This has been a short short month for me. I had to go on a couple of short yet intensive work trips and an assortment of social events and a holiday party that has left me drained and dreading my hair iron. I am sorry for the delay in posting the results of the November 2011 DMBLGiT photo contest. The judges did a great job and for the most part we were pretty consistent in our scoring. So much so that a couple of categories actually tied up and I had to do a quick round 2 to make the final decision. 
Enough of my yada-yada. Here are the winners!
Overall Winners
First place: Soma of eCurry with her Strawberry Basil Ice-Cream. She is way ahead of everyone else in terms of her scores and also scored high for originality.
Second place: Chang Pick Yin of PickYin’s Place with her Chicken with Rice and Mushrooms.
Third place: there’s a tie!
Pamela of Unodedos with her Cherry Tomato, Mozzarella, and Zucchini Pie
and Vidya of Kurry Leaves with her Prawns and Drumstick Curry
We also picked one winner from each of the individual categories used for judging – Edibility, Originality, and Aesthetics. The winners in this category are chosen outside of the overall winners above.
Winner of Edibility Category
Jasenka of Sweet Corner with her Pumpkin Cheesecake
Winner of Originality Category
Claude-Olivier of 1001 Recettes with her image titled “Autumn is coming…”
Winner of Aesthetics Category
Karen of Citrus and Candy with her Vietnamese Chicken Salad
If you want to take a peek at all the entries, here’s the Picasa Gallery. Huge thanks to the judges once again, and also to Andrew for giving me the opportunity to host DMBLGiT this month. It was fun and totally worth all the spreadsheet and excel-crunching I had to do! If you are interesting in being a host of a future edition of DMBLGiT, find details here on how to go about it.
DMBLGiT December 2011 Edition will be hosted by Arundhuti of My Saffron Kitchen.
great pix ! and wonderful posts by each of the contestants. Kudos to both the winners and judges:-) A virtual gastronomical delight, for sure !
Kudos sis for doing the Lovely and Great job of hosting the prestigious event!
I am a bit late here to know about the results!
Congrats to all the winners! The pictures simply rock!
Went about the anonymous comments too!It's def not a good idea to pull down the winning one!
As Aparna says, a picture dfferently created or presented (along with the other parametres pertaining photography)would definitely score higher than the rest!
I love the icecream ,chicken and the pumpkin pie the best!
I posted a comment earlier and I found an update on FB about rude comments… So I came back as I thought I might have been rude… But reading a few other comments before me I'm guessing I'm not the rude one mentioned.
After reading all comments especially Soma's… I will dare to think different while taking pictures. I can now see why it got the first prize. 🙂
Anisha you absolutely have a right to your opinion and thank you for putting it across well and politely 🙂
Congrats to all the winners…Love every single pic here ! great job hosting this Nags !
Hi all, this is Pick Yin from Life is Great, owner of the chicken and rice shot.
First off, thank you to Nags and all the judges this round for another edition of this contest. It's a privilege to be considered among so many good photos and just perusing them in the galleries every month brings to me new knowledge to the world of food photography.
Normally I would stop here but since this month's selection had generated several different point of views of food photography, plus the fact that Soma and I are constantly sharing thoughts of food and food photography on Twitter (howdy there Soma!), I feel compelled to share some thoughts of my own, which applies to all the photos selected here. (In fact, I gave her my opinion of this photo on her blog way before we made it into this month's contest.)
Food photography, like photography in general, is an art form, which means the appreciation of it is subjective. In a competition where only a panel of select judges decides the outcome, the public view may differ – which I personally appreciate. Also, the judges, being food bloggers and/or photographers themselves, would consider each food photo with many factors running in their heads – at times perhaps influenced by their personal style/philosophy/approach.
Food photography, as Soma put it, is not an easy endeavor. Anyone who has ever shot a scoop of ice cream when it's 30 degrees C out would know how crazy we drive ourselves just to put up photos which would (hopefully) drive our audiences to try making the stuffs we go on and on about week after week. In the scale of difficulty of subjects to photograph pertaining to the selected winners this month, I would say Soma's ice cream is the hardest, the salad, curry and pie following that and my chicken/rice/side salad the easiest. I don't consider "Autumn is coming…" in this comparison because ingredient/produce photography is widely flexible and can go many ways.
To say more would probably take 10 blog post (Soma would understand this statement) so I would like to conclude with this:
The day we stop learning from others is the day we stop living.
Here's to more beautiful sessions of DMBLGIT to come!
Wow, I looked at all the pics. What a task to choose from all those wonderful pics. Judges, you are the experts and you picked what you considered to be best. My hat is off to you. They are all winners.
*event
Congrats to the winners and good job hosting the even Nags…
Thank you for that Soma. I think I need to learn how to sift out rubbish too. Working on it 🙂
After looking through the gallery I see what a tough job the judges had. I would like to congratulate all of the winners and entrants for the beautiful pictures.
Hmmmmm :)Seems like a stage of debate here. I was going to write to Nags an email, but I guess I will add my 2 cents worth here. A few things I wanted to mention… personally I do not care about nasty comments. How each of us decide to live our lives and how we decide to "behave" is a personal choice.While politeness makes everyone happy, I feel one should just allow the nastiness to brush the sleeves and not affect our lives at all! What upsets me is that Nags has to deal with this in her space and I feel guilty as I feel it is somewhat because of me. Nags I am sorry that you have to deal with this 🙁
I was VERY surprised when I clicked from my mail and saw this page unfold to see my name on the top. For a second I thought Nags had posted the results backwards for a change LOL..I had not expected this to win and least of all in the Overall Category.
well this picture was supposed to be a fun playful one, inspired by another artist(mentioned in my post) and also with something that my little girl had told me once… that she wishes she could paint ice cream in the walls of her room! I agree it is a totally diff. aspect of food photography, but we are allowed to do that I believe.. again it is our personal life. I do not find this photograph "delicious" and yes it went down the drain:). Apart from this contest and what we bloggers do behind the scenes, the world of food photography is quite "unreal" and not so delicious if you would find out what goes behind the magazine photographs. Some of them, you would rather not! I have scored/judged DMBLGIT a few times, and with those criteria and the categories in mind, I would say this style as Original. How it went up to the overall win, I do not know (I am not at all disputing the judges here, for how I know how it is individually judged and Nags had a very varied spectrum of judges this time).. again it shows personal preference. I am not trying to justify my photograph here. That is not my intent. Since this particular photograph is creating the noise here, I wanted to write a bit about how it happened.
There were really great looking photographs in the gallery, but among these I would have loved to see Jasenka's Cheesecake/Claude's Autumn Pears/or Pick Yin's Chicken and rice photo up there at the top instead of mime. All of them are so truly beautiful and perfect in their own ways!
This event is one of my favorite one in the Food Blogging world and those of you who enjoy food photography will agree with me in that we participate not to win ( I think we have left behind a 3 year old child's sense of competitiveness), but to enjoy the beautiful gallery, learn from them, encounter new styles, forms, lights and also teach yourself from them. The event comes with fantastic categories and I feel it is a great learning experience to see how someone else other than you who has taken the photograph sees it.. if it is seen at the same angle as yours or it is a very diff. one.. i could go on and on.. But I would love to thank Andrew and the hosts and the judges for keeping this alive and going. Why someone would want to make this an unpleasant experience is really beyond me….:)
I don't know if I made any point here or mumbled out my heart, but I needed to let this out. Please bear with me.
Congrats to all winners. The strawberry ice cream photo has stolen my attention from the beginning. It's unique and original. I would go for this one too. 🙂
Thanks to Nags for hosting this event.
Congrats to Soma and other winners. I am totally with you on this. It doesn't cost a thing to be nice!
All images are good because everyone has a different view.
What we should all have in common is deference for others.
Thank you very much to the judges and the organizer for always doing a good job.
Do I see a case of sour grapes in some of the comments rather than an honest opinion?
And It doesn't matter if the scoop of icecream is actually eaten or not after the shot for it to qualify to be a winner in a cintest – the whole point of the contest seems to be lost somewhere by the people who are commenting. If you want edibility alone to be judged, there is another award for that!
Thanks for all the hard work judges and Nags for the round up et al.
Hi Nags
First of all congrats to all the winners.
Second, I agree with you Nags ,those comments were unnecessary and hurtful, there is a particular way to put their word across,very demotivating.I really hope Soma does not feel hurt by those words.
I have gone through her blog and her pictures are amazing,she does have talent no doubt.But to tell you the truth Iam not a big fan of this particular picture and same goes for the cherry tomato pie and chicken salad.
Coming to the strawberry ice cream…its is definitely very original but not very appealing to a foodies vision.I am sure this particular scoop of ice cream actually went down the drain after being photographed ,Iam sure Soma will agree with me. but people need to understand is that this picture won from a photography point of view and not food point of view.I am sure the very talented judges have seen something very original in this picture.
People..before passing rude comments please go through Somas blog.She has done amazing photography.
Kevin
Thank you Nags for hosting and judges for their great work. When seeing the picasa album, I knew the ice cream would win, it's the more original.
Nags just dont give the rude comments a thought. Your work is awesome and the pics are truly nice nice hosting and nice event dear
Congrats to all the winners!!! I love that Pumpkin cheesecake pic!
hey nags, i went thru the entire picasa gallery and have too many favourites. but, IMHO, there are way nicer pics than the cherry tomato pie, autumn is coming and the chicken salad.
p.s : i love love the strawberry icecream pic. so so different and beautiful !!!
Just wanted to say something in reply to some comments about the photograph that won this edition of DMBLGiT. I was one of the judges for this month's competition, and let me make it clear that my comment is not a justification for our choices. We judged/ scored the entries according to certain criteria and our perceptions, and we all stand by it.
Also, please remember that the results are an aggregation of all the judges' scores and sometimes that means the results can go either way.
Yes, different people see food photography, like everything else, differently. I am not a fan of very "whitish" and over exposed or highly "staged" photographs, but that's me!
I think we need to see food photography competitions as not necessarily being about which photograph depicts good looking food but also which photograph makes you look at food differently. Photography is a creative process as well (like painting for example). I don't like Salvadore Dali, but the world doesn't agree with me!
Yes, I agree I would not eat icecream which has been spread on a wooden board with a basting/ paint brush.
But sometimes photography (food included)is also about breaking the mould and getting creative/ artistic and that particular photograph must have scored high on orginality. But I understand that this is my personal view and one that not everyone will subscibe to it.
All the pics are great…Congrats to all the winners!Personally I fell for the pumpkin cheese cake since the day I saw it in ur album 🙂
I'm with Nags on both issues… one on the judges selection… the winner's shown creativity as well as style and i'm sure the dish would taste great too. in a contest like this where all the dishes look so good, these factors make a difference.
As regards diplomacy vs 'being frank'… if it's just to be hurtful, there's no points for being smug and honest. as a doc, for me, its the difference between telling a new mother that her son may have developmental difficulties and telling her that her kid's gonna be a retard… there are ways to convey a message and get if point across diplomatically as well.
I think ALL the photos are great! Well done to everyone!
Gorgeous selection of photgraphs!
Love all the pictures… the first one is very original but doesn't really have the appeal of food or deliciousness in it… I've just started taking interest in photography, so I've been looking at that picture for long trying to figure out why it won the first prize…guess one needs to be a good photographer to understand the principle behind it 😉
Though a vegetraian… I find the second picture more appealing.
Great job, Nags…
Lot of talented people about ..and people who do not expend their energy constructively have to put down those who do…!!!Everyone is entitled to their opinion.. but minding manners while doing that, also counts…
An ony mouse 🙂
exactly Nags,I agree in people having different perspectives, and this is my perspective and I have the right to my opinion. I was taught to tell the truth while growing up.Tough luck if all the comments don't always look like sunshine and rainbows to you.In that case you should have activated 'comment visible after moderation',looks like you cannot handle criticism
Anonymous 1- Sarah
Thank you everyone, especially Aparna, for adding your thoughts in a much better way than I ever could've said the same things. I didn't mean this to be a confrontation or argument of any sort. Any kind of art will be seen with different eyes and that's what happened here as well, it's only natural.
My idea was only to communicate that criticism is welcome just like compliments, but it will be nice if some thought is given to how it is put across, that's all.
Thank you!! Thanks Nags for hosting and a big thank you to all the judges. Congratulations to all.
Congratulations, to all the winners..
Judges did a great job!
Thank you Nags for hosting this month`s DMBLGIT contest and thank you judges:) I`m so honored that my photo won in edibility category! Congrats to other winners, photos are amazing!
I don't moderate comments because I believe in freedom of expression. I just feel there's a difference between being nasty and saying the truth. Nobody is asking you to only say nice things but there's no harm in putting it well. Maybe we differ in that perspective too. I was taught to be empathise always, even when saying the truth.
PS : this is not a matter of me taking criticism or not. Just that I found your comment unnecessarily rude and voiced it out. Again, my opinion.
ha ha I agree with the above comment.It does look like vomit.What were the judges thinking.The other winning pictures are good except for the ice cream and cherry tomato pie
Sam
you must be kidding me that strawberry icecream looks like vomit.Chicken with mushroom should have won
Wonderful! Glad you managed to see it all through till the end. And what a marvellous selection of winners, I love each and every photo!
Dear anonymous 1 and sam, maybe you should open your eyes to the possibility that people have different perspectives. And also, try to remember what you were taught while growing up. Let me remind you in case you have forgotten after all – be nice even if you don't agree. Tough luck if things don't always look like sunshine and rainbows to you.