The free replays have ended
High Roller
Your free entry is waiting. Put your shot in front of the judges.
The free replays came down on Sunday 18 October, but the competition they were building up to is open now. Entries close at 23:59 on Saturday 31 October.
A free entry for every registrantSeven categoriesJudged blind
Two minutes, and you're in.
Everyone who registered for the workshop has a free entry waiting on Kōlab, the platform High Roller runs on.
Open it in any web browser, on your phone or a computer.
Use the email you registered for the workshop with, and your free entry is already on your account. New to Kōlab? Sign up with that email.
There are seven, and each one is judged on its own. Choose the one your shot fits best.
One JPEG with the EXIF left in, and you're in the running for £2,000 of camera gear and a spread in Combat Aircraft Journal.
Seven ways to win, and how to pick what you enter.
The competition itself, start to finish: the brief, the categories, the people scoring your work, and the one habit that stops good photographers entering their best shot.
One theme, seven categories, and you choose which one each photograph goes in. Anything you shot on or after 12 October 2023 is eligible, so most of what wins is already on a hard drive. Twenty one places are awarded, and the overall winner comes from the seven category winners.
Mark Lynham walked through what he looks for, and then we published the ten criteria the panel scores against. Impact first, then lighting, then story. Nobody sees your name while they score, and nobody is scoring your software.
You remember the cold and the early start. The judge sees it six feet away on a wall. The photograph you have gone off is usually the one worth entering, which is why entering more than one category beats agonising over a single pick.
I always enter every single competition category that I can. Go for each one, because you just never know.
Lee Matthews, one of your five judges
We also announced Kōlab’s monthly competitions, with a double page spread in Combat Aircraft Journal for the winner every single month, and crowned Joe Copalman as this week’s winner.
Entries for High Roller are open now, and close Saturday 31 October at 23:59 GMT.
The same four steps, now in the edit.
One real shot, worked live in Lightroom against a practice brief on weather, from a folder of raw files to the finished edit.
Rich pulled 66 unedited raws that might fit a weather brief, and we narrowed them down out loud. If you have any doubt a shot fits the brief, it doesn’t. Check sharpness at 100%, and look at the shots either side, because the judges will zoom in too.
Before touching a slider, name what tells the story: the spray kicked up by the burners, the wingtip vortices, the snowy trees. Then decide the mood. Every move after that serves the story and the judge’s eye, not your social feed.
Work the light first with saturation turned off, then crop so the burners sit on a third. A slightly cool white balance, less saturation and more vibrance, and in the colour mixer, lift the oranges and take out the colours that add nothing.
Paint light onto what the judge should see with brush masks, and darken the shadows for depth: the old darkroom dodge and burn. A dark gradient along the bottom edge bounces the eye back into the shot. Keep it all subtle.
Anyone can take a photo, but can you tell a story with it?
Lee Matthews, Day Two
We also covered sharpening for the judges: at 100%, only until it starts to bite, because they view on big calibrated screens. Then Lee walked through his winning six-shot portfolios, and how he would shoot Movement for High Roller.
The 4-Step Winning Formula.
Four decisions, in order, that turn a photograph people scroll past into one a judge stops on.
Decide what the photograph is about before you lift the camera. What do you want someone to feel, to realise, to ask? A static jet in an awkward park becomes a classified test flight at dawn, because that decision came first.
“I want them to feel ______, so I am going to ______.” The first blank is the story. The second is the shutter speed, the lens, the position, the edit. Fill the first and the second gets much easier.
The eye goes to the brightest thing, the highest contrast, the sharpest thing, and to faces, almost every time. Control those four and you control the first half second, which is all you get.
Grabbing the eye is not enough to win. Give it somewhere to go next, and then somewhere after that. Think about what your audience looks at second, not just what they look at first.
It is not necessarily the best photograph. It is the one that fits the story.
Rich Cooper, Day One
We also looked at how the mind reads movement, why a slower shutter says more than a sharper one, and the feedback test: the two questions to ask someone that they cannot be polite about.
Missed a night? Get all three back.
The free replays came down on Sunday 18 October. The Replay Pass puts all three nights back in your account for good, and adds a second High Roller entry on top of your free one, so it's two shots in front of the judges.
- The 3-Day Workshop in full, over 5 hours of aviation photography, start to finish
- A second High Roller entry, ready to use as soon as you buy
- Watch at your own pace, pause and rewind while you choose and edit your entries
- Lifetime access, a refresher to watch before any shoot
30 day money back guarantee. Watch the lot, and if you change your mind for any reason, email us within 30 days and we will refund you in full.
Replay Pass
All three days, yours to keep.
Plus a second High Roller entry.
Nothing renews
COAP · HR26 · REPLAY · ALL ACCESS