Scenic Cycle Round 5: Amsel Adams

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!

Scenic Cycle Round 4 Results

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.

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!

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Scenic Cycle Round 4

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.

Scenic Cycle Round 3 Winner

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.

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.

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ENTM Scenic Cycle Round 3

Lakeside Postcard

Scenic Cycle has reached the mid point, and for this week I chose a theme that is similar to previous ENTM rounds but also new just for this cycle. I asked our photographers to go inland from the beach and find a beautiful lake or a river, and take a “post card” style shot. The requirements were specifically: must include fresh water, and must have any of the in game frames except for Cinematic.

All ten photographers submitted gorgeous Lakeside Postcards, so here they are for your viewing pleasure!

The judges will be reviewing these shots over the weekend, and the winner of this round will be announced on Wednesday, June 5th.

Scenic Cycle Round 2 Results

For last week’s challenge, I asked our photographers to go and take a shot of a sunrise or a sunset. No filters were required this week, but they did have to be in a specific window of time (5-7 AM or PM in the game.)

We had ten beautiful shots, but there can only be one winner each round – wait, what??

TWO?? We had a tie?

That’s right! Since Scenic cycle is anonymously judged without community votes, we had a dead even score between two photographers this week. The two shots were Edge of Eternity and End of the Occupation, taken by Malkovich Malkovich and Darius Stormcrow.

Congratulations! The judges had a really tough time this week, and a tied score proves it.

For all of our photographers, please check out the critiques below the fold.

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Scenic Cycle Round 2

Hi folks! For this week’s challenge I asked our photographers to find us a beautiful sunrise or sunset – specifically, to take a shot between the hours of 5am-7am or 5pm-7pm. Even back in FFXI I was always struck by how beautiful the transition from day to night could be for such a simple game, and in XIV the devs spent so much effort perfecting that small moment in time.

Our judges will be reviewing the shots over the weekend, but for everyone else, please look at our entries this week!

Scenic Cycle Round 1 Results

For Scenic Cycle’s very first round, I asked our photographers to take a stab at ENTM Forum Cycle 1’s first round theme, “On the Beach.” We had ocean waves, sandy beaches, jagged coastlines, and shots from morning til twilight.

Now, the judges ranks are in and we have a winner! The first winning photograph of Scenic Cycle 1 was ” Salt Strand by Day” – taken by IG2’s very own Malkovich Malkovich! Congratulations!

Salt Strand by Day

For all of our photographers, we have critiques from the judges below the fold.

Continue reading “Scenic Cycle Round 1 Results”

Scenic Cycle Round 1

On the “Beach”

Hello everyone, and welcome to the start of ENTM’s brand new Scenic Cycle!

This is a small experimental cycle to test out the new gallery hosting possibilities of our website. This cycle is being anonymously judged by a panel of three – two ENTM veterans and a community expert on landscape art and photography.

But everyone is allowed to look at the beautiful round while it is being judged – so here we go! The first round’s theme was a throwback to Forum Cycle 1 Round 1, which was also named On the Beach. (This time we have fewer catgirls in bikinis, however.) The challenge was to take a picture of the ocean with the coastline or shoreline in the view. Beach sand was not required – just the ocean was. We have ten beautiful shots from our photographers, and they are available to view now below!

ENTM Scenic Cycle: Photographers List

We have ten brave volunteers for our Scenic Cycle experiment. Like our judges, we have a fantastic mix of ENTM veterans and newcomers.

Round 1 will be posted in exactly one week.

Our list of photographers is as follows:

Thousand RiversMateus
Kai UlricSiren
Rongi PongiUltima
Darius StormcrowUltros
Alesana PetrovaMateus
Sudedki NankaliUltros
Yume AawkotUltros
Zukira PhaeraOdin
Aldrid LightSargatanas
Malkovich MalkovichFaerie

Good luck to our contestants! I have attached a gallery that shows their beautiful submissions to enter: Stormblood Memories! The rules were Stormblood areas, with no roll angle, using the Echo filter. This is the only gallery that will have the entrants named, since this audition round was not judged.