BonsaiCafe Pro Awards

As some of you may know, on the BonsaiCafe forum there is a monthly contest for bonsai and accent planting of the month, where members can choose their favourite out of the entries of that month. This is only for amateur bonsai artists, and not for the Pro's to give the amateurs a fair chance. The winning entries are than added to the BonsaiCafe Hall of Fame album. But BonsaiCafe has now also started a new album in its gallery called BonsaiCafe Pro Awards.

This is an album with subalbums for each season, where professional artists are invited to upload pictures of a bonsai, together with some information as height and maker of the pot. Each season the management will make a new album for the respectively season of the year. This album will open on the first day of the season, whereafter pictures can be uploaded by the pro's. One week before the season ends, the album will be open for the public to vote for their favourite entry by giving points from 1 to 10. The entry with the most points will win the BonsaiCafe Pro Award for that month, and will be added in the BonsaiCafe Hall of Fame album. Off course all credits of the artist will be mentioned together with the picture.

So hereby I invite all professional bonsai artists from all over the world who wish to share their work, to upload a picture. Pictures for the autumn season can be uploaded here. If you are having difficulties with the forum software interface, pictures can also be sent to info@bonsaicafe.be whereafter the forum management will place the picture in name of the artist.

Hope to see your entries coming!

Kind regards,
Hans

Unfortunately, I only speak French and a little English...

But the photo of the "juli 2010 Shohin Betula Patrick Cremers" is mine ! Not the tree, that belongs to my friend Pat, but the photo only. Hans, do you know Patrick personally? He's a great guy, we all love him, and for someone that started bonsai not so long ago, he shows a remarkable sense of aesthetics in my opinion.

Yes Alain, I know Pat personally. Very nice guy with a remarkable bonsai collection...

http://www.bonsaicafe.be/forum/gallery/album.php?album_id=43

Last week to send your entry for the BonsaiCafe Pro Awards for this autumn! Until now we have received entries from Peter Foele, Andrea Trevisan, John Pitt, Budi Sulistyo, and Antoni Payeras. Next week the judging will start on Monday 22 november 2010 at 12:00 am, and will end on tuesday 30 november 2010 at 12:00 am.

Still would like to see some more entries by Bonsai Pro's!

A new edition of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards has started...

I hereby invite all professional bonsai artists from all over the world who wish to share their work, to upload a picture to this album. Photos can be uploaded untill the 21st September, whereafter the album will be opened up to vote. If you are having difficulties with uploading pictures with the forum software interface, you can also sent your pictures to info@bonsaicafe.be whereafter the forum management will place the picture in name of the artist. If there are enough entries, the voting will start from Wednesday 21 september 2011 until the 28th of september. On the 28th of september (midnight Belgian time) the voting will end, and the winner will be announced. The album will be open on the 21st of september for the public to vote for their favourite entry by giving points from 1 to 10. The entry with the most points will win the BonsaiCafe Pro Award for that season, and will be added in the BonsaiCafé Hall of Fame album.

This contest has no prizes, and it just for sharing the work of professional bonsai artists, and of course the honour of the artist. First picture has been uploaded, I hope to see many more pictures coming...

7 entries by international bonsai artists for this contest untill now... Hopefully still more to come!



Stay tuned !!!

Regards,
Hans

8 more entries for the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards Autumn 2011:



8 entries from Italy, 1 from the UK, 1 from Germany, 1 from Switzerland, 2 from Indonesia, 1 from Taiwan, and 1 from Venezuela.

Italy is clearly strong represented in this friendly internet picture contest, but we love to see more entries coming from all over the world! Where are the entries from France, the Netherlands, Spain? America? Japan? Please keep the entries coming! There is still time to enter this contest till 21 september. Voting by the public will start on the 21st of september and will end on the 28th of september 2011. So if you are a professional bonsai artist who still wants to enter a picture for this contest, please upload the picture here, or if you are having difficulties with the fourm software interface, you can mail the picture to info@bonsaicafe.be together with some details like species, height, pot origin, etc and your picture will be added to this contest!

My thanks for all the people who already entered this contest!

Hello Hans. Great work with the competition and forum. I hope you don't mind me posting here but I just want to say that although this competition is for professionals, I was asked to enter by bonsaicafe and consider myself no more than a keen amateur. My reason for posting this was an amount of confusion about this on fb and I didn't want this to happen here.

Hi Will,

You don't have to be a full-time professional bonsai artist to enter this contest. But if I am correct, you are giving workshops, or working one on one with other enthusiasts. If you get payed for some services I'm considering you as a professional. I realize it's hard to draw a line to determine if somebody is professional or not, but please don't consider it as a hard contest, it is more the joy of spreading the art of bonsai among other bonsai enthusiasts...

Ok Hans I won't split hairs with you and argue the merits of "professional. I understand the spirit and fun with which the competition is run and hope it promotes all levels of bonsai.

will baddeley wrote:I understand the spirit and fun with which the competition is run and hope it promotes all levels of bonsai.

Thank you very much Will! That is exactly what this 'little contest' is about!

If we can get so much entries as now for each season, I am pretty sure it will promote the art of bonsai...

Here's another entry by Hans van Meer from the Netherlands:

Two more entries have been posted for the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards Autumn 2011...



The time for uploading new pictures is now expired, and the rating of each of the pictures has now been started. Go to this album and bring out your rating for the first tree in this contest at the bottom of the page. Go to the next picture by selecting the miniature picture of the next entry at the right top of the page, rate the picture again, and so on. There are two pages with bonsai in this album, 18 trees in total to give your personal rating. The results of the ratings for this Award will remain hidden for everybody untill the end of the contest on 28-09-2011 00:00 hr. Then the winners will be announced!

If you can not see the rating system at the bottom page of each picture, you are probably not logged in as a registered user of BonsaiCafé. Regretfully the album contest software does not allow guests to give their rating, so it is only possible to rate the images for registered users. If you want to become a member of BonsaiCafé, you have to register yourself here. At the right top of the page you can choose your preferred board language during registration. Please remember it is our forum policy to only accept new registrations with real names! (first & last name) Nicknames are not allowed on the BonsaiCafé forum. All other members of BonsaiCafé are also registerd with their real name!

On 28-09-2011 at 00:00 hr the rating of this contest will stop, and the album contest software will calculate the average rating for each entry. The tree images with the best average will be showed in the album as the winners of this edition of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards. Please take your time to rate each image, so we can have an objective contest!

I hope everyone enjoys this edition of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards, it is a very nice selection of beautiful bonsai trees. My thanks to all participants for sharing their beautiful work! It's a real treat and a feast for our eyes! I wish all the particpants good luck, and may the best ones win...

For those who have a Facebook account, they can vote for their personal favourite bonsai on http://poll.fm/f/3ad8a

Regards,
Hans

This fantastic edition of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards Autumn 2011 has now ended, and the final score - the average of all the ratings - are now available. Winner of the Autumn 2011 edition of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards is Enrico Savini with his fantastic Juniperus Itoigawa! Congratulations Enrico !!!



Second place is for Stefano Frisoni with his beautiful Taxus baccata. Congratulations Stefano !!!



And the third place goes to Hans van Meer and his Larix decidua. Congratulations Hans !!!



It was a very nice edition of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards, and I would like to thank all participating artists once again for sharing their beautiful works. They are truly an example for the art of bonsai! We hope to see more of their works in a later edition! The next edition of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards will be held in the Winter 2011 season. Pictures can already be uploaded from now on to this album untill 20 Dec 2011 midnight. Rating of the pictures will start on 20 Dec 2011 00:00 midnight or 21 Dec 2011 00:00 hr in the morning (This is for the GMT +1 timezone!), and the rating will end on 28 Dec 2011 00:00 in the morning, whereafter the winners will be announced again!

So if you are a professional bonsai artist, and would like to enter a picture for the BonsaiCafé Pro awards Winter 2011 edition, I hereby invite you to upload your picture to this album. Or you can send your picture to info@bonsaicafe.be together with some details like height of the tree, pot origin, etc. The forum management will then upload it in your name.

Kind regards,
Hans

First entries for the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards Winter 2011 edition have been uploaded...



Professional bonsai artists still can upload pictures of their bonsai untill 20 december midnight, whereafter the album will be opened for the BonsaiCafé forum members to give their personal ratings from 1 - 10 points. If you want to participate in this edition of B.C. Pro Awards, but are having problems with uploading pictures to the album, you can also send it to info@bonsaicafe.be with some details like species, height, maker of the pot, whereafter the forum management will place the picture in name of the artist. The rating will start from Wednesday 21 december 2011 until the 28th of december midnight. On the 28th of december (28 Dec 2011, 00:00 midnight GMT +1) the rating will end, and the winners of this edition will be announced...

Many thanks to the participating artists until now, and hopefully more to come soon...

Best regards,
Hans

2 new entries for the Winter 2011 edition of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards:



Still 10 days left for new entries...

Best regards,

Hans

hi,

don't you think a winter competition should be for just trees that show a different winter image ? ie deciduous trees in there bare form.

otherwise its just a load more domed top evergreens with very nice deadwood ie basically the same as the majority of entries to the summer contest.

This would create far more seasonal interest and give two contests that remain different from each other.

just a thought........

cheers Marcus

Hi Marcus,

I agree, that would indeed be very interesting. It surely would give that extra dimension to this seasonal contest. But the entries are up to the artists themselves, they are free to use whatever they see as appropriate... But I like the idea!

I received some more entries since the last update, so here they are:




Regards,
Hans

The winter edition of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards has ended! It was again a very nice edition, and I would like to thank all participants once again for sharing their beautiful works in this contest. Very nice examples of the art of bonsai! And of course we hope to see more of your works again in a later edition!

These are the final results of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards Winter 2011-2012 edition:

First place: Juniperus phoenicea - Enrico Savini - Average score: 8,30 points



Second place: Pinus sylvestris - Mauro Stemberger - Average score: 7,96 points



Third place: Ulmus procera - Stefano Frisoni - Average score: 7,89 points



Congratulations to these winners!

Our next edition of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards will be the Spring 2012 season. Pictures can already be uploaded to this album from now on untill 21st of march 2012 08:00 hr in the morning. Rating will start on 21st of march 2012 08:00 (for the GMT +1 timezone), and the rating will end on 28th of march 2011 23:00 in the evening, whereafter the winners will be announced again!

First entries of the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards - The spring 2012 edition - are now coming in!



New entries will still be possible untill midnight of 20/03/2012. Then the rating system will start for the members of BonsaiCafé from 21/03/2012 to 28/03/2012!

Three new entries for the BonsaiCafé Pro Awards Spring 2012 edition...



Still 4 days left over before the deadline for new entries ends, so hope to see some more entries appearing...