Photo Challenges and Words/No Words threads

[Nando]

Well, this website has been up for a while but there has only been one "Photo Challenge" so far - only two people participated and no winner declared. A second one was started just recently. Please keep in mind, that I do not want to get rid of photo challenges or any type of contest on this forum. I'm just want to suggest an addition to the photo challenges section.

Here's my beef with the Soonet-modelled Photo Challenges and rules given in the sticky thread:
1. I don't particularly like that there has to be a winner.
2. I don't particularly like that one must win to start/pick a new challenge.
3. I don't feel that we have the numbers and the diversification among members to support regular photo challenges yet.
4. I don't like that the original poster cannot participate in the new challenge save for offering example photographs.

What I would like to propose is to allow the addition of Words / No Words threads to the Photo Challenges section.

How do they work? Well here are the general guidelines and rules that I've seen on other photography forums:
1. The original poster starts a thread on a theme usually with "W/NW" in the subject line to distinguish this type of thread from regular threads. For example, "W/NW: Flowers". Members will then know that W/NW rules apply to the thread.
2. In the first post of the thread, the original poster must describe what the theme is and post at least one example photo.
3. Participants then post photographs that follow that theme but with minimum amount of words. Hence words/no words.
4. Particapnts are usually allowed to write a title for the photo (or a very brief one-line description) and they are also allowed to briefly state equipment used. For example, "Taken at the locks yesterday with my Meopta 80mm f/3.5 Belar"
5. Participants are also allowed to put a copyright statement with their photos.
6. Generally no comments or criticism allowed. One-line comments are forgivable if you include one or more of your own photos in the post.
7. No time-limit nor post-limit set for the thread. Photos can be added forever.
8. Unless stated otherwise in the original post or implied by the nature of the theme (eg Bon Soo 2008), photos taken from any time period is allowed as long as you took them.
9. The original poster can participate and add more photos later posts.

Why do I think that W/NW threads belong in the Photo Challenges section? Well, I realize that W/NW threads can probably be posted in the gallery section, perhaps without opposition from any of the members here. I think that they ought to be put in the Photo Challenges section because:

1. W/NW threads can be looked upon as a type of photo challenge.
2. It would add some life to that section.
3. W/NW threads can potentially overwhelm the regular threads if placed in the Gallery section. The treads in the Gallery section seems to be more of a personal nature to the original poster. That is, each thread is generally a personal gallery of some sort belonging to the original poster. Whereas, a W/NW may be started by an individual member but really is a gallery that belongs to everybody.

I've thought about starting W/NW threads in the past but I thought I would approach the membership here before just posting the thread in the gallery or photo challenges section, and imposing my own rules, without considering your thoughts.

So what are your opinions about this idea?

[Kenneth Armstrong]

I really don't like theme threads where people just pull out images they took before. So you say "flowers" and they search their harddrive and post something they took before.

That's why I liked the challenge of an upcoming event.

I certainly didn't intend it to look like a soonet thread, I also don't think there needs to be a winner or loser.

I just don't know if there's enough active posters to make your thread viable. Just look at the "sticky" challenge. One participant.

[Nando]

I really don't like theme threads where people just pull out images they took before. So you say "flowers" and they search their harddrive and post something they took before. That's why I liked the challenge of an upcoming event.

That's a fair opinion. And motivating people to go out and shoot by selecting an upcoming event is a very noble cause. However, not everyone can just go out during an afternoon, take a bunch of photos with their digital cameras, and then upload the photos to the forum within a week. (Not everyone wants to either) Take me, for example. Even when I wasn't in a slump and I shot at least one roll a week (and sometimes 4-6), it would still be at least a month before I had developed, scanned and processed the photos. When developing my own B&W, I find it more efficient to develop a batch of rolls and not just one at time. Unless I am really eager to get the photos done for some reason, i will probably not deviate from my routine. I won't be posting photographs to challenges unless the photos are already on my hard drive or that the photos will very soon be on my hard drive, purely by chance. I can't help that.

I also think it is healthy to look at and reflect on work done in the past. If someone said "W/NW: Bicycles" it could cause me to seek out a long-lost photo on the hard drive and take a look at it critically before I post it in the thread. Perhaps, I will realize that it was garbage. Perhaps, I can relate the photo to more recent work and reflect on my growth or decline as a photographer. Perhaps it will spawn new ideas and set me on a new road or perhaps get me back on track if I deviated too much from the road I was on. etc., etc. All healthy. I don't think I would get lazy and just seek out photos on the hard drive instead of going out to shoot. Usually, W/NW threads that I find interesting will cause me to go out and shoot. I can always add my photos later because their is no time limit.

In addition, the original poster of an W/NW thread can certainly limit photos to an upcoming event. No problem. Just say so in your original post. Or limit the theme to a time-frame with your wording like "W/NW: Pee-Wee Midway 2008" instead of "W/NW: Pee-Wee Midway," say.

I certainly didn't intend it to look like a soonet thread, I also don't think there needs to be a winner or loser.

I really appreciate that. The hang-ups I have are not about your particular challenge at all. I think its great theme and I want to thank you for getting something started. However, I am under the assumption that the rules for the Photo Challenges, that are stickied at the top of the section, dictates how the photo challenges are run on this forum. The rules stated basically make the challenges the same as the ones on Soonet. I pretty sure that I only participated in Soonet photo challenge once. There were a few challenges that appealed to me but there was no way I could participate because of the time-limit. Plus, I was put off by the fact that it was a contest even if it was just for fun.

I just don't know if there's enough active posters to make your thread viable. Just look at the "sticky" challenge. One participant.

Actually, that's one of the reasons why I thought that Photo Challenges didn't take off here. I honestly think that W/NW threads would be more active than Photo Challenges. Anyone can start a W/NW thread at any time. There is no time limit so people can continuously add photos to a W/NW thread instead of being cut-off when a winner is declared and a new challenge is started. Some people are able to post their shots immediately since they have them on the hard drive already, while others can go out, take their shots and post them to the thread at a later time. The fact that anybody could start a W/NW thread at any time and that they are on-going with time-limits makes me think that more people are going to participate in them.

I think that the addition of W/NW threads would be a benefit to the forum. I think that they would be much more active than the photo challenge threads. Of course, we won't really know that until we try. However, if we just stick to photo-challenges, I feel that the nature and rules of these challenges have to be changed. We have tried photo challenges but, as noted, they have been unsuccessful.

[Cujo]

(just a quick point out, Nando you keep using either W/NW or N/NW and it as throwing me off reading through the posts, I believe they are all W/NW and the N/NW is just a typo and not some other thread idea as well, correct?)

I never participated in Soonet and found this board here by fluke. By the time I came here the previous challenge seems to have been going on for a bit so I didn't participate. I think people would participate if the thread was "new" while they were here etc. Maybe that's why it died out, there weren't many members when it started up.

As far as participation in any thread goes take a look at the memberslist link in the top navigation. It sorts it by last visit. If you go 15 members down we're now at about April 11 -- that's almost a month ago -- looking more closely at that some of the members listed in there don't have any posts or they joined and didn't return. Currently this board is limited to members who frequent it and limited even more to members who actually post photos -- the gallery has gotten a little more active in the past week but when is the last time you posted something you shot (you here used in general to anyone reading).

Whomever created this board (I really don't know who it is) may have came over from Soonet (it sounds like a lot of the original members did) and just sort of modded the format of what the Soonet section for photography had. That being said having a set time limit of 2 weeks for a challenge thread on a board with maybe 5-10 really active posters with a subset of them really posting shots is sort of ridiculous, however if you remove that rule and let the "challenge" run as long as the original poster declares then no problem. I see no where in the "sticky" on this site where the original poster cannot post in his challenge thread or even "win" his challenge thread so that argument is mute. And to my understand the idea of a winner is just so that someone has to choose a new challenge to go out and shoot - no big deal, you are not winning a trophy, you are not winning a title to put on your site or letters to put after your name on your business card it's simply a way to keep more "challenges" coming.

I don't see a challenge as a competition but as a challenge to get out and shoot. Get people off their backsides, away from the computer screen and shoot something. If you have a final goal for something to accomplish you are more likely to get out and shoot then if you just said "hey here's my camera what should I do with it". At least with a challenge, for example the Midway you can plan a day to go up there and take some interesting shots -- who knows maybe you can even shoot the shooters.

As far as a W/NW thread goes I see it as similar but I'm not really a fan of the whole NW thing. I don't think anyone (I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are) will grow and learn without hearing proper feedback on their shots -- good or bad and from any level of photographer. For example, for the a W/NW - Flowers thread I could post a picture of a flower that is utter crap but think it's good, my exposure could be off, my finger could be in part of the frame etc but it was my awesome flower shot. Now nobody can say anything regarding my miscues or things to look out for because they are not allowed to. You can possibly make the same argument for a challenge thread but I'd like to think you may also say "nice try but maybe head back out, take your exposure up a stop and watch to make sure your fingers aren't caught in the photo" etc etc. Then they can redo their shot if they want and post again.

Basically I'm no the boards to post my work and get feedback from the hive mind to see what can be approved/modified/ignored etc when shooting my work. Not all shots will please everyone and everyone has their own tastes so you need to keep this in mind when taking the criticisms in etc -- for example one of the band shoots I posted on here Ken pointed out that he'd like more wider shots as I have a tendency to close crop. So last time out I had ideal lighting so I was able to slap the fish on and try some different wide angle shots and the results on some of the shots were impressive. I wouldn't have done that or had that idea in my head if I didn't get the feedback to possibly try it if the situation was right.

Just a thought.

(now I'm rambling and heading no where so will end here)

[Nando]

Oops. Sorry. I have dyslectic fingers (honestly, I am dyslectic) and often make such silly typos. It was a type. It should be W/NW. I'll correct my mistakes and respond to your post a bit later. Right now I must go off to work.

[Nando]

Cujo,

I got a chance to read your post over my lunch break.

I think that modifying the rules to take off the time-limit would be a solution. Declaring a 'winner', even if it is for the sake of starting a new challenge, leaves a bad taste in my mouth because, perhaps not now but someday, there will be that one person that never (or rarely) wins. What if that person has a very good idea for a challenge? My understanding is that they wouldn't be able to start a challenge without 'winning' the current one. Changing the rules so there anybody can start a challenge at any time would be ok with me.

The No Words part of the W/NW threads, are basically there to foster participation from photographers of all levels and of all styles. It is also there to keep things moving along at a good pace. Let's say the W/NW theme is "Waterfalls" and you post a really good photograph. Instead of adding their own photographs to the thread, people may just start commenting on how good your good photograph is. Personally, when I look at a W/NW thread or even a Photo Challenge thread, I don't want to see a photo and then 5 or 6 posts containing text praising or criticizing the photo - I just want to see the photos. That said, I feel that the gallery section is a more appropriate place for people to give feedback and for photographers to ask for criticism.

Your point about learning from criticism or suggestions made frome feedback is a good one, however not everyone wants a critique every time they post a photo on the internet. Generally, I try not to critique anybody's photograph unless they specifically ask for it. Although I do welcome criticism and feedback myself, I ignore most of it to be honest. I take most criticisms offered on the internet with a grain of salt. Take a look at the following link. It pretty much explains why. If this is the criticism that The Masters get then...

http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/2006/06/great-photographers-on-internet.html

Another one - "Mario's Bike" on Flickr!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrerabelo/70458366

I do believe that the admin was originally from Soonet. When the forum started, I received a PM on Soonet informing me about it. I have nothing against Soonet or the admin - just don't think that the photo challenges in their current state (as implied by the rules in the stickie), suits the current membership of this forum very well. I believe that the admin had nothing but good intentions, of course.

[Cujo]

Okay I give you the feedback thing but I also said proper feedback and if the person taking in the criticism can't decipher/grab from what multiple individuals are telling them to be either true or not there's more fish to fry then just the bad criticism.

I'm used to being on some boards with a limited membership and you know the level of photographer each person is at. For example, I'm lower down the ladder than some of the others who are major photographers in certain industries in the US etc. The flickr post you linked too was definitely interesting but the pool of people judging the photo you have no clue what their talent level is so I'd never take anything at face value there. I'm a stickler when critiquing for some of the general rules but also can see when they can be broke and when a shot works etc. ie: me and my horizon straight line thing. You can tell if the shot is crooked and the horizon is off or if the shot is supposed to be crooked with the horizon off etc.

But now we're way off topic.

So back to the OP.

A change-up of the rules:
Challenges have - specific theme, anyone can enter, anyone can be deemed the new "challengy", can specify any time period, new challenges may also be made by anyone at anytime.

Sound good?

Basically I kept the "winner" just so the challenge heads somewhere and we as a large group can determine the what we all thought to be a good shot -- I'm sure some will be better at others, for example if the subject was skateboarding AJ would kill us, if it was basset hounds I'd kill because I own two and can take 8,000,000 shots etc etc. But also have the anyone can make challenges part so all the great ideas can be thrown out there and get people out and shooting, so challenges can run over challenges etc. IE: I can make a challenge to shoot the people shooting the midway challenge. Now that'd be a challenge

[Nando]

I thought that I responded to this thread yesterday but anywho, I can live with those you proposed changes to he rules in the stickie.

[lizzardskills]

O.k. I didn't read all that was posted but I have no problems trying it a different way. Really I didn't think there would be much participation with such few members. Feel free to try it out!! Better ideas are much appreciated on this board!! Lead the way!!

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