TIPA AWARDS 2017
THERE WERE THOSE OF US WHO DOUBTED IT WOULD HAPPEN.
As Australia’s only member of the international Technical Image Press Association, Camera was once again involved in judging the prestigious TIPA Awards for excellence in imaging product design. Winners were selected in a total of 40 categories, and you can read all the judges’ comments in our special feature.
When, at last year’s TIPA Awards judging in San Francisco, we all happily voted for the 2017 deliberations to take place in Havana, nobody was really thinking about the logistics. Even with some recent relaxations relating to foreign tourism to Cuba, it was going to be quite a challenge to get the right visas for entry for 30 journalists from all around the world. Well, for starters, let’s not call ourselves journalists, even if we’re humble tech writers and have absolutely nothing to do with politics. But Havana… it’s a photographers’ paradise and it’s not going to stay this way for ever. We had to go.
As it happens, travel from Australia proved the most challenging, mainly because Cuba couldn’t really be much further away no matter whether you decide to travel east or west. And while it would have made life easier to hop on one of the direct flights from the USA that are now available, the Cuban consulate in Canberra was having none of that. Fly direct from the USA, I was told, and you’ll have to get your tourist card in the US. Way too risky to wait until I landed in Los Angeles, so a detour via Mexico was the best option, but it meant virtually two days of travelling… mainly to build in time for any delays, particularly given the tales concerning problems entering the USA that were circulating at the time, never mind Cuba. In the end, LAX was busy but efficient and friendly, while at Havana’s international airport – admittedly after arriving close to midnight so things were pretty quiet – immigration and customs were a breeze. Most notable was that the entry booths were all manned – which isn’t actually quite the right verb – by attractive young women in miniskirts or tight trousers. Welcome to Cuba!
Early the next morning, throwing open the curtains in the hotel room revealed why it had been all worth the effort. The city is a glorious jumble of architectural styles from Spanish colonial to Soviet minimalism – a lot of it in a state of advanced dilapidation, but jauntily defying it by being painted in bright colours. The same is true of the cars, which are predominantly either 1950s American or 1970s Russian with a smattering of British and European classics thrown in. Originality isn’t a consideration when you’re simply trying to keep something running well beyond its use-by date so there’s a fair few mangy mongrels among them, but their days are now numbered as an increasing number of new cars arrive from China and South Korea.
Not surprisingly, the immediate reaction was to grab a camera and hit the streets.
But before we could go out to play, there was work to do.
Prior to the awards judging, TIPA holds its general assembly – it’s like an annual general meeting – which takes care of association business, but also looks at just how the camera business is tracking globally. Things are definitely looking up from 2016 which was badly affected by Sony’s main sensor factory in Japan being off-line for nearly six months. Products were delayed or even cancelled and global sales suffered accordingly, including in Australia. Last year’s Photokina proved to be the turning point and it’s been a return to normal service with a steady flow of new cameras since then.
Conditions continue to be challenging in the magazine business too, although special interest publications such as photography titles are still in a strong position compared to the general media. Of course, even in big markets like the USA, we’re still small fry, but being very precisely targeted and with extremely loyal readerships (thank you, everybody), circulations are mostly holding up well. However, TIPA did experience a couple of casualties over the past 12 months and this opened up the possibility of accepting new members to maintain the desired maximum number of 30. Consequently, the UK’s Photography News and Italy’s FOTO-Cult were admitted as members, but more significantly The Luminous Landscape became the Association’s first non-magazine (i.e. exclusively on-line) member. TLL is, of course, extremely well-respected and authoritative and, in many ways, the most magazine-like of the major online photography sites. Given TIPA’s strict rules regarding editorial independence and corporate governance, it’s likely that only a handful of other photo Websites will qualify for membership in the future should a vacancy arise.
The TIPA Awards are judged over 40 categories which are continually being fine-tuned to keep pace with changes in the industry. This year’s changes included a revising of the categories for D-SLRs – returning to just one for professional-level models – and fixed-lens cameras plus the introduction of new awards for digital image processing devices, 360-degree cameras and photo-level smartphones. As always, TIPA’s Technical Committee did a fine job of whittling down the extensive long list of eligible candidates to a more workable shortlist, although with 40 categories this still covers a lot of products. After we’ve all made our inputs and comments, a final shortlist is presented for judging by the assembled editors.
As I’ve noted in previous reports – 40 closely-contested product categories and 30 highly-opinionated judges with a range of nationally-inherited temperaments; what could possibly go wrong? As it often happens, very little save for some debate – always civilised, only occasionally spirited – and finally, a selection of 40 worthy winners.
Overleaf is the at-a-glance list of the best for 2017 and then on the following pages are edited excerpts from the judges’ citations (which are available to read in full on the TIPA Website at www.tipa.com). Note that all the pixel counts quoted here are for a sensor’s effective resolution.