Monterey Shootout this weekend

[Chuck Tribolet]

So that is 1.400 points for Chuck and 25.239 points for the beginners.

Huh????

 

[TheKillerKadugan]

Your argument that Bryan Patrick had not won all these prizes in contests year after year "underwater" is a weak one. If you follow the link I posted it is abundantly clear that he was not a new photographer by any stretch of the imagination and had no business entering in the beginner category. Randall Benton from the Sacramento Bee had the decency to enter as advanced yet he consistently places lower than Bryan Patrick in the professional photography contests every year. The judges should have never let him compete in the only category that beginners had a chance to enter.

Remember, the beginners could only enter 3 pictures in 1 category where everyone else entered 12 pictures in 4 categories. That is why everyone else accumulated points to win prizes where the real beginners did not. And then this pro comes and cleans out the beginner category! And you, Chuck, created the unpublished algorithm for determining the rankings and 5 days later it still doesn't occur to you that the beginners were underweighted 4 to 1? Sorry for the points jab, I have a ton of respect for you Chuck, but you kind of had that coming.

Is NCUPS going to acknowledge and own this mistake? They are discouraging the very people they sought to encourage. Seriously, it is like Pablo Sandoval wearing sunglasses and playing against you in a local $75 softball turny, oh, by the way, you can only have 2 players and a dog that fetches (2.25) on your team.

 

[Jak Crow]

This is the response I got from NCUPS:

Hi Jak,

Thanks for expressing your concern. We are actively looking for feedback to make our event better and really appreciate your input!

Currently, the Monterey Shootout skill categories are based on an individual's experience in underwater photography, not in land photography. In order for a person to compete in the Beginner category the photographers would have taken a camera diving less than 50 dives, have won less than $500 in prizes in any underwater photography competition, or have received less than $500 in payment for any underwater photography work. We checked each beginner against those 3 criteria and Bryan Patrick met the criteria.

We truly want to make the Beginner category a place for new shooters to win good prizes based on their efforts. In our many years of contest experience, we've witnessed many accomplished topside photographers completely fail at basic diving skills. Thus, we currently disregard topside photo experience in our "50 dives with a camera" rule. We believe diving skills are 70% or more of the skills required to make good underwater images.

With our beginner seminars, free demo gear, film festival, and social events, we're really hoping we can make this event better than just the prizes for a beginner diver. We want it to be inspiring, with a little competition to add some motivation to go diving.

Thank you for your feedback! We will certainly use it as we work to further improve this event next year. We are committed to ensuring that those competing in the Beginners category are new to underwater photography and are rewarded with great prizes. Hopefully, you attended this year and found other aspects of the weekend well worth the effort beyond the prizes. Your comments will be directly considered in our planning.

Hope to see you next year!

Again with the "topside experience doesn't matter".

 

[TheKillerKadugan]

Wow, such a weak argument. Very disappointing and it really doesn't address how the beginners were relegated to 1 categoy and 3 entries while everyone else had 4 categories and 12 entries. The rules should say "in the spirit of discouraging new photgraphers, we devalue your contribution and ringers are allowed." Thanks for sharing, Jak Crow. The contest was rigged by design, it just so happened that a pro won in 3 out of 3 entries and it didn't even raise an eyebrow.

The contest is more of a photography contest than a diving photography contest. The winning entries were mostly very common subject matter of anenomes and jellyfish but very well shot. Any professsional photographer has no business entering as a beginner. It is obvious and indefensible, but denial is always a first reaction. Just for giggles let's list some of the accomplishments of this professional photographer in competitions with other Northern California professional photographers:

Point total up to May 2011:
Bryan Patrick, Sacramento Bee - 155
Jose Carlos Fajardo, Bay Area News Group - 125
Chris Riley, (Vallejo) Times Herald - 100


Winners of SFBAPPA's Monthly Digital Clip Contest for 2010. The top three winners will receive an plaque and an award during the Awards Banquet on Sunday, April 3.
Point total for 2010:
Bryan Patrick, Sacramento Bee - 340
Kent Porter, The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat - 210
Conner Jay, The Salinas Californian - 195...

Winner of SFBAPPA's 2009 Monthly Digital Clip (MDC) contest is Bryan Patrick of the Sacramento Bee. He will receive his award at the SFBAPPA Awards Banquet on Sunday, April 11. Winning images and contest rules can be found on San Francisco Press Photographers Association Annual winners will be awarded: First place: $250 (last year Patrick won a Canon G10 camera); Second place $100; Third place $50.

Here is the final point standing for 2009:
Bryan Patrick, Sacramento Bee 590
Shmuel Thaler, Santa Cruz Sentinel 360
Chris Jordan, Daily Republic 245...

FINAL 2008 POINT STANDINGS:

First -Bryan Patrick, Sacramento Bee 485
Second - Shmuel Thaler, Santa Cruz Sentinel 315
Third - Chris Jordan, Fairfield Daily Republic 225...

Congratulations to Bryan Patrick with the runaway win during our inaugural year.
Judged by the staff of the San Luis Obispo Tribune - Joe Tarica, Joe Johnston and David Middlecamp

Deadline for February entries: March 7.

Note: Annual winners are awarded: First place: $250; Second place $100; Third place $50...

---------------------------------

You get the idea. NCUPS should acknowledge what they've done, but they wont.

We are committed to ensuring that those competing in the Beginners category are new to underwater photography and are rewarded with great prizes.

Seriously? I've written to NCUPS about this too. Anyone have any ideas how to compel NCUPS to do what they say they want to do?

Keith

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

Intermediate and Advanced are not allowed twelve entries. They are limited to six entries max, with no more than three any any one category.

Since you asked what the scoring algorithm was, here it is. It's no secret, but I think you are the first person to ever ask what it was, other than
a couple of people closely involved with running the event.

The base scoring is:

First Place: 10 points
Second Place: 5.1 points
Third Place: 2.6 points
HM: 1.4 points

The fractional numbers are to reduce the number of ties. The first year we did the points system there was 4 pts for first, 2 pts for second, 1 pt. for third, and no points for HM (this was NOT my decision). There was a huge number of ties (one 7-way, one 5-way, three 2-ways, and an 8-way), We
decided that consistency was important, so two seconds beat one first by a just little, two thirds beat one second by a just a little and so on.

In order to further reduce the number of ties, and to recognize that Advanced is a tougher field than Beginner, Intermediate points are multiplied
by 1.01, Advanced and Video points by 1.02.

 

[TheKillerKadugan]

I'm guessing nobody made a stink like me before. Thank you for the clarification of the points algorithm. I reread the instruction packet and you are right the intermediate and advanced could submit 6 entries not 12. I stand corrected. But they still had four catgories, so their chances were between 2.02 to 4.04 (or 2.04 to 4.08 for advanced) times better than the beginners depending on how many different categories the intermediate and advanced entrant entered and the number of entrants in the skill level.

My point still remains that beginners didn't have an equitable opportunity by design and this really just confirmed that. Then a ringer is allowed to take 1, 2 and HM in the beginner category, and well, the results speak for themselves.

Keith

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

FTR, there were 20 entrants in beginner, 20 entrants in intermediate, 21 entrants in advanced, and 19 in video. 67 entrants in all (it was allowable to enter
both stills and video, and some folks did, and collected points in both (two beginners got points in video). There were 44 images entered in beginner,
102 images entered in intermediate, and 85 images entered in advanced. I don't have a count of how many videos were entered.

Finally Bryan Patrick did meet the letter of the law for beginner. UW photography is very different from above water photography. I was a pretty good
surface photographer when I started diving, but it was a long time before I started producing UW photos that were decent.

 

[Jak Crow]

Still no photos?

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

Try doing a web site with 53 pictures and about 15 videos, make sure you get everybody's name spelled right and their places right, and make it look good. Doing it right takes time. I know it was being worked on over the weekend because I got asked some questions about my entries.

 

[TheKillerKadugan]

Chuck,

Do you think the 2011 Monterey Shootout was open and fair to beginners as advertised?

Keith