re not prejudiced) and the final photos and video are outstanding.
Well, meet Danish Puthan Valiyandi. His two German-based companies, DanishPV and Priyesh.de, lists him as director, digital artist, cinematographer and photographer. Whew! We get tired just thinking about all those tasks, let alone accomplishing them. One look at his websites, though, says very quickly what an incredibly talented man he is. Well, this month he put his talents to work winning the monthly PocketWizard video contest. Guess who he used as director, digital artist, cinematographer and photographer? We didn’t think we’d have to tell you. Sehr gut!
Q:Here we are talking to Ryan Allan, who’s won the first PocketWizard video contest.Hi Ryan, how are you doing?
A:I’m doing great, and thanks for the PocketWizard.
Q:Great.Hope you use them in good health, as they say.Tell us a little bit about where you’re located and what kind of photography you do and some of the basic details.
A:I’m located in Southern California, I mainly shoot skateboard and skateboarding lifestyle, which basically means I go out and hop a lot of fences and climb around a lot of schoolyards, ditches and back alleys for a living and I originally am from Toronto, Canada and after a few years of struggling trying to make it as a skateboard photographer out there I realized that you need to be where the action is. So I moved to California and here I am.Shooting full-time. (read the rest after the jump)
A photographer was seen walking down the street with a backpack. Clamped on to the backpack were various pipes, more clamps and an umbrella. Into the umbrella there was a small strobe, triggered by a PocketWizard. Jesse Rosten, the photographer, had cobbled the idea together just to win the 2nd monthly PW video contest. And he won!
Congratulations, Jesse. The ingenious rig enabled him to hand hold camera and light, a la Strobist, anywhere he walked. Just amazing. You can see his other talents (director, motion graphics designer and still photographer) on his web site at www.jesserosten.com and blog. The amazing thing is there are hundreds of photographers from Roswell, New Mexico, using the same lighting setup. One even has eight strobes and umbrellas mounted in a circle! And, he’s getting on a spaceship.
We could not stop watching this video. Seriously. Outside of the obviously pro-quality videography, Ryan made great use of YouTube’s annotations to detail the behind-the-scenes tech notes (thumbs up!), plus the final shot was included in the end. Excellent way to follow the contest rules, Ryan. We dig.
It is essential to mention at this point that there are MANY awesome video entries on YouTube, and those of you who worked hard to submit for this contest are still eligible for next month’s drawing. Keep in mind that following the rules/guidelines for the contest score big points in judging.
* Creativity
* Detail the process (in-video text, in-person explanation, dub or via annotations)
* Tagged “pocketwizardstrobist” on YouTube
NOTE: making a beautiful video is NOT requisite for winning!
Additionally, we’d like to point out some there are other extraordinary videos that deserve a look (and perhaps could win in future months… you never know!). link. Some really cool videos came in right as we buttoned up the judging, so if you’re thinking about making your own, be sure browse all the current submissions. You are all very creative! Great stuff – keep ‘em coming – you are all awesome.
If you want to be a snowboard photographer, there is no better place in the world then High Cascades Photo Workshop, held on the slopes of Mt. Hood July 28th to August 2nd.
This year PocketWizard teamed up with the camp to hold the first ever PocketWizard/High Cascades Photo Competition where students submitted their best shot from the weeks photo sessions. The top two images won a pair of PocketWizards.
The talented guys at Fstoppers concluded their contest featuring the PocketWizard Plus III radio triggers.
Show us how you MAKE IT POSSIBLE™ using 
Final Judging to be done by commercial-fashion photographer 
