The Triptych as a competition subject.

[ericmark]

My local camera club as one of the subjects has given use "Triptych" which originates from the religious practice of carrying around a board with double hinged wings to back the alter table but now seems to refer to any triple image. I have two problems.
1) Using pre-made dividers to me this is cheating it should be all ones own work. However we buy backing boards with pre-cut windows so to use other peoples digital back ground could be considered as the same.
2) Is the back ground counted as an image?
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I have done other variations including using less of York Cathedral so the pictures of the Purple Man, Street drawing, and Viking Jorvik are larger but question is this 3 pictures or 4 pictures and will it count as a Triptych? The other idea is to use a more simple divider.
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So thoughts please.

[Marko]

I don't really understand the question I'm afraid.

These days, like you say triptychs are just 3 images put together.

Definitions on anything photographic are changing these days, but for me...3 separate images mean 3 separate images...so shot 1 isn't a triptych for me. It IS creative thinking though, and that, I love.

[QuietOne]

I'm with Marko, the first isn't a triptych. If you're referring to using a template for placement of the images, I wouldn't consider that cheating, assuming the template is just a plain background. It's just someplace to line up where the images go. Why reinvent the wheel?

[ericmark]

I am really uncertain about what is or is not allowed. Plagiarism I see as a problem with masks being published in magazines and special software auto altering photos often it's contained in meta data and it is up to the judge to look when awarding marks with DPI but with printed work we rarely declare printed by Kodak or mounts by XYZ and since marks are deducted when printing or mounting is poor really we should. The templates have art work to give the images a faded in and rough cut edge and are clearly enhancing the image but not really any different to buying ready cut mounts.

Putting a note on the meta data masks from Digital Photo would mean it's not plagiarised as you have declared the fact as we would in the references in a report. The reading of meta data by judges however has been a bone of contention as if we don't have our name in the meta data then the image may be stolen but if we do then the judge can cheat and see who's image it is.

We are told however our name should not appear in the meta data so until that is changed we must assume the judge will read it and so declaring items in the meta data where it's not our own work will mean we can't be assured of plagiarism even if we know unlikely the judge will read it.