Reminder of the rules!

I am sorry that I have not said anything sooner and that some of you have done this for both challenges now, but I need to stop it now before it becomes an issue. This was brought up to me by one of the judges and it is a clear violation of the rules. I am sure that it was overlooked as I had to reread the rules to be sure that it was a rule. First let me talk about another issue that will be dealt with later, the rules state that each of the images must be uploaded anonymously and that I would give each of you a unique id to use to upload your images so that know one would know who's images are who's. I have not given anyone a unique id and I don't intend to at this time but if you guys think it would be best, we can go this route sooner than later. That is the best way to be anonymous, this however is not the rule in question but it will have to be dealt with soon I am sure. The rule that is in question I will be starting to enforce during March's challenge. The rule states that the images must be uploaded without any words of description and no names or titles. I will start enforcing this rule based on the fact that I feel that the image must speak for itself. Any person viewing your image should be able to understand the theme just from looking at the image. Sorry if this sounds harsh but if your image needs a description to express the theme then it probably shouldn't be entered. The idea of this challenge is to make us as photographers really think about our image and use the camera to capture the theme.

O.K. guys let me say that the judging was a bit messed up this month, I don't know if I didn't make myself clear enough or what. I am able to announce a winner even though all the judges didn't judge everyone. One of us had a perfect score from all of the judges. Therefore there is no way the rest of us can beat him. So Congratulations go to Jeff West this month for his image of the guy with the bad habit and messy hair. By the way Jeff is also the model in his image, sort of a self portrait I guess. All kidding aside it was a great image and when I first saw it I knew that I wasn't going to win. Way to go Jeff, you get the bragging rights for the next month and you get to name the next challenge.

Before I tell what Jeff has decide on for the next challenge I would like to say welcome to 3 new photographers. They are being named in the order that they accepted their invitation to join. Welcome David Jackson, Todd Kuhns and Saralee Lenhart. It is no longer a male only competition guys we have a lady among us now. For you newbies the other 4 photographers are myself (Gary Phillips), Earl Pitman, Jeff West and Bryce Holland. So welcome and II look forward to seeing what images you will each come up with for the March Challenge.

O.K. the new challenge is Roadside Distractions. The rules for this post are the same as always and the rules that are specific to this challenge are as follows. First we mean literal roadside distractions not metaphorical ones, and you must include the road in your image not just the distraction. i.e. if your roadside distraction is on the highway you must include the highway in your image. That is it so good hunting everyone. A reminder to the newbies you must post your image by midnight the 20th, any image uploaded after that will not be judged.

Photoman - aka - Gary Phillips

For the Judges

I need to apologize to the judges, I forgot to tell them this last month so I am letting them know now. Sorry to drop the ball on you, if you have any questions please let me know.

Let me tell you how the judging will work. The judging board consists of 3 judges, who will have 7 days to judge the images and and email me with their results. I will then tally the results and post them for all to see, any discrepancies will be dealt with publicly on the blog so that everyone will know that I am not cheating. Rules for the judges - Rule #1 - All images must be judged by midnight on the 27th. Rule #2 - If a judge finds out who an image belongs to they cannot judge for that month and must let me know so that I can find an alternate judge for that months competition. Judging Criteria - (The basic criteria for each months competition will not change, some months there may be special criteria that the judges will be looking for.) There are 5 areas that each image will be judged for and 4 of the areas are worth a maximum of 5 points One area is worth 10 points, so a perfect score is 30 points. Areas of judging are 1. Composition - 5pts 2. Relevance to Topic 5 - pts 3. Artistic Expression 10 - pts 4. Focus 5 - pts and 5. Exposure 5 pts. As you can see the technical areas are worth less than the artistic area, I want you to push yourself to be more artistic than technical. But I also have it set up so that you cannot win it on artistic expression only. All images should be technically sound as well as artistic. These rules and criteria will be basic for each of the competitions, below you will find the Challenge for this month and any specific rules related to this months competition.

Photoman

Love in the Streets

This month's challenge made me think long and hard on how I would shoot this. My original plan was to compose another "oh, that's so sweet" shot. Well, I think God had a different plan.

I went with our Journalism class on their photoshoot for their next issue of The Spectrum; and would you know it, their theme is love! That got me to thinking. Jesus often demonstrated his unconditional love in unconventional ways, often in dirty environments. Think about it. The ten lepers would not have smelled or looked very nice when Jesus healed them!

So that is why I'm titling my entry "Love in the Streets." I'm pretty sure that you'll get it once you see it.

Unconditional Love

Unconditional Love

Unconditional Love

Private Fair stands proudly at the entrance to the Dayton VA Medical Center, as a never ending reminder, to all, of the Unconditional Love … given by the men and women who have served in the Military and in some cases made the ultimate sacrifice. Private Fair, we salute you all!

36 hours to go!

36 hours to get your images posted.

36 hours to go!

36 hours to get your images posted.

Unconditional Love...?!

This is a great twist to the ever long and sterotyped V-day crap. Gary, I think you've hit it head on! This is a tough one, and I look forward to seeing everybodies work!

Above all things, do this for our Lord, and then have fun doing it! Peace,
jeff

And the winner is.......

O.K. let me first apologize for the way the judging was handled. At the beginning of the challenge I set up guidelines for the judging but then when it came time for the judging I forgot to tell the judges the guidelines. So the judging was not done on a point basis as I had planned. I also want to apologize if you think the judging was a bit harsh. I wasn't going to allow the judges to post critiques but then I decide that it was good for us to hear what other people think when they see our images so I allowed the critiques to remain a part of the judging process. Please try and take the criticism with a spirit of grace and meekness. The 3rd judge in particular was a bit harsh but I felt that the judges remarks are what you would expect in a true photography competition with open professional judges. That said I am going to instruct all of the judges to tone it down a bit in the future. My intention for this blog is for it to help us learn about photography and our cameras so that we will be better photographers. If I don't allow critiques from the judges we will not learn how to compose our images better in the future.

That said I will now explain the way I chose the winner for this months challenge. I had 3 judges judge each of the images 1st through 4th place. Each image was awarded a place by each judge. 1st place = 4 pts, 2nd place = 3 pts, 3rd place = 2 pts and 4th place = 1 pt. So for instance if an image received 1 1st place vote and 2 3rd place votes the total scores would be 8 points. The image that scores the most points will be the winner for this months challenge.

4th place winner = Eyes of Time with 5 points by Earl Pitman
3rd place winner = Elowen with 6 points by Bryce Holland
2nd place winner = Brown Eyes with 8 points by Jeff West
1st place winner = Eyes with 9 points by Gary Phillips

Winner of the challenge wins the opportunity to pick the theme for an upcoming challenge and bragging rights for the next month.

Next month is the month of Valentines day so I thought it would be appropriate for the theme to relate to love, but I wanted to narrow our focus a bit so instead of just saying the theme is love I decided that the theme for February will be "UNCONDITIONAL LOVE". I gave you a head start but the image still has to be shot on or after Feb 1st and on or before Feb 20th.

Congratulations to everyone but I really want to get more people involved. I would like to see about 10 photographers by March. I want everyone to try and invite one other photographer to participate and have them signed up by March 1st.

Photoman

Brown Eyes

Here is an image by the remaining participant of this months competition. I sure hope we can get some more people to get involved. Rodger is still having trouble with his email account and has not been able to accept my invitation and he didn't even know until a day so ago what the topic was for this month. He was supposed to try and email me the image so that I could upload his as well but I never received them. So it looks like just four of us this month. Judging starts in 45 minutes. Good luck, I think I will probably post the next challenge tomorrow sometime so we will have more time to work on the next competition. I hope you all had fun submit some of your ideas for topics and I will try to rotate in some of your ideas as well.

Photoman

Eyes of time

Eyes that have seen 90 years of joy and sorrow but can still look with excitement to the future. Smile on Ruth (her Eyes reflect her beautiful smile)

Eyes

Photography Challenge post

Thanks goes to a couple at church who loves photography themselves! Her name is Elowen.

By the way, it's harder than you think to shoot close-up pictures of a 6 month old baby!

3 more days until the deadline!

Just wanted to remind everyone that there is only 3 more days till the deadline. I got my image today and will be posting it on the 20th. Don't forget to get your images posted before the 21st.

Photoman

True Dat!

Hey photographic challengers! It's your whiny friend. Actually Gary, I didn't whine....I flat out complained! It was a legit question though, in my defense.

I have to say, the "10 ways to tell if you're a photographer" is TRUE DAT! Hit it right on the head!

As far as emailing the images vs. uploading them to the blog, I could go either way. For the sake of competition, I'd side on the emailing. Since we're all friends, and only bragging rights are involved, I kinda side on posting them. That's my worthless 2¢.

Peace,
jeff

One vote for email!

10 ways to tell if you’re a photographer

1 GB of memory lasts most people a month but barely lasts you the afternoon.

You know what aperture-priority means.

You delete more photos in a week than most people make all year.

You need just one more lens.

You’ve crawled on the ground to get a shot of something rusty.

Your camera equipment is worth more than your car.

No one else brings a camera to an event if they know you’re coming.

Your family doesn’t recognize you without a camera covering your face.

You have thousands of pictures and you’re not in any of them.

You’ve been up before dawn or out in the freezing cold or even done something semi-dangerous… all for a photograph.

I found this on facebook and I thought it was so true, I had to share it with you guys.

Our First Challenge

The competition just got announced today and we already got a whiner. I'm not going to mention any names but Jeff oops did I type that, has already started complaining. So yes it has to be physical eyes at least for this month. I just realized that there is no way to make a post without your name going on with it, so we have 2 choices. 1. We can all upload and not worry about the fact that the judges will know who the images belong to. OR 2. Each of you can email me your images and I will upload them all. This way, no one but me and you will know which one is yours. I will let you guys decide what you want to do, so make a post with your decision of which way you prefer to go. Whichever way gets the most votes is the way we will handle it. As for making adjustments to the image, I would have to say that I think minor adjustments in Adobe Raw would be o.k. but only minor. I am allowing exposure adjustment as much as-1 stop to +1 stop but no more than that. So other minor adjustments in Adobe Raw (no LR) would be o.k. BUT NO CROPPING, None Whatsoever. All Images must be full frame right out of the Camera. Remember we will have other challenges later this year that will be more creative and will have a no limits to what you can do, until then you will have to live within these confines. I like Ansel but he would suck like the rest of us in this competition. If we all play by the rules we are all on a level playing field.

O.K. guys it is Jan. 1st, I hope that everyone who is a part of "A Photographic Challenge" whether as a participant or as a judge has a great time and a good year. This is a new endeavor as you all know and I am figuring this out as we go, so I hope it isn't to bumpy of a road we are heading down.

Let me explain some basic instructions and then I will get more specific with instructions for this months challenge. As you should know this is the first of 12 challenges that will occur each month. Here are some of the rules that I would like us all to adhere to (keep in mind there is no way that I can enforce these rules). If I find out that you have knowingly violated a rule you will be eliminated from that months competition and the next one as well. If repeated offenses of the rules are happening you will simply be kicked out of the competition. I am sure that none of this is necessary but without rules their is no competition. Rule #1 - All participants must use a digital SLR (sorry no film). Rule #2 - You must shoot in a manual setting i.e. M - manual, AV - aperture priority or TV - shutter priority. No automatic settings please, the purpose of this competition is for us to learn more about our cameras and become better photographers. Rule #3 - No manipulation of the images in computer. (exceptions to this rule are: sharpening, dpi, B&W, minor exposure adjustments 1 stop up or down max.) Examples of illegal manipulations - Cropping, colorizing, removing objects from image, clone stamping, straightening image horizon, hue and saturation, etc. Once again, let me remind you that the goal of this challenge is to encourage us to become better photographers, these things should all be done before we take the photo. Rule #4 - All images must be posted by the 20th of each month. Images posted after midnight on the 20th will not be allowed in the judging. Rule #5 - All entries must be shot between the 1st and the 20th of the competition month to be eligible for that months competition. I.E. if you have a great image from last year that would fit this months competition you can't use it. If it is the month of March 2009 then the image must be made between March 1st 2009 and March 20th 2009. Rule #6 - All images must be uploaded Anonymously. When you upload your image you cannot write anything about it, just post an image only. No name or nickname for you or the image is allowed. I will give each one a unique I.D. # for the judges sake once they are uploaded. That is all that I can think of at the moment, I am sure that more general rules will become apparent once we get this thing going. Let me tell you how the judging will work. The judging board consists of 3 judges, who will have 7 days to judge the images and and email me with their results. I will then tally the results and post them for all to see, any discrepancies will be dealt with publicly on the blog so that everyone will know that I am not cheating. Rules for the judges - Rule #1 - All images must be judged by midnight on the 27th. Rule #2 - If a judge finds out who an image belongs to they cannot judge for that month and must let me know so that I can find an alternate judge for that months competition. Judging Criteria - (The basic criteria for each months competition will not change, some months there may be special criteria that the judges will be looking for.) There are 5 areas that each image will be judged for and 4 of the areas are worth a maximum of 5 points One area is worth 10 points, so a perfect score is 30 points. Areas of judging are 1. Composition - 5pts 2. Relevance to Topic 5 - pts 3. Artistic Expression 10 - pts 4. Focus 5 - pts and 5. Exposure 5 pts. As you can see the technical areas are worth less than the artistic area, I want you to push yourself to be more artistic than technical. But I also have it set up so that you cannot win it on artistic expression only. All images should be technically sound as well as artistic. These rules and criteria will be basic for each of the competitions, below you will find the Challenge for this month and any specific rules related to this months competition.
January's competition category is "Eyes" from a living organism, i.e. human, animal, bug, etc. No plants or non living organisms.
Remember to upload an image only, by midnight on the 20th.
Happy Shooting
Photoman

Tomorrow is the 1st are you ready?

I haven't decided yet what the theme for January is going to be, I have a few themes in mind and none of them really jump out at me as the one to choose. I will make a decision and before noon tomorrow you will see a post with the challenge theme. This first post will also have some general rules and judging criteria so it will be a bit of reading. Gotta get the rules out of the way though. Anyway look tomorrow and you will see what your challenge is.

Gary

5 days until the first challenge starts!

Only 5 more days and I will post the 1st photography challenge, so get out and shoot. Get your creative juices flowing I don't want to hear any complaints when I kick your butts in this competition next month! Don't forget to look here on January 1st for the theme and any rules that I will post to go with the theme.

Photoman