Photography Automotive Photo Competitions (Lets bring them back)

[VroomVroom]

Very slowly did the competitions die out, which was a great shame as they were brilliant. A lot of us have great tallent for photography.

So, I reckon we should bring them back. But I will not be able to do them any more as Im a busy guy these days. So would anyone kindly like to step-up and take the roll? The comps had a nice community feel about them!

 

[ateekt]

Hell yeah!! Never understood the point of discontinuing them in the 1st place. They're fun & encouraging. Bring them back!!

P.S; Professionals like Wimmer should be banned from the competitions! Or else, no other one will have a chance to win!

 

[VroomVroom]

Not enough entries, led to have to host them thortnightly and was a constant battle to get the entries in!

No no noo, thats not fair!! Lets make him accidently ban him during the entry time, and allow him back for voting, seems fair enough to me! Accidents happen you see

 

[Giannis]

I can help with the threads, if you guys want!

 

[Beemer B773ER]

That sounds like a great idea guys! ....and I know it was rejected before, but now that we're on the topic of photo competitions, how about re-instating the General Photo Competition to this site? We have an off-topic section, and even a Photography section, so it wouldn't be much of a problem. And from what I remember, the General Photo Comp' was very popular because more members were able to participate.

I too am putting my hand-up as a volunteer.

 

[cawimmer430]

P.S; Professionals like Wimmer should be banned from the competitions! Or else, no other one will have a chance to win!

Whoa, I'm no professional!

 

[VroomVroom]

That sounds like a great idea guys! ....and I know it was rejected before, but now that we're on the topic of photo competitions, how about re-instating the General Photo Competition to this site? We have an off-topic section, and even a Photography section, so it wouldn't be much of a problem. And from what I remember, the General Photo Comp' was very popular because more members were able to participate.

I too am putting my hand-up as a volunteer.

That'd be awsome aswell, we'd need approval from the big man who runs this joint!

Maybe you could hold the General comps, and Beemer could do the Automotive comps? Half the work load.

 

[NarutoRamen]

I'll be down to contribute. As now I have a good camera to actually take pics with. LOL

 

[VroomVroom]

I'll be down to contribute. As now I have a good camera to actually take pics with. LOL

Looks a nice camera in your pic, oh. You look hot aswell

 

[NarutoRamen]

Looks a nice camera in your pic, oh. You look hot aswell

HahaHa!!!! Dude, I'd be on that chick like white on rice.

 

[Michael]

RESTARTING PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITIONS

Alright, we have gone ahead and discussed this topic and have decided to go ahead and restart the photo competitions. As Giannis said above, he will be assisting with the moderation of the threads.

In the coming week we will have to work on some guidelines and maybe by the end of the following week (April 8th) we can start our first photo competition again.

If any of you want to assist in making the guidelines by all means please PM or post on this thread. Also, we should figure out whether we want to have one or two categories of photos. I think we should start off with one or two to see how things go and if we want later expand to other categories. So, for example, we can have a car photo contest and a general photo contest. In the latter we can have all kinds of pictures.

I think it should be noted, and something that should be obvious, that the person submitting the photograph should be the sole owner of the photograph and should not infringe on the copyright of anyone else. In addition, the alteration of photographs using photoshop or any photography program should be kept to a minimum and only used to fix the photo in order to reflect the true intention of the photographer.

All of those interested in contributing to this, once again, please post.

Being a photographer myself (haven't taken too many pictures in the last couple of months, though) I look forward to these competitions.


Cheers.


-Michael

 

[cawimmer430]

Here are some essential guidelines that come to mind.

1) All submitted photos must be taken by you.

2) Minimal Photoshop editing is allowed (virtual car cleaning, removal of trash/signs/people etc. in backgrounds etc.).

3) Image size restrictions (a maximum size of 1024 x 768)


Also, during the voting process I think people should explain why they voted for the photo they selected.

 

[Michael]

Wimmer, good catch on #3. We need to have a standard format of picture sizes and I think that size or lower is best to save space.

 

[Michael]

Tentative Competition Instructions (please feel free to edit/add stuff)


German Car Forum is pleased to announce the return of the weekly photo competitions. These are tentative rules/instructions for the competition. Competitions will be held every Friday. That is to say, on Fridays the polls will open displaying each photograph that was submitted. Participants will have the ability to vote for the photograph they like the most. Each photograph will have a number that will correspond to its selection on the poll.

Submitting Photographs

We would like to have contributors send in their photos as soon as possible so that they can be on display at least one day before voting begins. Therefore, you may submit your photograph between Monday and Wednesday and no later that Thursday evening.

At midnight on Thursday the opportunity to submit your photograph will be closed. After this time they will be on display on Friday and voting will commence. Voting will be held the entire day until closing, which would be midnight.

The following are the rules that will correspond to this competitions:

1. All photographs must be from the person who is submitting the photograph. In other words, you must be the sole owner of the photograph and you cannot infringe on anyone else's copyright. Any photograph that violates this rule will immediately be disqualified and withdrawn from the competition.

2. All photographs have to correspond to the competition. For example, if the competition is strictly an automative competition do not submit a picture of your house or a flower.

3. With respect to photo-editing, editing should be kept to a minimum. Editing should only be done to fix the photograph to show the true intent of the photographer. Excessive alteration of a photograph, i.e., excessive saturation, etc., will disqualify the photograph.

4. When submitting your photograph please make sure you are within the designated size for the photograph. For now we have decided on a tentative size of 1024 x 768.

5. You can re-submit a photo that did not win in the past. However, if your photo has already been selected, we ask you not to resubmit it.

6. If you wish to include a title with the photograph, you can do so. However, we only ask that you submit a photograph that corresponded to the aforementioned rules and a title/mini description.

7. Please do not submit a photograph that violates both domestic and international laws.

8. At the present moment, do not submit a photograph that contains a person in it. People at a distance in the photograph is acceptable if the point of the photograph is to convey a building, car(s), etc. However, close-ups of a person should not be submitted unless you have the consent of the person.

 

[Beemer B773ER]

In response to Michael's post on the tentative rules:

Regarding the rules. I think those that you have tentatively established will work very well. Of course the issue of image-editing is and will always be a gray-area, but I don't imagine people will stray too far from the rules, and if they do, it should be fairly obvious to us.
I like rule #5 (able to re-submit a losing photo), I think that will help keep participation up.

Also, looking back at the rules which were in place for the past photo competitions, these rule should be made clear:

- In the interest of fairness, entrants may not vote for their own photograph.

- Only one photograph per person and per week is permitted.

- The submitted photograph may not be changed once it has been entered.

Also, for one of the past Automotive Photo Comp's I submitted a photo of my new bicycle. At the time of submission I wasn't sure whether this would be deemed within the scope of 'Automotive'. Part of me thinks that it shouldn't have been, but then again, it is a mode of transportation. It might be a good idea to distinguish clearly what subject/s are allowed for the Automotive Comp...because if a bicycle can be allowed, then so could...say... a boat, or helicopter or aircraft on the basis of being a transportation vehicle. Maybe limit it to road-going modes of transport, or go one-step further and limit it to road-going motorized vehicles (thereby excluding photos of people using bicycles, roller blades, skateboards, and so on).

I think that's something that needs to be discussed. Of course the vast majority of the time people will post a photo of a car, but I myself have submitted photos of a bicycle, bus and even a truck, so the ability to stretch the definition of 'Automotive' is there if one wants to do so.

Other than that, all the other rules seem very clear, and remembering back to how the Photo Comp's were run, 99.9% of the time things ran smoothly.

 

[NarutoRamen]

Yeah...I say the automotive comp has to stay within the confines of "road-going" so cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc. And they must have a motor, not human powered.

All the rest can go into the general category. Yeah?

 

[VroomVroom]

Am impressed with the amount of interest this has taken!

The new rules all seem up to standard, I do agree that the 'automotive' comp should only contain road-going vehicals and photos may be re-entered but only if it has not won a previous competition.

One other thing aswell, Can voting be kept secret? So that the winner is announced at the start of each monday?

Aswell as the rules, does anyone want to change design of the submission thread? I.e this..

Congratulations to cawimmer430 for winning last weeks competition

(Winning photo here)

Automotive Photo Competition #184...
__________________
Rules:

• The submitted picture must have been taken by the submitter.
• Only one photograph per person and per week is permitted.
• The submitted photograph may not be changed once it has been entered.
• There are 5 days to submit your photograph, a poll will be created after five days for people to vote on. (Voting from Friday morning to Monday morning, then a new thread will be created Monday morning for entry)
• Your image must be a resolution of 1024*768 or lower. If it is not, your picture will not be in the voting thread.
• In the interest of fairness, entrants may not vote for their own photograph.
• The photograph should be submitted with: A Title, the date, and the type of camera.
  [*]Levels, Curves, Color Balance, Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, cropping, or anything else capable in the development process or with filters and common special lenses are allowed to use in Photoshop or other image editing software. Selective Color is allowed. Other adjustments and effects are not allowed to use in your picture.

 

[Beemer B773ER]

I think keeping the votes secret would be a great idea. Add a little suspense!

As for the design layout. Well, we're very limited in that regard because it's just text and images. Of course we could spice things up a bit and ask one of our photoshop/graphic designers on GCF to come up with a fancy 'germancarforum.com | Automotive Photo Competition' banner that we can use each time. It wouldn't do a thing to the layout, but it would look cool!

I do like Christian's idea of giving an explanation/description of the photo...but that could lead to people slowly not bothering to participate, so I think that's something that could be left as optional.

Also, I don't think it should be necessary to list the camera+lens that was used, nor the location and date. Again, if you want to list that stuff, then go for it, but I remember in the past competition it was required.

Also, I was just thinking,... do you think it would be a neat idea to create a separate gallery of the winning photos (with the members name included). That way we can keep a simple collection of awesome photos in one place rather than scattered in numerous threads? I'm not sure if GCF even has a gallery feature, and if it was possible I'm not sure if the mods would be willing to invest in it.

I see GCF is on Facebook. Any chance we could have a section on there, or even to post things about the comps?

I'm just throwing ideas out there before we start this baby up again!

 

[NarutoRamen]

^^Yeah, that facebook idea is pretty cool. Hell, we might be able to open a pole up for the general public too in that case. LOL

 

[Michael]

Thank you all!

Alright, I want to thank all of you that wanted to restart the competition. This is the opening week, so within a day or two we should have a thread open and we should start receiving our first photos. Thanks to VroomVroom for suggesting we start these again. Just a few notes:

The rules have yet to be finalized, but they will be shortly. I think most of you get the gist of what is required of you when it comes to submitting your photos.

We have two individuals who will be assisting by managing the photo comps. If you ever have questions, please feel free to contact them, me or any other mod on the team.

This is our opening week so we want to see lots of submissions and get the entire community involved.