2011 Vancouver Photo Marathon

woot! I was able to get a ticket to attend the 2011 Vancouver Photo Marathon!!!

For those who don't know, in 2009, I read about a small group organizing a photo contest called the 12x12 Vancouver Photo Marathon.  The point of the contest, as I understood it, was to bring photography back to its film roots and draw photographers out of the "shoot first, delete later" mentality that has been brought about by the explosion of digital cameras and the ensuing 'ease' or 'intent' of post-processing.  Digital memory makes it cheap to throw away pictures compared to the permanency of film.

Here's how 12x12 works:

60 photographers
Film camera required
1 roll of 12 exposure film (historically 400ISO)
12 photo themes
1 theme released per hour on the hour, at the 12x12 headquarters - no electronic/wireless broadcast of the theme by the organizers
Photos must be taken in order they are announced, one picture per theme
Film is returned by deadline and developed by organizers for judging

Although themes are released once every hour, the picture does not necessarily have to be taken in that hour.  You simply need to submit all twelve photos by the deadline, taken in the ORDER they were ANNOUNCED.

I will leave my full 2010 12x12 experience and background for another post, for now let's say I am stoked for the 2011 experience and am aiming to win a theme this year!  Booya!

I will say though, shooting film in such conditions in the 2010 12x12, really made me stop and think before taking the photo.  More importantly, I started looking around the frame before taking the picture.  There was no cropping to be done later on, the picture would be judged as I saw it through the viewfinder, no more, no less.  This single aspect of film, made me a better photographer that day regardless of what photos turned out.  Take a look at my 2010 12x12 Set my personal favorites (if they weren't blurry) were: Theme 1, 3 & 7 - 7 was tied 3-ways for fan favorite of the theme (I would have won outright had I actually submitted my own votes >_<)