Author: Katarh Mest

This is it! The final week of ENTM’s first ever Scenic Cycle!

Before I talk about the final round, I first want to thank our judges for all their hard work during this cycle. They take hours of their time each week, seriously thinking about each shot and how it was done and possible ways to improve it. We had a good balance of technical advice from Forthyn, literary and artistic viewpoints from Ona, and puntastic commentary on colors and emotions from Ni’ko. Thank you again for volunteering to be part of my experiment!

For our final challenge of this first cycle, we took a sharp 180 from the laser focused black and whites of Amsel Adams and went back in time to the previous heydey of landscape artistry – Impressionism! I asked for dreamy vistas and pops of color, and our team of photographers did their best. This was an extremely technical round and I’m proud of what our challengers did with the in game engine to attempt to reproduce Impressionist techniques.

Nine photographers submitted shots for this final portfolio. Please enjoy them over the next few days while our judges review them.

Hi folks! For last week’s challenge I asked our photographers to go out and take a shot in the style of Amsel Adams, which meant grey scale and beautiful mountain majesties. The judges were impressed at all the tricks folks used to render good quality black and white in the in game engine, and also loved the variety of mountain peaks everyone brought to the table. The round was very close this week, but the winner was Zukira Phaera with Memories of Nym.

Congratulations! There’s so much to love about this shot, but I’ll leave it to the judges to gush over the technicalities and I’ll just add in that we have a mountain, a lake, a castle, trees, cool clouds – there is just a lot of great stuff in this shot, and taking it in black and white transforms the familiar ruins into something quite different.

Please continue reading on for our judge’s critiques! We have one more round before Scenic Cycle 1 ends (just in time for Shadowbringers) so stay tuned!

We’re in the home stretch of our first Scenic Cycle, with only two more weeks to go! Because of this, it’s time for a new round made just for this cycle – taking a shot in the style of Amsel Adams!

Adams is widely considered to be one the greatest landscape photographers of the 20th century. His large format silver prints of the US National Parks are world famous. He worked primarily in black and white, and many of his most famous shots were of beautiful peaks and valleys. In homage to the master, we have ten shots in black and white – with mountains!

Hi everyone! Last week our photographers had to brave some nasty weather to find us beautiful shots of storms . We had some breathtaking shots that traveled around the world, but the winner this week belonged to Aldrid Light for Byakko’s Wrath.

Congratulations! The cloud formation in this shot is incredible and helps to balance the image nicely. This was a really challenging round but the judges were wow’d at how epic each of the storm shots felt, and how even when a location was similar, each shot had its own personality all the same.

Please continue reading for critiques from our judges!

Hi folks! This week’s challenge to our photographers was another classic ENTM round, Dark and Stormy. Normally we send our models out with explicit instructions to get all wet in the rain, but for our photographers we expanded this round to include “exotic” weather phenomenon as well, as long as it’s… well, dark and stormy looking. (Aetherstorms definitely count!)

Our photographers staked out some pretty intense weather and have brought us some beautiful shots, as seen below.

Last week I asked our photographers to send us a postcard from their favorite lake or river. The judges felt that the photographers have all really stepped up their game – this was a fantastic round, and it was a challenge for the judges to rank them.

But after all the votes were tallied, the winner this week was Zukira Phaera with Mystic Cavern.

Congratulations! Hullbreaker Isle is gorgeous from start to finish, even the caves. I think a lot of us are going to be saving his one as a wallpaper.

For all the photographers, the judges critiques can be found below.