Today Nikon gave away $125,000 in prizes to two lucky contest winners. Awesome, right? The grand prize of $100,000 is one of the largest prizes for a single winner I've every heard of. Long live photography. Except that the winning entries weren't photographs...That's right. This was a video contest. Promoting short (140 second) videos Nikon gave away more money than is handed out in the entire BBC World Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest to two winners. Now it's great anytime art is honored and the winner is an aspiring film-maker so this will certainly get him started. But I immediately had to wonder where this budget came from and if it is part of a continuing trend of syphoning funding and support away from the high-end photography market. In this case 1,200 videos were submitted, making the average value of a submission over $100. Contrast that to a typical photo contest where there might be as many as 40,000 images (BBC this year had 43,000) for less than $100K in prizes making the average value of a submission around $1. Now that's apples to oranges in one way which is that a video takes more production work than a single photograph, but the disparity is still remarkable.So I salute Nikon for rewarding aspiring videographers, but I can only hope that the funding is really coming from new markets for their convergence D-SLRs and not just eroding the support for still photography. Let us know your thoughts in our Digital Cafe forum or by commenting on this post.For the full press release, read on...Nikon
Festival Crowns Top Two Winners From More Than 1,200 Videos

A
Penguin, a Chicken and New York City Star in Top Submissions Actor Rainn
Wilson, Photographer Chase Jarvis and Internet Personality "iJustine"
Select 140-Second Video $100,000 Winner in Celebration of HD Video

MELVILLE,
N.Y., Jan. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- In search of the next great online video talent,
Nikon Inc. today announced the winners of its Nikon Festival, launched in
November to celebrate, inspire and harness the current popularity of D-SLR
video creation and social media.

The Nikon
Festival Judges' Award Winner is Marko Slavnic, a 2006 graduate of the
University of Texas Austin, and he will receive $100,000 and Nikon equipment to
further his film career.

"So
many people see filmmaking as this elite thing and that you need a big crew to
produce a quality film," said Marko Slavnic, Nikon Festival Judges' Award
Winner. "I was excited when a friend told me about the Festival, and Nikon
has shown people that you don't have to be a professional to create a film and
be seen by a huge audience."

Drawing from
his own experiences as a shy teenager, Marko Slavnic's video submission
entitled "Chicken vs. Penguin" is a unique short film that shows a
funny, physical story of unexpected love brought to life through a fast food
mascot rivalry between a boy and girl. It was shot over two days on Congress
Street in Austin, TX. Slavnic plans to use the $100,000 to invest in his next
project, which will be a feature film. He also wants to give back to his local
film community who supported him, especially friend Andrew McDonald, who was
instrumental in helping with his submission.

"I plan
to use a Nikon D-SLR to shoot my feature film because it's so simple,"
added Slavnic. "In my experience with the Festival, Nikon's cameras
allowed me more shooting versatility, while producing mind-blowing
images."

Slavnic
entered four different submissions for the Nikon Festival, including "The
Hug Lady," "One Second," and the two top 50 finalists
"Chicken vs. Penguin" and "Where Were You in '92?" He
credits his mother as his role model, who served as a television producer in
Sarajevo before their family moved to the U.S. in 1992.

The Nikon
Festival Audience Award winner is San Antonio resident Joshua Friedberg. He
will receive $25,000 as the top fan favorite for his video "New York State
of Mind." The video captured twenty four hours in New York, featuring
renowned locations.

"I got
into video through skateboarding and learned how to shoot by just doing
it," said Joshua Friedberg, Nikon Festival Audience Award Winner.
"That's part of why I think the Nikon Festival is such a great event, it
motivated people to be creative and get out there and shoot."

As a former
professional skateboarder, Friedberg rallied widespread support from the
skateboarding community to earn a combination of the most views and highest
average rating. He credits retweets of his Festival video via Twitter by media
personalities Bam Margera, Steve Berra and Tony Hawk as a key to his win.
Friedberg plans to use the $25,000 to help revive 411 Video Magazine that
covers the skateboarding community.

"The
great response for the Nikon Festival demonstrates the positive impact online
engagement can have for brands and consumers. We believe there was tremendous
participation because the online festival provided a unique way for people to
create, collaborate and share their videos," said Lisa Baxt, Senior
Communications Manager for Nikon Inc. "The Nikon Festival is an example of
our commitment to innovative marketing communications programs that drive
meaningful interaction with consumers, particularly aspiring content creators.
Through this program, we were able to help educate people about Nikon products
that offer HD video capabilities, while empowering them to try their hand at
using video and become a part of a Nikon community."

The
groundswell of support and campaigning by participants and judges and fans in
the online Nikon Festival community occurred through Facebook
(facebook.com/NikonFestival), Twitter (@NikonFestival) and blogs reflects the
overall success of this integrated marketing campaign. The Nikon Festival
website received more than 590,000 unique visitors and generated more than 1.9
million page views.

About Nikon
Festival

With the
accessibility of HD video for independent movie making, Nikon created the Nikon
Festival to challenge people to upload 140-second short-form videos with the
theme "A Day through Your Lens" to NikonFestival.com.

The top 50
Nikon Festival finalists were posted in an online gallery on www.NikonFestival.com, where finalists
were given the opportunity to win one of two awards: a Judges' Award or an Audience
Award. The Judges' Award Winner was determined by the Nikon Festival judges,
who selected the high-scoring video based on image quality, originality and the
ability to capture the "A Day through Your Lens" theme in 140 seconds
or less. In addition to the $100,000 awarded by the Festival judges, the top 50
finalists were encouraged to use social media platforms, including Twitter and
Facebook, to campaign for views and votes in order to win the Audience Award of
$25,000.

Nikon
enlisted influencers from TV, photography and social media to serve as official
Festival judges, who each shared personal videos shot with a Nikon D-SLR camera
to inspire and guide entrants. Nikon advertising star, Ashton Kutcher, who
kicked off the Nikon Festival with an opening tweet from his Twitter platform
@aplusk, features his own personally shot video taken with the D5000, which
captures his recent visit to Africa.

For more
information on the Nikon Festival and other information on products from Nikon,
please visit www.nikonusa.com. Follow the
Festival on Twitter at the address: @NikonFestival or visit Facebook at www.Facebook.com/NikonFestival
for winner updates and new information.

About the
Nikon Festival Judges

Rainn Wilson
is an actor and writer, best known for his role as the endearingly awkward
Dwight Shrute on The Office. He has acquired a major online following and
strong media presence for his thought-evoking website SoulPancake.com, with
more than 1,800,000 followers through his Twitter address: @RainnWilson.

iJustine
(Justine Ezarik) is a popular Internet evangelist and online video personality,
who is the top video blogger on YouTube and iJustine.com. With more than
1,100,000 followers through her Twitter address: @iJustine, she recently served
as the official Twitter correspondent for the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.

Chase Jarvis
is an acclaimed professional photographer, author and active social media
influencer. To see more of his work visit www.chasejarvis.com
or follow him at his Twitter address: @chasejarvis.