Nikon Renews Sponsorship of Student Contest with a D200

Contents:

Contests:

Newsletter:

Members:

About Us:

Members log in here with your user name and password to access the your admin page and other special features.

|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2006-05-23

Nikon Renews Sponsorship of Student Contest with a D200
By Scarlet Pruitt, SportsShooter.com

The SportsShooter.com Student Portfolio Of The Year Contest winner will be awarded a Nikon D200 camera with a 50mm f1/4 lens by Nikon, Inc.

Nikon Inc. is sponsoring SportsShooter.com's Student Portfolio Of The Year Contest for another year, offering emerging photographers an incredible opportunity to win prizes and have their portfolios reviewed by veteran shooters.

Sponsoring the contest is a win-win for both Nikon and the participating student photographers, according to Michael Corrado, senior product manager of SLR System Products at Nikon.

"Our future is built on the success of nurturing and educating students and having them interact with veterans is the best education they can get," Corrado said.

The SportsShooter.com Student Portfolio Of The Year Contest offers student members a unique opportunity to receive valuable feedback from their peers and respected members of the photography industry.

Each month during the year-long contest, student shooters submit "One Week's Work" of images from the previous month to be reviewed by the any member of SportsShooter.com. The winner is the entrant with the highest number of votes by fellow SportsShooter.com members. That winning student then receives an expert review of his or her portfolio by a well-respected photographer of their choice, and is also rewarded with a CoolPix camera and variety of other Nikon goodies.

At the end of the year, each of the monthly winners will be invited to enter their portfolio in the final round of the contest, where a panel of distinguished photographers and editors will choose the best portfolio, and award the title of SportsShooter.com Student Photographer Of The Year. The grand-prize winner gets a Nikon D200 camera with a 50mm f1/4 lens.

For aspiring student photographers, the contest offers a rare opportunity to have a professional review their portfolio and give valuable, insider feedback on what makes a photo work, according to Corrado.

Last year's SportsShooter.com Student Photographer Of The Year, Chris Detrick, said the quality of the feedback was invaluable.

"The reviewers give you great information on what to work on," Detrick said.

Alyssa Schukar, winner of last February's "Week's Work" contest, says that although it may be intimidating for students to show their work to the numerous editors and professionals on SportsShooter.com, it's well worth the effort.

"It absolutely encourages me to get out there and work harder," Schukar said.

Driving students to do consistent, quality work is really the idea behind the contest, according to SportsShooter.com Executive Producer Grover Sanschagrin.

"What makes this contest different is that it is designed to reward the students who are able to produce good work on a daily basis, putting an emphasis on a photographer's well-roundedness, not just their portfolio," Sanschagrin said.

Of course, the grand prize of a Nikon D200 also provides incentive. Since its release several months ago, the D200 has been getting high marks from processional photographers. It contains a 10.2 megapixel DX Format CCD image sensor, industry-leading image processor and large viewfinder.

Its feature set is attractive to professional photographers, yet it's affordable, making it ideal for students, Corrado said.

And this year SportsShooter.com members will also be rewarded for reviewing the "Week's Work" entries. Nikon is offering one randomly selected reviewer 10GB of space for 6 months from PhotoShelter.com, the premier online image archiving system for professional photographers, and an assortment of other gifts from Nikon.

"Nikon's feedback and support helped us to implement this contest in 2005, and their continued support in 2006 allows us to keep it operating at the same high-level that has made it so successful in year one," Sanschagrin said.

Related Links:

Student Portfolio Contest

2005 Student Portfolios: The Judges Comment (video)