Welcome to The Gizmodo Shooting Challenge, where Giz readers get to pit their photographic skills against each other for the admiration of their editors on a dedicated theme each week. This week’s challenge? Happy Accidents—unexpected gems derived by chance or malfunction.
After all, photography buffs used to (and still do) collect old cameras specifically for their innate characteristics, including glitches like weird light exposure. Just look at the popularity of the Instagram app.
Speaking of mobiles, I’m happy for your pic to be from a smartphone like the iPhone—or a digital camera. No scans of developed photos please (we’ll save that for another time)…and definitely no Photoshop intervention.
For this week, we’ll also remove the usual restriction that photos must be taken after the challenged has started.
Otherwise, you’re free to interpret the theme in any way you see fit.
Just follow these steps to send in your pic:
1. The work must be your own
2. Explain, briefly, the equipment, settings, technique and story behind shot.
3. Email submissions to contests@gizmodo.com.au
4. Include 800px wide image (200KB or less) in email.
5. One submission per person.
6. Use the proper SUBJECT line in your email (more info on that below)
Send your best photo by Tuesday, July 5 at 8am AEDT to contests@gizmodo.com.au with “Happy Accidents” in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs, and use a FirstnameLastnameMobile.jpg naming convention. Include your shooting summary (camera, lens, ISO, etc) in the body of the email along with a story of the shot in a few sentences. And don’t skip this story part because it’s often the most enjoyable part for us all beyond the shot itself!
I took the photo above at the massive intersection in Shibuya, Japan (you may know it from Lost in Translation). I had actually intended to use my iPhone 4 (and a free HDR app) to just get a basic shot of the busy scene before me. But he delay in the HDR app taking the light and dark versions of the photo provided an expected time lapse-like effect. It actually kind of grew on me.
So go forth and experiment with your camera’s setting. I’m looking forward to seeing your shots from the hip, flukey timing, candid moments, and general abstract cool.