2013 Raja Ampat Entry Tag contest has a winner

by adamhanlon Thursday, September 20th, 2012

Many congratulations to Nicholas Samaras of Greece who achieved the most votes in a very hotly contested result. His design will be worn on every diver’s BCD that visits Raja Ampat in 2013, and he can choose his prize of a minimum 8 day trip to Raja Ampat with one of the contest’s sponsors.

The contest was extremely close this year with less than 300 few votes between the first three ranked tags. In fact, all the shortlisted entries proved very popular with the public vote. Many congratulations to all the entrants, and especially of course to Nicholas.

Our thanks again to the contest’s sponsors:

It's a nice tag design, but would be interesting and transparent to see all the voting results, as opposed to just the winner, don't you think? :/
Posted by howard on 2012-09-24 22:42:10 Geez Im glad I didn't win, some would post that I should,t be allowed because I took a photo of a turtle with a mask that was half full of water in 1997! It seems that if you endeavour to be successful some body will disagree. As for being Professional there is an interesting forum in here, somewhere. Just curious if mantadreams entered which one was it? Mine was the red illustration of the pigmy, just in case its a case of "I'll show you mine if...."
Posted by petern on 2012-09-22 09:21:07 Although I am not obliged to analyze my income sources in public I see that “mantadreams” and some other disappointed contestants spend a lot of time in my website and fb page just to find “evidence” that I am a professional underwater photographer. At start I found it flattering but from the point that you started making conclusions, false guessing and assuming things it started to be annoying. So I will straight things up for you to feel better. For starts, no my profession is not “underwater photographer” even though I would like it to be. As a profession it can support 5-10 of the best underwater photographers in the globe and until now I am not included. I don’t do workshops, new gadget testings and previews and unfortunately I don’t have a column in a magazine to write and publish my stories and for sure I don’ travel & dive around the world for editors and magazines. The calendar you are so interested in is the 2012 calendar that was printed and free delivered to all readers of a newspaper in Thessaloniki last January. For me it was a great opportunity to publish my photographs in high quality and have a page with my cv for 20.000 people to read (greater than asking to be paid for 13 photographs). I would have thank you for your kind words if I thought that was for real but I am guessing that is sarcasm in combination with previous insults ;) I am glad that you think that my work is in professional level, I am also glad that I have 6000+ people to like my facebook page but I dare all 6000+ of them to tell in public if they received a single message from me, a pm or an indication showing which design was mine. I respected the anonymity of the contest even though many contestants were publicly asking for votes in every social media. The moment that I will start being paid to travel and dive is the moment I will stop sending entrances to competitions to win dream trips and opportunities to shoot. I hope it is ok with you (otherwise is also ok ;) ) Regards, Nicholas
Posted by Nicholas S. on 2012-09-22 07:39:32 The rules of the 2013 contest are below for reference purposes: This contest is limited to AMATEUR photographers and designers only. For next year contest I suggest wetpixel to allow professional to take part of competition - or to make Nicholas' wife the winner, it will be stealther and avoid polemic. PS: I totally agree that Nicholas is a very talentive photographer, and i'm also in admiration with his fantastic images.
Posted by mantadreams on 2012-09-22 06:56:03 Congratulations Nicholas.
Posted by tankado on 2012-09-21 16:48:13 mantadreams I suppose this is because of another paragraph of your personal set of rules? As for the support it comes together with respect and admiration :))
Posted by Rabea on 2012-09-21 14:10:15 Congratulation Rabea, you support your husband very well… but i'm not sure of your impartality in this discussion
Posted by mantadreams on 2012-09-21 10:05:39 A very bad taste indeed… this contest seem very unfair and unclear… It s such a pity for those who thought they had a tiny chance to win!
Posted by Bobbycudda on 2012-09-21 09:51:04 http://www.underwater-photography.gr/#/info/ and on his facebook page he is advertising his new calendar - so how do you define a professional?
Posted by sharky1705 on 2012-09-21 09:25:35 Ι know by fact that he is not by profession underwater photographer even though his work is in professional level ;)
Posted by Rabea on 2012-09-21 09:20:40 So Nicholas, do you consider yourself as a professional photographer ? In this case i guess the prize should come to the second. By the way can we know which proposals get the second and third position ?
Posted by mantadreams on 2012-09-21 08:49:01 its not about the fact that he already won that competition. its about the fact that he is a professional photographer. in the contests announcement it says "entries from professional photographers will not be accepted". and as a professional he won already twice now. and its not a bad taste about loosing - its about cheating.
Posted by sharky1705 on 2012-09-21 08:30:36 Congratulations to the winner!! Well done Nicholas Samaras! Enjoy your prize and take the most of it with a stunning new Raja Ampat portfolio! p.s. since when a previous winner cannot participate and win? p.s. II loosing always leaves a bad taste to those loosing but that's what contests are about, winning and loosing are the opposite sides of the same coin and just make you try harder the next time like in sports ;)))
Posted by Rabea on 2012-09-21 08:14:54 and what adam hanlon do you say to the point that nicholas is a professional photographer? as you can see on his homepage? and he already won the wetpixel competition in 2010 - despite of all explanations to these points- i feel totally betrayed, and all thats left is a bad taste. such a shame.
Posted by sharky1705 on 2012-09-21 04:17:30 When the rules of the game are not respected, of course it brings controversy, not to mention that nobody can see the count of votes
Posted by mantadreams on 2012-09-21 03:30:58 This contest always bring out controversy. This design is not stolen. In fact, it was used without Nicholas's permission by the people that produced the T shirt: On 2010 my photograph of the batfish was competing on the annual contest of *****. The image didn’t win but as I see they did print it on a t-shirt. I didn’t know that there was a t-shirt with my photograph and surely I wish I had one for myself"
Posted by adamhanlon on 2012-09-21 03:01:52 superb choice - a stolen design. :(
Posted by sharky1705 on 2012-09-21 00:52:01 Such a shame that Raja Ampat will not be represented by an original artwork (this design has already been printed on thousands of T-shirt distrubted by a scuba diver magazine). Secondly, Nicholas is a well known professional photographer while the contest mentionned "Entries from professional photographers will not be accepted." There was so many nice proposals this year…
Posted by mantadreams on 2012-09-20 15:37:20