Photo Competition ???

[Psyche]

When i think of digitally enhanced i see a picture that has anything extra or artificial added to it using Photo Shop. This means any 'artificial' bacgrounds or special effects such as flames, smoke, fog etc. There is a world of difference between creating flames in Photo Shop than compared to setting up real flames. This is where i think the two types of picture are quite different.

Ah, the can of worms is open. I was afraid of this. Some thoughts if you will:

1. The quote by Tim above is an nice one for folks to follow. Of couse film based photos can be lightened, resized, even cropped and yes, scannned, and so forth or they won't be online.  But there is world of difference between cropping a photo (digitally or with scissors!) and moving components about or adding things not originally there. 

2. As for how people "vote" ...I'm sure it differs...but elsewhere all but 1 or 2 "winners" were photoshopped significantly.   I've seen a simple photo of a couple of klickies with a "Monet" photo shop background win a prize (elsewhere) and that is bunk (IMHO).  . 

3. As for dark room vs. editing software: Gordon, dear man, you are typically so wise but here you are a bit silly.    Consider...um...$100 bucks (software) vs. $3000 (for a simple darkroom if one has space) + a few clicks vs. hours of work with chemicals. Not really the same thing I don't think. (And I know these costs having experimented with both.)

4. Who wins? Ok, how about bi-monthly "events" for the two types of photos (I do think we should let the customization issue wait a bit and not intrude on photography just yet) and at the end of the year folks can vote on the photos that should be in the calandar (the point of this exercise recall ). Both I and Hoppatussa have suggested this approach thus far.

5. I would hope (and desire) that film based and digital photographers could use this as a way to assist one another.

6. As for the competition aspect....this is always the biggest issue it seems and has ruined many contests.   Whatever happened to submitting your best because you wish to share it with others (and get some praise?) Or because you just took a great photo for the 1st time and are tickled pink (or blue for the hyper- macho among us) so you just want to show it off?

That said...for you "gotta win" types...How about you win the honor of teaching a tutorial on how you made your fantastic photo?  Really, I mean, what could be a greater honor than having your work displayed and knowing it is appreciated and your technique is sought after by others? (Maybe Sylvia will also send you a certificate or something.) Serious artists in the offline world are often thrilled to have their works displayed regardless of plaques, ribbons, and such...and often give "master workshops" that recognize their talent.

7. Finally...I would really hope folks would consider this an effort to make a cool calandar (something novel) rather than a chance to one-up other people or other forums.

I'm not moderating here just now but I hope these comments help. - Diana

[Tim_w]

Hello  Psyche / All

I just spent half an hour typing my response to the above but you beat me to it and besides you have put it so beautifully yourself i need not bother now . I totally agree with the points you have made. I think it would be a great idea to have a calendar as this is something that has not been tried before. I am also sure that we could draw up some guidelines to see us through it. As a general note on 'monthly' competitons please see below.

A General Note:

What i wanted to pick up on (calendar aside) is the fact that if we are going to have a competiton we do not want to make the same mistakes as other forums because as i said before we are different to that.
I have witnessed at first hand the trouble that even uttering the dreaded words 'competition' can cause and i have seen it allmost divide a community causing ill feeling that lasts for a long time. However it is quite interesting that the subject of the competition in question has recently been brought up aswell. It seems as though there are people who are just not happy unless there is some virtual award to be won. I am happy enough sharing my work with others rather than competing with them to be the best. The reward i get for my work is that hopefully i enspire people to have a go at customising themselves !!

Kindest Regards  Tim

[Tiermann]

Hi, I've only been mildly paying attention to this thread, but here are my comments anyway. I see the primary purpose of any photo competition to be the encouragement of people to post photos. It helps get you motivated when there is a deadline. I also think that while the motivation is good the whole competition part can get in the way. So here's my suggested plan:

1. We start a thread for ideas for possible theme photos for a calendar

2. The mods get together and pick perhaps the best 15 ideas from the thread - the idea here is that it gives lots of room for possibilities in the final calendar.

3. From the beginning (February?) through November the ideas are evenly spaced out and a schedule is created.

4. Each idea would have a thread to post photos in about that theme idea. The photos could be in any format digitally altered or not. A poll is created and left open for an extended period so members can vote. No prizes will be given - the purpose for voting is to find the most popular photos from that set.

5. In December a new poll is created. The entries in the final poll for the calendar would be the top vote earners from all the previous polls combined. Maybe the top 3 or 4 from each. It may be that more than one photo from the same theme may bring in high enough votes to get into the calendar. As long as they aren't overly seasonal (all Santas for instance) then that shouldn't matter. It would be the best of the best from the whole year.

6. Another possibility is to have some slots in the final poll that are decided by nomination from among the photos posted on the board over the whole year - they wouldn't have had to be in the theme threads at all - just ones that really stood out for people.

This is just an idea, but it seems to me like generalizing things a bit and allowing a whole year of photo posting before deciding anything that would go in to the calendar would be a nice way to go.

[deadeye dick]

Hi Tim,

I like your idea very much and I'm glad the calendar idea is back again 
The idea here should be that we, playmofriends, work as a team to produce the most beautiful playmocalendar in the world 
Working in a team also means that the result of the group is more important than the individual result, so sometimes you have to admit that another picture is nicer than yours...

Having a final poll with the top entries (2 or 3) of all previous polls is also brilliant - that's the way they do it in Belgium to choose a candidate for the Eurosong competition, even though the actual results are not that brilliant 

So, when will we start 

B.T.W. having a rotation scheme for the homepage is still a valuable idea that can be implemented besides the calendar contest, no?

[Sylvia]

having a rotation scheme for the homepage is still a valuable idea that can be implemented besides the calendar contest, no?

I think that is a great idea and I will do my best to make it happen.

Really, I'm happy with anything that gets decided re having a contest format vs. no contest, having the style of pics separate or together... as long as everyone else here is in agreement and no-one thinks their opinion hasn't been given due consideration.

[deadeye dick]

I am very happy so far... I really think we should go for Tim's idea 

Actually I'm very jalous of 'real photographers' that make the nicest pictures without enhancing them (B.T.W. can somebody give me a hint how I could make a nice pic of a sunset - I'll make a new thread of this). I wish I could do the same. Now, what I try to do for my pictures is to have a background I shot myself during holidays... The Victory background comes from a place called Panermos somewhere in Crete... And I can assure you, some more holiday pics are coming your way 

[Richard]

Hello, DD ...

Click HERE and tell me if this is what you had in mind for a sunset. If so, I'm happy to tell you how to shoot beautiful sunsets with a digital camera.

All the best,
Richard

[Little Jo]

There should be at least one person that is the head of the photo contest who enforces the rules and picks themes for the month.  Themes can be picked also by poll.. come up with a few ideas and poll to see what the majority is most interested in that month.

Speaking very quiet and not wanting to mess up all the things already said here (which -- seen from different angles -- are nearly all making sense and are valid thoughs as far it concerns myself). I just want to give my  and want to remark: I like your suggestions, especially the one to limitate the number how often a single person can win a year (in the case we are going for a "regular" contest), because this would also give those people a chance who are no geniuses in arts crafts.
But I want to make a remark to the suggestion for the rule quoted above ("Themes can be picked also by poll") that this might exclude some people from participation, because I got the impression, that some Playmobil themes are more popular (in a broader mass) than other ones. Those members focusing on a less popular theme might never get the chance to show their ideas or work (at least in the contest  ) So I hope the term "themes" is not only ment in the sense of Playmobil themes (like "Construction", "Dollhouse", "Safari"), but more in a broader sense like "Winter", "Friendship", "Peace".

I also would like to make the remark that defining a specific topic or theme for a month, this also could lead to "endless" and heavy discussions, because association of people to a specific topic are quite different and sometimes not understandable to others, which could end up, that a contribution will be reject because of "off-topic". (I have made some experiences with this in a non-playmobil related photo contest which was coupled with a discussion forum, and I can say, that these not always have been nice ...)

[Psyche]

Thanks for your quiet words Jochen. I don't know but I think Hoppatussa was referring to "themes" as in topics (e.g. Spring, Celebration, Vacation, and so forth.)  It would be nice to have such photographic themes worked out for the year before starting so some of us busy/slow people can lots of time. That would do away with having to slog through a discussion as to what the topic should be each month.  Perhaps we can have folks suggest general themes (as Tiermann suggests) and then if there are more than 12 we can run a poll.


As for someone being "in charge" ...my 2 cents is that if there should be 2 people who can agree to work well together respectfully. This is important as people leave, have family/emotional/financial crises, have a busy month or whatever. So two-three folks who are willing to take on guideance and organization (not bossing or dictating) may work best.  That way we don't have one person making unilateral decisions or someont disappearing and leaving the project in a lurch.

Finally,  I also like Tiermann's idea to not make any "for sure" decisions on the calandar until all is said and done. One never knows what will be a year from now...or even a month from now. Perhaps one of the "terms" for entry can simply be that people agree that if selected, they give permission for their photo to be used if/when PlaymoFriends makes a calandar, while making sure the creator/photographer retains full rights and ownership of their work.

Oh, and one last word on the film vs. digital categories. As it seems most people do digital here...how about we have 2 digital contests then 1 film based....this will encourage both types of photographers to try both formats--something I know I find fun and challenging. Even if they just borrow a camera. As someone pointed out earlier, today's film based "point and shoots" take some pretty amazing photos, I'll happily loan mine if needed...and it's about 8 years old but still takes better outdoor shots than my Sony digicam, which I also love.

[Tim_w]

Hello  Diana / All 

Not wanting to go too deep into the debate about Photo Shop again but here is a quickie on the film vs digital idea  .

I think it is more down to wether you use a Photo Shop package and camera to 'create' your picture rather than just a camera be it film or digital. I personally use a digital camera but steer clear of using Photo Shop because it is expensive and i do not own a copy of it. Using a film based camera is similar to using a digital allthough it is less convinient and more hit and miss. It is also harder to get one to focus on close up objects but for all intents and purposes the final results are similar.
Differences between pictures in my oppinion come into it when you use a Graphics package to create your picture as opposed to when you don't. You can certainly create a lot more different effects and results using Photo Shop than you can when you just use a camera. So is it fair to compare a picture who's snowy backdrop has been added seperatley through Photo Shop to someone who crawled on their hands and knees through real snow to get just the right shot ? This is why i think there should be a seperate catergory for Non Photo Shop enhanced pictures. Then leave it up to an indipendent judge to decide wether the photo shop manipulation is too much for a picture to enter the non photo shop catergory. I mean who is going to argue if the only Photo Shop manipulation in a picture is for exapmle a flame added to a burning torch ? Its just a matter of the judge using their discretion.
As for the calendar if it goes ahead then as i said before i have no problem with a selection of pictures from either style being picked.

Kindest Regards  Tim