Turn’s out this weekend it’s Torontohenge, the date when the setting sun lines up with our east-west street grid. And, what fun, Walrus Magazine is sponsoring a contest to find the most beautiful photograph capturing this urban solstice. From their site:
Since at least 2002, when astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson gave it a name, photographers in New York City have observed the passing of Manhattanhenge, which happens when the rising or setting sun perfectly aligns with east-west streets that follow the island’s 1811 planning grid. The phenomenon occurs in every metropolis with a similar plan, and is coming soon to Canada’s city of skyscrapers. According to The Photographer’s Ephemeris, a free application developed by landscape photographer Stephen Trainor, the next Torontohenge is due to illuminate T.O.’s downtown thoroughfares on the evenings of October 24–25.
The Walrus invites local photographers to send us your best photos of Saturday and Sunday’s Torontohenge effect. Bree Seeley, our picture editor, will choose her favourite images for a gallery to be published on walrusmagazine.com. The overall winner will receive a gift bag from Drawn and Quarterly; two runners-up will each receive a pair of tickets to The Walrus events at the International Festival of Authors. All three winners will also receive a complimentary one-year subscription to The Walrus.
Submit images as JPGs (minimum 640×480 pixels) to contests@walrusmagazine.com before 12:00 pm EST, Tuesday, October 27.
To get you in the mood, check out this practice run from Sniderscion. Shot on Tuesday, he points out that the sun isn’t quite there yet.
© Sniderscion
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Designers are all up in arms about the detriment of design contests. What about photographers? How does the photography world view the practice of photography contests?
I’ve always wanted to witness this event. It’s got such a beautiful allure. I’m a little too far to make it from way out in West Texas.
Someday…
Just found your site via an email from Rob Davidson. Hoping the skies clear up this weekend.
Josh: Yes, there certainly has been some concern about photography contests but I think this one is a little different. Sure, it’s generating content for Walrus’ site but I don’t think there is any intention of using the photographs in any way. I haven’t read the fine print but I’m pretty sure this is just a fun way to engage readers in this neat Urban Solstice phenomenon (or am I being niave….).
Damien: I think you can use the Photographer’s Ephemeris to find out when your West Texas sun and skyscrapers will align (do you have skyscrapers in West Texas?).
It certainly seems like an innocent contest—they are not asking for people to compete to win a commission—I was just wondering what the general though on photography contests is.
Torontohenge is not wholly unlike social networking. Though it aims to collect some cool images which take lead from the math that Photographer’s Ephemeris has figured out and provided neatly for us. The Walrus will encourage participation in other Cdn. cities. Hopefully over time a wider movement will gel and anyone who cares to look will enjoy a blissful moment of reflection on how the landscape of urban jungle dovetails with mr sun and aren’t we clever bums for tracking it. Most of this will happen outside of Walrus-land and requires the will of the folks making the pictures cos Walrus never assumes or even asks for copyright of contributors works. Walrus is really just jumping on the bandwagon of this visual scheme. Harmless
As for the wider question about contests.. I think that as the international student body of photography surges, partnered with technology enabling many more practitioners… photo contests have become part of the fabric for young photographers. I’d love to know the real numbers but to my eye the range of contest has sprung ten-fold in the last several years. Unfortunately i don’t see that they pave the road to the much loved more traditional ‘jewels’ in photography like: getting a solo book, having a solo exhibit and a career of commissions cos those are opportunities that are becoming more scarce or certainly diluted by the army of photographers gunning for the goodies.
Modest contests rewards and publishing a personal series on your website are going to have to suffice for a lot of photographers. Both are good things because jeeze, we all appreciate reassurance and going public with our own work (by posting online) is not unlike the initial act of making pictures. It takes some bravery and requires that an individual have a position on a matter. That’s powerful.
I am not the first person to note that a lot of curious work does not and will not get traction beyond a life on personal sites. It is ours to resolve that getting 10s of thousands of hits will be the payoff to good work and not often will those same works wind up in the much relished vaults that we know to be the important photo-book of yore.
Likewise modern contest are like the cousins to the magazine article where artists are validated.