I'm tempted to restart the competitions, discuss

[Rojin]

ElDude and King4aDay for starters.


This isn't about dumbing down the competition but making it more appealing for a broader spectrum of photographers and generating more interest and more submissions. In fact dropping themes or extending the submission time will almost certainly improve the quality of submissions and thus make the competition even more interesting.

You're trying to give the impression that there was a great untapped source of photographers active on the forum who would not enter the competition due to it having a theme. Sure some struggled with the theme (I did every month!) but participation was still decent, as already mooted perhaps the themes should all be thought out before the comp starts. You already listed a number of approaches that you used to help you with photography, guess what they are also themes that could be used to help everybody.

Removing themes and extending the submission time isn't likely to improve the quality at all. Nobody will be shooting with the competition in mind, all anyone will do is pick their favourite shot just before the deadline from the previous months. Currently we already see those in the likes of the PYPH thread (or did until it was closed). All you'll be doing is adding a scoring element... It's not going to drive creativity or discussion. Even with the themed competition, you'd at least get discussion over how much everyone hated the theme

I don't know what the answer in this forum is, we've tried pic threads with a topic, we've tried critique threads, we've tried PP before and after threads, we've pushed the "post your own thread for critique" etc. type threads. Sadly the only busy threads tend to be the ones slinging matches over gear

In years gone by we have the likes of Mr Jones, famas, Gaffer, Martin Turner, SteveOBHave, Derek W, Hodders, Willis, robertgilbert86, Wedge, ScarySquirrel, Greedy123, Oxygen, p0ss3s3d, Mud, PaulStat, sketch145 and others (even TBL!) who used to be active in the forum discussions and also sometimes the competitions. All of them posting varied work, in addition to those still around today. Traffic and discussion used to be much higher. Perhaps we just don't have the right type of people at the moment to be keeping the forum alive and buzzing? I know I'm certainly more of a lurker than a poster!

The only regular discussion and banter we get now is arguing over gear! Perhaps a gear sub forum, and a ban on gear debates in the main photo forum might stimulate more productive photography discussion? I'm not convinced though!

 

[King4aDay]

I tried to get back into it. Back in the day when I wasn't shooting anything specific work wise or personal projects wise I had time to go out and shoot specifically for a competition but since then if I shot a project and a photo fell into a category for that month's competition I'd maybe submit it.

In part it was laziness setting in and secondly I was never a fan on long drawn out guidelines/rules as I prefer to just get on with the practical aspect and share the results. The fewer politics the better we focus on the actual art no?

Exactly. Allow people to showcase the best art they're able to produce within a given time frame - the stuff they're most passionate about or proud of. I'm sure there'll be more entries this way than if using themes, and possibly of a higher overall quality.

I also really don't see any difficulty in comparing photos from different genres, especially if using a popular vote rather than judges marks in some fairly arbitrary criteria. Normally in any particular set of images there will be one or two that really jump out at you, regardless of the genre/theme/subject matter.

Keep it simple, maybe promote it in GD, encourage as many people as possible to enter and then once people are attracted back into the photography forum a few more might be tempted to stick around and post more stuff.

Regardless of the points sytem used I think another nice touch would be to have a 'Photo of the Year' popular vote at the end, where people can choose their favorite of the 12 winning monthly photos. That way even if you're miles behind on points there's still some incentive to keep trying to win the monthly comps.

 

[D.P.]

You're trying to give the impression that there was a great untapped source of photographers active on the forum who would not enter the competition due to it having a theme. Sure some struggled with the theme (I did every month!) but participation was still decent, as already mooted perhaps the themes should all be thought out before the comp starts. You already listed a number of approaches that you used to help you with photography, guess what they are also themes that could be used to help everybody.

Removing themes and extending the submission time isn't likely to improve the quality at all. Nobody will be shooting with the competition in mind, all anyone will do is pick their favourite shot just before the deadline from the previous months. Currently we already see those in the likes of the PYPH thread (or did until it was closed). All you'll be doing is adding a scoring element... It's not going to drive creativity or discussion. Even with the themed competition, you'd at least get discussion over how much everyone hated the theme

I don't know what the answer in this forum is, we've tried pic threads with a topic, we've tried critique threads, we've tried PP before and after threads, we've pushed the "post your own thread for critique" etc. type threads. Sadly the only busy threads tend to be the ones slinging matches over gear

In years gone by we have the likes of Mr Jones, famas, Gaffer, Martin Turner, SteveOBHave, Derek W, Hodders, Willis, robertgilbert86, Wedge, ScarySquirrel, Greedy123, Oxygen, p0ss3s3d, Mud, PaulStat, sketch145 and others (even TBL!) who used to be active in the forum discussions and also sometimes the competitions. All of them posting varied work, in addition to those still around today. Traffic and discussion used to be much higher. Perhaps we just don't have the right type of people at the moment to be keeping the forum alive and buzzing? I know I'm certainly more of a lurker than a poster!

The only regular discussion and banter we get now is arguing over gear! Perhaps a gear sub forum, and a ban on gear debates in the main photo forum might stimulate more productive photography discussion? I'm not convinced though!

I'm not at all saying there are many untapped photographers that would enter the competition. As you point out, the forum is quiet and may of the regulars don't post here. Many of them are somewhat active on other sections of OCUK but don't venture back here much. I highly doubt a regular themed competition would bring them back, they left for various reasons and the competition slowly died. They didn't leave because of the lack of competition.
I know some of the people rarely do much photography anymore, a few have popped in here saying as much (some have even sold off much of their gear).




Again, we can agree to disagree about a themeless competition but it is obvious to me that themes with tight deadlines make the competition completely useless for at least some portion of the forum. MRK has basically suggested the same joining king4aday, Eldude, myself and , I know in the previous thread from the summer many others suggested the same thing. Perhaps there could be a poll set up. Maybe we would be divided into roughly 2 groups which in itself posses a problem.

Having the competition themeless I am sure will increase the quality of submission because people are free to contrate on styles, genres and scenes that they are most passionate about without worrying about some specific theme they don't care about. Rules, regulations and restrictions block creativity, invention and freedom of expression.



As for separating gear talk. I don't see what that will achive. Gear is a popular to
Ic here because the whole OCUK forum is about gear, computers, overclocking, technology, performance. It is not like when someone posts asking for feedback people jump in and said you should have used camera X. Seperateing gear from other topics will Likely create a forum of moderately active gear talk and a quiter sub forum of supposed critique and technique. People want spontaneously start posting more critique threads. Ultimately I have never found a place online that is remotely useful for getting good critique. Forums just arent good platform for such feedback IMO.

 

[Rojin]

A lazy themeless competition isn't really going to achieve anything though is it? Once every 3 months you'll possibly have an active thread where voting takes place (assuming entries are emailed in). 4 times a year... All this talk to of needing time to prepare my art and capture the light reflecting off the beetles wing at 7:15:39 in the morning in an area that took you two months to scope out might be attractive to you, but it will just sound elitist to the casual forumite that needs to be engaged and challenged in order to enter the competition and join in the forum discussion.

As for separating the gear talk? The petty point scoring that derailed more or less every thread is the reason I don't bother with this forum very much anymore. There are plenty of other places I can find information without having information that isn't asked for or even relevant rammed down my throat.

 

[King4aDay]

How can you see a themeless comp as elitist? It makes it far easier for anyone to enter with any shot they like from the whole month. For occasional shooters, specialists and learners with perhaps low keeper rates it makes entering far easier.

 

[Phate]

Wow, thread explosion. I leave you lot alone for a few days and look what happens

Will read through and post my thoughts at lunch time

 

[Zogger]

I don't think this is going anywhere unless you have a poll on the format people prefer - but the options for the poll need to be thought through carefully first..

I personally don't think there was anything inherently wrong with the old style. It was very active for a long time and I don't think the format was the cause of it dying.

You could always go for something random like 6 weeks, even if it doesn't fit in to a year quite as well. I also like having the theme decided at least a bit further in advance which gives you more time to consider, if you had the themes decided 2 months in advance you should also be able to take that picture from as soon as the theme is decided (i.e. while another comp is going on).

good theme choice is essential because a good theme will encapsulate all styles of photography while still providing a challenge to incorporate it into the image.

I think it would be interesting if there was both a public poll (possibly even in GD) and an internal more detailed vote only for the people who took part - a la Strictly come dancing - the 'public' vote would influence the result but not be deciding - it would only count for 50% of the result. (Or we could have two winners, one 'people's choice' and one internal.) Having a vote in GD would increase the audience of the comp and encourage more entries. We could have a pilot month to test it out and see how it goes. My only concern is that the GD masses would vote without considering the theme.

 

[cokecan]

I love the idea of reviving the competition in one form or another and there are some interesting ideas in this thread.

For me I feel themeless is a bad way to go. I used the themes as a way to encourage me to try new styles/take photos of things I wouldn't usually do. Yes I struggled with some months but that was part of the fun for me. If it went themeless I think I'd lose the motivation to enter without a specific goal in mind.

My Idea: What if the themes were simply photography techniques rather than subjects? So February's competition could be Rule of Thirds, March could be Bokeh etc. It helps the beginners learn good technique and possibly even remind the more seasoned among us that don't necessarily use all the techniques very often? It also leaves the subject relatively open to be anything you want (i.e. if you want to enter a wedding photo every month that complies with that months specified technique, then go for it). They could also be specified in advance for the year if need be once everyone agreed on the techniques.

Monthly still feels fine with me, any less and I think people may lose interest while waiting between themes. Likewise the scoring should be done a bit quicker than the last competition was for the same reason.

As for voting/scoring....Peer marking by those that have entered seems like a good idea, whether its via email or a thread

Just my 2p

 

[Columbo]

How can you see a themeless comp as elitist? It makes it far easier for anyone to enter with any shot they like from the whole month. For occasional shooters, specialists and learners with perhaps low keeper rates it makes entering far easier.

I still don't see how a themeless comp can be judged without context, as I said previously how can one of Ray's wedding shots be judged against a macro shot or an urbex shot from mrk without knowing the context by which it was entered.

The judging will be a random as the entries.

Without themes all we'll get is landscape shooters entering a landscape for every comp or people photographers entering portraits everytime.

We'll all have different opinions on how we'd like to see it done but ultimately we need to just get something going, anything, everything........just lets get something started.

Hell the 1st months theme could even be 'free for all' and if we get a shed load of entries then we know a themeless comp could be the way forward....or not.

 

[Rojin]

How can you see a themeless comp as elitist? It makes it far easier for anyone to enter with any shot they like from the whole month. For occasional shooters, specialists and learners with perhaps low keeper rates it makes entering far easier.

Why would I enter a shot as an occasional shooter when there are those that want the quarterly themeless competition so they can dedicate more time to creating a shot that will see the standards of competition entry improve? It certainly doesn't appear to be a nice friendly comp that a happy snapper such as myself would like to enter and feel I have a chance in.

I know that there are far better photographers in this forum than myself, who routinely produce great work. It'll be a breeze for them to enter their favourite shot from the applicable time period, without even having to have given the competition any thought whatsoever, that will be far better than anything I can produce. At least with having a theme it gave an extra edge of interpretation that levelled the playing field a touch.

I don't have any interest in an easy competition, there's no motivation for me to enter it.

 

[Zogger]

mash-up is the way to go... theme one month, no theme the next month
next month we have to take the picture while doing a headstand. Mix things up a bit and everyone will be happy.

other ideas...

set-of-3 shots month
'no cropping allowed' month (bit difficult to police)




note: these aren't really serious suggestions, but I don't think it's a bad idea to do a free for all theme more often than once a year. It's like when you're playing pictionary and you get the all play card. See my next post for more

 

[chet84]

Why would I enter a shot as an occasional shooter when there are those that want the quarterly themeless competition so they can dedicate more time to creating a shot that will see the standards of competition entry improve? It certainly doesn't appear to be a nice friendly comp that a happy snapper such as myself would like to enter and feel I have a chance in.

I know that there are far better photographers in this forum than myself, who routinely produce great work. It'll be a breeze for them to enter their favourite shot from the applicable time period, without even having to have given the competition any thought whatsoever, that will be far better than anything I can produce. At least with having a theme it gave an extra edge of interpretation that levelled the playing field a touch.

I don't have any interest in an easy competition, there's no motivation for me to enter it.

I haven't said anything in a while, but i've been closely following this thread. I have to fully agree with what Rojin has said here - my photography skills are very basic and nowhere near the level of most photographers on this forum. Having an open themed competition with more time will only turn the competition into something for the experienced photographer.

 

[Rojin]

I don't think this is going anywhere unless you have a poll on the format people prefer - but the options for the poll need to be thought through carefully first..

I personally don't think there was anything inherently wrong with the old style. It was very active for a long time and I don't think the format was the cause of it dying.

You could always go for something random like 6 weeks, even if it doesn't fit in to a year quite as well. I also like having the theme decided at least a bit further in advance which gives you more time to consider, if you had the themes decided 2 months in advance you should also be able to take that picture from as soon as the theme is decided (i.e. while another comp is going on).

good theme choice is essential because a good theme will encapsulate all styles of photography while still providing a challenge to incorporate it into the image.

I think it would be interesting if there was both a public poll (possibly even in GD) and an internal more detailed vote only for the people who took part - a la Strictly come dancing - the 'public' vote would influence the result but not be deciding - it would only count for 50% of the result. (Or we could have two winners, one 'people's choice' and one internal.) Having a vote in GD would increase the audience of the comp and encourage more entries. We could have a pilot month to test it out and see how it goes. My only concern is that the GD masses would vote without considering the theme.

That voting system would certainly be worth trying I reckon.

I love the idea of reviving the competition in one form or another and there are some interesting ideas in this thread.

For me I feel themeless is a bad way to go. I used the themes as a way to encourage me to try new styles/take photos of things I wouldn't usually do. Yes I struggled with some months but that was part of the fun for me. If it went themeless I think I'd lose the motivation to enter without a specific goal in mind.

My Idea: What if the themes were simply photography techniques rather than subjects? So February's competition could be Rule of Thirds, March could be Bokeh etc. It helps the beginners learn good technique and possibly even remind the more seasoned among us that don't necessarily use all the techniques very often? It also leaves the subject relatively open to be anything you want (i.e. if you want to enter a wedding photo every month that complies with that months specified technique, then go for it). They could also be specified in advance for the year if need be once everyone agreed on the techniques.

Monthly still feels fine with me, any less and I think people may lose interest while waiting between themes. Likewise the scoring should be done a bit quicker than the last competition was for the same reason.

As for voting/scoring....Peer marking by those that have entered seems like a good idea, whether its via email or a thread

Just my 2p

Exactly, the themes weren't always cryptic. They did occasionally also just cover a technique. This is why if themes are to be chosen it would be a good idea to have them all sorted before the competition starts (that'll take weeks in itself ), the winner of a round then picks from the agreed list. You'll never please everyone, but at least there should be some months that people would be happy to enter?

 

[Zogger]

I know there are a lot of ideas in this thread already and adding more is just going to confuse people, but perhaps instead of having a year long 'season' we have a 4 month season with 3 themes and a free for all.

And perhaps all the themes are decided up front and the pictures can be taken at any time during the season up until the deadline for that theme. You would have less time for the first theme but more time for the rest of them. So you would have the whole quarter to get your best free for all shot.

Then say the overall winner is the best 2 or 3 scores out of 4 rounds, or the best free for all plus the best 2 of the other 3 rounds.


(p.s. I do like the idea of anonymous voting and it's not an issue for me, but some people may not be happy with unwatermarked shots and would at least want something in the exif for copyright which would break that to some extent.)

 

[King4aDay]

I don't think even DP is arguing strongly for quarterly themeless; that would be quite extreme and hard to maintain interest. We all know the forum is currently quiet for a raft of reasons, but there's some evidence to suggest that participation in previous comps fell off or was limited at least partly due to theme restrictions (amongst other things). Why not try a different format and see if it works better? If it dies on its arse then so be it, but I reckon it stands a better chance than the old format which struggled even when the forum was more active.

 

[Rojin]

It should be mentioned that there was an open round in the previous competition with no theme, it never resulted in a surge of entries. It was still the same faces who entered.

 

[King4aDay]

It should be mentioned that there was an open round in the previous competition with no theme, it never resulted in a surge of entries. It was still the same faces who entered.

Perhaps because if you're competitive or haven't previously engaged with the comp because of the theme limitations there seems to be little point in entering a single round in a 12-round competition.

 

[Rojin]

Perhaps because if you're competitive or haven't previously engaged with the comp because of the theme limitations there seems to be little point in entering a single round in a 12-round competition.

Good point, but very few people ever committed to entering every single round anyway. I only did for one year, the other years it was a fun point of discussion in the forum. In 2009/2010 around 120 people took part in the competition. in 2011 (when the forum started to slide) it dropped to 80 then in 2012 it was only 52. The majority in every competition are people only entering for a small number of rounds, I can't see that changing?

Making the competition as easy to enter as possible with no themes might be seen as the best way to just to get people to enter. What happens after a couple of rounds though when it becomes evident that there is a large difference between talent and even equipment? We don't want people to get disheartened. Personally that is what I liked about the themes, you had a chance to interpret the theme in a way that perhaps other more accomplished photographers may not have considered.

Now I don't consider myself a photographer. I don't generally go to places\events to photograph them, I just take photographs of places\events I go to. So I'm more the casual happy snapper that is possibly going to be the widest demographic? It's great to have accomplished photographers as a "guru resource" in the forum for the rest of us, but it's going to hurt the forum if accomplished togs is who it feels that the forum caters for first and foremost?

I've already said it in one of these threads, I'm just not sure that the user base is here to get this forum back how it was 3 to 4 years ago. Other photography focussed forums are now more well known and popular?

 

[King4aDay]

I'm not really sure how you design a competition that everyone can enter and everyone can win (don't mean to sound facetious).

I did mention the idea of having a 'Photo of the Year' award at the end where there's a vote for people's favourite shot out of the 12 monthly winners (or maybe top 3 from each month?), so you only need to do really well in once round to be in with a chance of a further award. If the more experienced togs have little interest in the comp and the forum in general then they vanish as resource too.

With regard to a themed comp, if I was going to go to the effort of shooting specifically for a theme I'd be targeting better known comps on bigger photography sites.

 

[Rojin]

I'm not really sure how you design a competition that everyone can enter and everyone can win (don't mean to sound facetious).

I did mention the idea of having a 'Photo of the Year' award at the end where there's a vote for people's favourite shot out of the 12 monthly winners (or maybe top 3 from each month?), so you only need to do really well in once round to be in with a chance of a further award. If the more experienced togs have little interest in the comp and the forum in general then they vanish as resource too.

With regard to a themed comp, if I was going to go to the effort of shooting specifically for a theme I'd be targeting better known comps on bigger photography sites.

I don't disagree! You have to encourage people to still enter though if you want it to be popular and central to the forum?

Photo of the Year would definitely make sense in that regard, always a chance if you can nail it one month.

The competition here should be for this community to all partake in. We haven't had a competition for a year, and the year before that it was on its death bed. This forum wasn't driven by the competition though, it was just something that the users of the forum would all enter together and discuss. Without having that user base in the first place it doesn't really matter how the competition is formatted?