World Press Multimedia Contest Now Open To All
Written by duckrabbitThe process is outlined below.
Its an improvement on last years closed shop but still a bit of a disappointment for me.
Again, as I’ve said before, I would like to see entrants placing their work online in a public gallery space where people can debate and critique the work. This would hopefully help sift the wheat from the chaff.
In addition to this World Press could add a really great blog/learning zone with contributions from experts and learning videos. What a magic resource that could be to the many photographers struggling to get to grips with storytelling.
Why won’t World Press do something like this? Its a mystery to me. Education is a two way conversation; at least I’d like to think so.
Multimedia Contest
In 2011, World Press Photo organized its first annual contest for the best multimedia storytelling in visual journalism. The first contest was set up as a pilot project, where entries were nominated by an international committee of experts, but the second edition in 2012 will be open for contestants to enter t 2012 heir work themselves.
There will be three prizes for online or offline linear productions with a journalistic storyline. Productions must include professional still photography in combination with (but not limited to) audio and visual elements as video, animation, graphics, illustrations, sound and text. The work will be judged on their impact, as well as their production and content.
Entries for the multimedia contest will be accepted from 8 December and the deadline is 19 January 2012. Details how to enter will be available later. The judges will convene in Amsterdam at the beginning of March and the winners will be announced online on 15 March 2012.
World Press Photo receives support from the Dutch Postcode Lottery and is sponsored worldwide by Canon and TNT.
Comment
Mimi
Hi Duck!
Thanks for posting this.
I have a question though. Do you really think that The World Press, and I assume you mean more institutions, should open up and become 2.0 companies? Why do you think this should be the next step?
In my opinion not everything should turn into an open platform, slash, blog, slash, interactive kind of thing.
Or am I wrong? I’d like to know more about your opinion.
Thanks
Mimi
RESPONSE
Hi Mimi, good question.
This is the remit of World Press:
‘World Press Photo is committed to supporting and advancing high standards in photojournalism and documentary photography worldwide. We strive to generate wide public interest in and appreciation for the work of photographers and for the free exchange of information.’
In which case why wouldn’t you use the web to help achieve this mission? To be fair to World Press they are already doing this.
Two words though are missing from this statement. ‘conversation’ and ‘debate’. World Press are brilliant at running exhibitions, brilliant at promoting photography but in 2011 I feel that should just be half the job. The other half is curating and encouraging the conversations those photographs spark.
And besides we’re not talking about a revolution here in technological terms, just in scope.
Author — duckrabbit
duckrabbit is a production company formed by radio producer/journalist Benjamin Chesterton and photographer David White. We specialize in digital storytelling.
Discussion (5 Comments)
Hi Duck!
Thanks for posting this.
I have a question though. Do you really think that The World Press, and I assume you mean more institutions, should open up and become 2.0 companies? Why do you think this should be the next step?
In my opinion not everything should turn into an open platform, slash, blog, slash, interactive kind of thing.
Or am I wrong? I’d like to know more about your opinion.
Thanks
Mimi
Conversation+debate=questions
I get the feeling WPP don’t really like people to ask questions.
Feeling like a total cynic right now, but there’s a hell of a lot of lip service given to the idea of wanting to tell stories and foster understanding, when it often seems to boil down in practice more to “put forward my own opinion and have that be accepted as the only one because no other options are given a platform for interrogation”.
Even just making the multimedia submissions available to the public online in one place would be an achievement in collating what work is being done and giving us a slightly more robust idea of multimedia practice than we currently do – e.g. is multimedia particularly popular in specific countries? is it used more for some topic/stories than others? how much of it is a photographer voice-over about how they chose their frames, and how much interviews with people? how much is tied to big projects with e.g. book or exhibition outcomes? and how much is made for shorter works? is there a difference in the kind of stories told through this medium? and so on.
But no. We apparently don’t need the benefits of knowing any of that. We just need to know what some people in a room in Amsterdam liked the most.
‘We just need to know what some people in a room in Amsterdam liked the most.’
Well that about sums it up doesn’t it.
Interesting too that the call is for ‘linear productions’. One of the most compelling multi-media productions I’ve seen uses a non-linear storytelling format to fully explore all angles of the story. Surely that’s a major value of multimedia versus traditional story-telling formats?
Hi Christine,
yeah I was thinking about this too. That’s another departure from last year where they also considered larger projects.