We are pleased to announce a new competition with a brand new theme:

Mobile Phone Panorama Competition

We are also pleased to announce a new judge William Stewart who will be joining Birgit Krippner to judge this contest. The rules of the competition are:

• Only panorama pictures shot with cell-phones (mobile phones) are allowed.
• A panorama must have at least the ratio 1:2 or wider.
  This can be in either horizontal or vertical orientation.
• Only post processing on the phone (apps) are allowed.

As the judge do not see any EXIF data, compliance with the rules is built on trust.

The judges would like to encourage the exploration of interesting, and perhaps unusual subjects for this format. I-Shot-It has other competitions for Landscapes and other more traditional subjects of panoramas. We certainly will not reject panoramas of these subjects; we are very interested to see how creatively this format can be used.

City Competition 5 - all cities!

Congratulations to all of the runners-up and the winner with his b&w street scene. The winner has won a fantastic prize of $790.00 plus a Leica C worth $700. There were 395 entries, giving the judges at the Harvey Milk Photo Center plenty of photos to choose from. Thank you to everyone who entered their city photos.

Bird Photo Competition 6 2013

The bird photo judge Mike Atkinson has picked ten winning shots. Congratulations to the winner Laura Chiesa with her wonderful photo of Cranes at Hula Lake. Laura has won $368.40 plus a pair of Leica Trinovid 8 x 20 BCA Binoculars. There were 307 entries. Thank you to everyone who entered. The were so many fantastic photos, it cannot have been easy to judge.

Dog Photo Competition 6 2013

Click on the link above to see the results of the dog photo competition. Congratulations to Bengt Kallenberg from Gustavsberg in Sweden who won $681.60 plus a Leica C worth $700. There were 568 entries. Thank you to our judge Illona Haus for picking the winners, and a big thank you to everyone who entered their photos.

If you are thinking about entering the next dog photo competition, here is a list of photography tips that you might find useful:

• Take your photos outside where the light is better.
• Try to avoid bright sunlight that can cause high contrasts and a lack of detail.
• Use a continuous shooting mode, and then choose the best shot.
• Use a fast shutter speed to avoid unwanted blur.
• If possible manually focus your camera before hand, rather than relying on a slow autofocus.
• Use treats and rewards to get your dogs attention.
• Think about composition and the space around your dog.
• Taking a photo of a beautiful dog, does not necessary make it a good photo.
• Try to be original. Think of an interesting angle, or an interesting background.
• Use software such as Lightroom or Photoshop to make small improvements.

Sports Photo Competition 2013 No 4

Click on the link above to see the results of the sports photo contest. The judge Gary Tyson has selected some of the best photos. Congratulation to Gretchen Duffin from Belgium. Getchen has won $186.00 and a pair of Leica Trinovid 8 x 20 BCA Binoculars.

The current sports photo competition is open for entries until 9th April. We look forward to seeing more of your splendid sports shots.

Cat Photo Competition 6 2013

Click on the link above to see ten winning cats photos chosen by the cat photo judge Illona Haus. Congratulation to Vishaal Mehta from Mumbai in India. Vishaal has won $391.20 plus a Leica C worth $700. There were a total of 326 entries. Thank you to everyone who took part. It's wonderful to see that the cat photo competition is so popular.

Cars and Transport Competition 5 2013

Click on the link above to see the results of the cars and transport photo competition. The judge Tim Wallace has picked ten of the best and added comments to the winning photos. There's a fantastic variety of shots to view with man different types of transport.

Congratulation to the winner who won $312 plus a Leica C camera worth $700. There were 260 entries which was great to see. Thank you to everyone who entered a photo and made this contest possible.

Black-And-White Photo Competition 4 2013

We are very pleased and excited to be able to announce the results of the ever popular black-and-white competition. Congratulations to all of the winners. The number one spot was taken by Andrew Lance from Canberra in Australia. Andrew has won the super prize of $12,570.00 plus a Leica M MONOCHROM body worth $8000.00. Wow!

There were 1257 entries. We'd like to say a massive thank you to everyone who took part. There were so many fantastic photos for the judges to choose from. It can't have been easy.

As well as writing his judge's commentaries on the winning entries in the recent Landscape Competition, judge Duncan MacArthur has been burning the midnight oil to provide us with a unique insight into how we might improve our photography. How we might acheive that elusive winning shot.

We asked Duncan at the beginning of the last Landscape and Wildlife Competitions if he would help us pilot a 'Clinic' where for a selection those entries whose owners agreed, he would write some critiques. The idea is to show where improvements might be made in framing, focus, sharpness or content to more closely fulfil the brief of the competition. The process - like the judging - remains as anonymous as we can make it.

We are really excited with the results and are sure you will find them to be a useful source of reference material for future Competition entries. Duncan's critiques from the Landscape Competition are available collected together here on a series of 11 pages. A similar collection will be available at the end of the current Wildlife Competition.

We'd love to hear from you on our Facebook page or by email whether you think this is a useful service. We hope you will join us in thanking Duncan for the care and effort he puts into making better photographers of us all !

We regret that neither I SHOT IT, nor Duncan MacArthur can enter into discussions about an individual critique.

Child Photo Competition 2013 No 5

The child photographer judge Lisa Alessandra Kutzelnig has chosen 20 winning photos from the last child photo contest.

Congratulations to winner from the UK who won $710.00 plus a Leica C worth $700. Thank you to everyone who took part. There were 355 entries. The winning photo is a fun one which is done very well. Looking at all of the winning photos you can see that the standard was very high.