New photo competitions?

[Mr Anderson]

Does anyone have any thoughts on when they'd like to see a regular contest start again, and ideas for changes or improvements?

[slaughteredlamb]

Personally I'd like to see them start again. I realise of course that I think I have only entered 2 competitions so I'm not exactly a big user of them. The reason why I've not entered any more of the competitions is not because I don't like them, don't want to or anything like that but simply because I so rarely get the time to take photos that I find it impossible to shoot anything specifically for a competition. I'm not necessarily saying that the rules should be changed as for others the rules may well be a good incentive to actually get out there and take some photos.

I think though we need to look at why the competitions have struggled in order to make them more popular and easier to enter in the future. These are the problems I think there has been (just my personal opinions)

1. Time restrictions - As previously mentioned some people may not have the time to shoot something for a competition and even a 2 month entry period may well be too tight for some.

2. Complicated Themes - Whilst most people on here are creative individuals some may be more comfortable in expressing their creativity in different media and might therefore find some of the themes intimidating and off putting and simply don't enter.

3. Site confusion - Is the photography thread on DDN or on Flickr. When the Flickr group was first launched everytime anyone submitted a photo to the group whether for a competition or otherwise it got added by the Flickrbot to DDN. That doesnt happen anymore. This results in less people viewing the photography thread, less people seeing the competitions thread and so on. Personally I think that the competition should either be more tightly integrated with the DDN forum or it needs to be completely removed from the forum and more steps taken to make it a bigger event on Flickr. Personally I think it should be more tightly integrated with DDN.

I think though that more needs to be done to attract existing and new members to enter the competitions and use the Photography forum in general. Let's face it, everyone these days owns a camera whether it's an expensive DSLR, a compact or a camera phone yet very few people ever think to enter any competition or even show their photos. Why? I personally think it's a mixture of reasons:

1. Just no interest in photography to them a photo is just to record something it's not a 'work of art'
2. Lack of confidence. It's a sad truth that most people who own a camera don't know how to use it and just keep it in full auto. Because of this the photos they get are on the basic side and they feel that they would have no chance or even a desire to enter them in a competition or submit them for public viewing.
3. Apathy.

You can't really do anything about the people who fall into the first category but you can for those that fall into the 2nd. There are enough talented and knowledgeable people on here to write some tutorials on how to use your camera, shoot certain subject, use Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture etc etc as well as buying guides. It is possible (but not certain) that if people read these, get encouraged etc that they may then want to use the competitions more. If that happens than it may help with the third group who if they see more and more people entering may feel more inspired to take part.

</my 2p>

[net-curtains]

I'm a fan of the competition, the only thing I'd add is I'd like to see a new thread announcing the start and theme for each new competition - I usually only catch the call for last entries or voting, so a bit more warning would give me a bit more time to sort out my stuff.

[Mr Anderson]

1. Time restrictions - As previously mentioned some people may not have the time to shoot something for a competition and even a 2 month entry period may well be too tight for some.

I agree, but we changed that to allow the first image to have been taken any time in the previous 12 months, with additional entries needing to have been done during the period the theme is running. Is that still too restrictive do you think?

2. Complicated Themes - Whilst most people on here are creative individuals some may be more comfortable in expressing their creativity in different media and might therefore find some of the themes intimidating and off putting and simply don't enter.

At the moment the theme ideas are suggested, by anyone interested in taking part, and then the active theme selected by the previous theme's winner from that list. Doing it that way allowed everyone to have an input in the decision and allowed winners the incentive/opportunity to pick a subject that interested them.  Without having to risk annoying Sickpuppy with a poll every month I'm not sure how we'd do it fairly otherwise, but I'm definitely open to suggestions.

3. Site confusion - Is the photography thread on DDN or on Flickr. When the Flickr group was first launched everytime anyone submitted a photo to the group whether for a competition or otherwise it got added by the Flickrbot to DDN. That doesnt happen anymore. This results in less people viewing the photography thread, less people seeing the competitions thread and so on. Personally I think that the competition should either be more tightly integrated with the DDN forum or it needs to be completely removed from the forum and more steps taken to make it a bigger event on Flickr. Personally I think it should be more tightly integrated with DDN.

The original idea was to use Flickr to do the hosting of the images and the entries thread, before copying that to here for judging, mainly to hopefully attract people to the forum via Flickr. But that never worked out anyway so it's moot. The other reason was that it gave me some control start and end times without having to ask and wait for an admin/mod to intervene. But as Tony and Matt both take part pretty regularly that's probably not an issue anyway.

If we do switch to one or the other, then it would be to doing it all on DDN otherwise it would just fade away.

The issue with the Flickr bot is that it wasn't set up to run as a Cron job so that it auto-updated, possibly because someone complained about it, so it fell to Tony to periodically run it manually.

You can't really do anything about the people who fall into the first category but you can for those that fall into the 2nd. There are enough talented and knowledgeable people on here to write some tutorials on how to use your camera, shoot certain subject, use Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture etc etc as well as buying guides. It is possible (but not certain) that if people read these, get encouraged etc that they may then want to use the competitions more. If that happens than it may help with the third group who if they see more and more people entering may feel more inspired to take part.

That brings up the dreaded subject of getting the front end sorted out 

I'm a fan of the competition, the only thing I'd add is I'd like to see a new thread announcing the start and theme for each new competition - I usually only catch the call for last entries or voting, so a bit more warning would give me a bit more time to sort out my stuff.

It's usually announced at the end of the previous one as soon it's been chosen, however that's possibly not prominent enough. If we switch to just running it on here then there'll be a new thread created for it straight away in future. If not then I can always create a thread to announce it, which I've done once or twice in the past, and then add the entries to that thread when needed.

[neal]

i fall into the 2nd category. i lack the skill and the equipment and although i have (what i feel) are grand ideas, the results are often below what i'd hope for. having said that, it might just be that i'm expecting too much from my canon ixus 70.

maybe each competition could be run with 2 possible modes of entry: 'sandbox' and 'big guns' to help those of us without the knowledge or DSLRs to participate while you pro guys do your thang.

[slaughteredlamb]

In regards to themes & time constraints I wonder if it might be 'better' to try this:

The themes for the entire year are set in advance so that everyone knows well in advance what is coming up and when giving people up to 12 months to prepare for it. Also, rather than have a specific theme every month, what about only having a theme every other month and on the alternate months simply having a 'theme' of "Your Best Photo This Month" where people can submit only ONE photo but it's what they think is the best photo they have shot within an agreed time scale.

Just a thought

[Mr Anderson]

i fall into the 2nd category. i lack the skill and the equipment and although i have (what i feel) are grand ideas, the results are often below what i'd hope for. having said that, it might just be that i'm expecting too much from my canon ixus 70.

I wouldn't let that stop you. It's just for fun and taking part will help you develop your skills, and 3 of the past winning photos were from compacts (1 from an iPhone).

In regards to themes & time constraints I wonder if it might be 'better' to try this:

The themes for the entire year are set in advance so that everyone knows well in advance what is coming up and when giving people up to 12 months to prepare for it. Also, rather than have a specific theme every month, what about only having a theme every other month and on the alternate months simply having a 'theme' of "Your Best Photo This Month" where people can submit only ONE photo but it's what they think is the best photo they have shot within an agreed time scale.

Both interesting suggestions which might be worth a tryout. Hopefully a few others will chip in with their thoughts.

[keri]

I really enjoy these competitions, i'm not really a competitive person but i like the idea of being giving something to aim at topic-wise, it makes me shoot things i normally wouldn't shoot.

On the learning/educating front we should maybe encourage the winner of each competition to give a quick explanation of any post processing performed (i struggle with this) and maybe for people that are new to SLR photography a quick over view of camera settings used and why would probably benefit them (i know they are in the exif for most people but not everyone preserves exif and not everyone reads the info) - this education lark could of course be encouraged for all entries not just the winner of course.

I do like the idea of having set competitions for the year, but i think i prefer the randomness and the fact that a winner gets to choose the next competition, but then again that does spoil it for someone that doesn't win - how about the winner chooses a shortlist of 3 and then people vote to choose the next competition or is this just complicating the procedure and drawing it all out ?

[Tony]

Sorry guys, haven't had a lot of time for the past couple of days, but have kept my eye on this thread.

I think I like SL's suggestion of alternate 'Theme' 'Your Best Photo' I think that could work so people would have two months to come up with a themed image (keeping the last winner of the theme comp choosing) and their best photo of the month would only not be possible if they hadn't taken any pics that month.

I think the disjoint between Flickr and here doesn't help to promote it for non Flickr / Twitter people, so I think it might work better if we actually use the forum to add the entries - that way it becomes easier come voting time as the pics would already be in here - and I think all of our members are capable of posting a pic into the forum from Flickr.

To manage this, we could set a rule that any non photo posts are deleted before voting starts - be quite clear about it at the top of the entry thread to stop people throwing rattles out of prams.

Also, I think we should - I'd like to say reinstate, but it was never really instated in the first place - the Flickr bot, but a weekly one to cut down on the amount of posts and confusion - maybe a sub forum of the photography forum, and if Sarah wouldn't mind doing the thing that I'm completely incapable of - i.e. setting up the cron job, then I think that would work as well.

It might also be an idea to have a DDN/Flickr Photo meetup in the future, I know we are all wide and varied, but with a bit of planning we could do something in the spring.

Taking thoughts and ideas....

[sarahA]

Also, I think we should - I'd like to say reinstate, but it was never really instated in the first place - the Flickr bot, but a weekly one to cut down on the amount of posts and confusion - maybe a sub forum of the photography forum, and if Sarah wouldn't mind doing the thing that I'm completely incapable of - i.e. setting up the cron job, then I think that would work as well.

never a prob

[slaughteredlamb]

i fall into the 2nd category. i lack the skill and the equipment and although i have (what i feel) are grand ideas, the results are often below what i'd hope for. having said that, it might just be that i'm expecting too much from my canon ixus 70.

maybe each competition could be run with 2 possible modes of entry: 'sandbox' and 'big guns' to help those of us without the knowledge or DSLRs to participate while you pro guys do your thang.

It might be of interest to know that one photographer I know has now gone over almost entirely to using his iPhone. So far he's published one book, starting work on a second and had a photo accepted into a Newspapers Landscape Photograph of The Year and is going into an exhibition at the National Theater as well as being published in a book along with the other finalists. So you really don't need a 'good' camera, you just need to see the picture you want to take.

[robwhizz]

So you really don't need a 'good' camera, you just need to see the picture you want to take.

Yep. Like everything else, a camera is a tool. A better tool can make the job easier and open up more possibilities but it doesn't give photographers super powers to see a better shot.
I've got a few contacts on Flickr that use compacts and take stunning photos. Also, quite a few people on here are using their iPhones more than their DSLRs and are still taking great photos.


I think the idea of alternating a theme and a best shot that month is a brilliant idea. It brings together the best of both worlds. I don't always have time to shoot for the theme but do really like the challenge of it, so having a unrestricted category _should_ generate more entries.
Perhaps the time frame for the shot of the month could overlap the theme, so you have effectively 2 months to shoot something. Then, if you can't fit anything into the theme you are not waiting for the next month to shoot something. Or could that perhaps stifle the themed entries?

I'm not sure about knowing themed categories before hand. I like the challenge of having a theme and then having that limited time frame to come up with an idea. And it helps with motivation to get the camera out.

I think having the entries on the forum is definitely the way to go. It does feel disjointed at the moment and took me a little while to get my head around at first.
If the forum is used to run the entries, then we could set up a flickr group that holds all the competition entries together - so not split up into individual themes/months - with the page offering up info about the competitions, DDN and links back to the forum. Individual images have a link back to the appropriate DDN thread. Then any users finding images on flickr will be pointed back to the forum.

Keri's idea about explanations about the winning shot is a great idea too.

[Mr Anderson]

So, to summarise:

New comps to be run directly from here.
Alternate themed months with non-themed/personal best of the month
Maybe preselect themes in advance?
Themed contests to allow back-catalogue shots from up to 12 months prior?

As another possibility, we could run the themed/non-themed concurrently and end them on the alternate months, so that there's a 2 month duration for each contest giving a bit more flexibility.

If we get a consensus on the format when are we looking to start them again? ASAP or maybe leave until the new year?

[Mr Anderson]

Bump

[Britman]

Bump


and


Yeah alternate themes thing. Being able to call on the back catalogue will be handy.

[Tony]

Lets do it then, leave the themes to be picked by the winner of the previous theme comp, and in between is your best monthly shot.

I say we kick it off now with a non theme due end of November, and also launch a themed one for the end of December - who won the last comp?

Voting lasts a week??

To enter you post it into the comp thread in here, but add it to the DDN Flickr group as well.

Sarah set up cron job - I believe you have FTP details, is there anything else that you need to do it? (let me know and I'll sort it out) this should be weekly - midnight on a Sunday?

anyone not entering the comp will have Nige come round with the genital cuff - that hasn't been out for a bit!

Have I missed anything?

[rutty]

I'm happy with that

[Mr Anderson]

Sounds good to me, though a week might be a bit tight for the voting, especially closer to Christmas.

who won the last comp?

You did

[Mr Anderson]

who won the last comp?

You did

So pick a theme mister 

[Tony]

Sorry, building bloody flat pack all day.

Hows about 'Weather'

[Mr Anderson]

Sorry, building bloody flat pack all day.

Hows about 'Weather'

Done

[Britman]

I'm happy with that

The comp rules or Nige's cuffs?

[sarahA]

In theory the flickr photo bot is now set up to run at midnight. We'll find out in the morning (or at midnight if someone's still awake... I won't be!) if it worked

[Mr Anderson]

I want to participate in next photo competitions..It's helpful if you provide any detail related to New photo competitions... 

Getting that Lasik done will be helpful with reading the thread I guess