29: All Natural Landscape
“Sometimes, when one is moving silently through such an utterly desolate landscape, an overwhelming hallucination can make one feel that oneself, as an individual human being, is slowly being unraveled. The surrounding space is so vast that it becomes increasingly difficult to keep a balanced grip on one’s own being. The mind swells out to fill the entire landscape, becoming so diffuse in the process that one loses the ability to keep it fastened to the physical self. The sun would rise from the eastern horizon, and cut it’s way across the empty sky, and sink below the western horizon. This was the only perceptible change in our surroundings. And in the movement of the sun, I felt something I hardly know how to name: some huge, cosmic love.” ― Haruki Murakami,
This contest is basically the complete opposite of the cityscape contest. Instead of recreating the likeness of an urban human made city, you’re going to fashion a landscape that is minimally affected by humans. Instead of building tall firm individual structures with distinct edges, you’ll be aiming to create a natural scene of earth with soft edges. Surface and sheet curvature control will probably be one of your main focuses, unless you decide to create turbulent mountains. The difficulty in this contest comes from making spherical reflective balls look in place with nature.
All Brands of magnet spheres are allowed for this contest, and there is not a magnet limit. Feel free to use your colored Neoballs. Photographic post processing is certainly allowed. You may use props, but if water is involved, we don’t recommend getting Zen Magnets wet. For this contest especially, remember that this is a photography and artistic contest just as much as it is a magnet sphere sculpture contest. Be aware of the background, props and reflections.
As usual, the judges will be your peers. Pay attention to resolution, focus, lighting and framing. There will be at least Five winners, and possibly more depending on participation. The prize for first place will be $100 Zen Credits, usable on Zenmagnets.com or Neoballs.com. This is a photography contest as much as a Magnet Sphere Sculpture contest. Everything you submit goes into the public domain. And of course, the most important requirement is to have fun.
Submission deadline is the end of May.
To enter, load your full resolution photo on to imgur.com, and fill out this submission form: