I wanted to say thank you to everyone who suggested names for our new product contest. The winner is Pieter V. Pieter I have emailed you directly, please get back to me as soon as you can so we can send you your reward $$. We really liked one of your suggestions and are going with it, but for strategy reasons we cannot say which name we are going with. 🙂
Speaking of Contests, who is up for the 3rd Annual Photography Contest? Instead of Camera gear…I am flirting with the idea of CASH or Gift Cards from BhPhoto. What do you guys think?
Also considering sticking with regular ol photography (no Cell Phones), all digital entries (email them) and simplifying a few of the rules.
Any input is appreciated, better now than once it starts.
UPDATE
Categories would be as follows:
1. Portraits
2. Landscapes
3. Animals
4. Abstracts
5. Sports
6. Macro
Entry fee is free!
Most of the judging will be done by myself and a panel of judges, though there may be a people’s choice award or it may count like 25%.
There are some good arguments for the Cell Phone Contest- it is definitely more challenging. Still considering it. Input?
Yep…sounds good all around. Great idea of the cash or gift card thing. Let us know about the simplified rules too. Rundown of the catagories and maybe ideas of new ones to?
First off, looking forward to the 3rd Annual photo contest, though I have never contributed a photo for consideration, cutting out the cell phone photos takes out a good chunk of creativity. If it were not for my cell phone camera, I would not have captured some of the most intriguing photos in my possession. As much as I love photography, I can’t always carry my nice camera with me, but thank goodness for my cell phone. I understand though, this is a contest by you and therefore you set the rules, please consider the cell phone photos. Thanks!
YES to the photo contest! Cash, Gift Cards, Recognition from you (first place certificate etc) its all good:) and a lot of fun!
I would run the contest for free….! Just say the rules and i’ll gladly start shooting 😉
Absolutely yes on the contest!!!! But hey…why cash or cameras when you have awesome products in your store? You can give certificates for your own products!!! That would be awesome!!! And as for the cell phone category….hey, they’re photographs that can be submitted as well even if there isn’t a separate category for them. Keep it simple as possible! Love the viewer’s choice too!!! 🙂
I think you should have a division for members of the Forum, or maybe a division for photos tweaked with paintballer pro or lollipops. Just a thought.
Absolutely!
Don’t like the cell phone contest because phones differ a great amount and my iPhone 3G is just going to have crappy resolution. I could have the best photo/composition but it would never win because of the low megapixels.
I am not a big fan of categories either because if someone doesn’t have a macro lens then they are out of that category, or maybe they don’t shoot sports, etc…
How about just submit your top 5 photos and regardless of category the top 5 photos win?
That’s my suggestions.
Oh and I like the cash, gift card option because I already own almost every product u sell 🙂
Now, it would be fine if u are close to putting out a lighting or wedding DVD!
😉
Definitely looking forward to another contest. I think the cash/gift card options are as cool as the camera idea. Maybe throw in some ancillary prizes for runners up such as the training DVD of their choosing and/or the DVD that matches to their SLR.
Thanks for offering this again…
3rd Annual Contest!!! Absolutely…, Lets do this!
I would say have a cell phone category. I have seen some amazing photos taken with a cell phone. We always have our phones with us even when we don’t have our cameras and capture some moments that would otherwise go missed. Cell phone pictures can be incredibly creative.
Hi Michael, I think is ok, when is the last day to submit the Pictures for the contest?, thank you and regards.
Great idea! Curious how far I can get this time as I have been practicing a lot thanks to your DVDs. Are we free to use our Photoshop skills to THE max?
As for some input:
– I don’t know about Cell Phones – yet, what’s the difference in quality nowadays between a picture from a Cell Phone and a pocket camera? On the other hand, some Cell Phones have a lot of photo editing software running on it..
– How much ‘photo-editing’ is allowed? HDR? Special B&W effects? Quad tones?
– Pictures should be taken within a very specific timeframe (for example October 9th until November 11th 2011). This way, people will have to grab their camera and actually take/make a picture. This way, the contest will be more about skills instead of lucky shots…
– Public voting may be biased (if you know many people, you can get a lot of votes, even if the photo isn’t that great after all)
– Will there be a separate B&W category?
Cheers, Dan
Last year I thought you could use pics that were about a year old, basically from when the last contest ended. I think that is best. I had some great shots I couldn’t enter last year because they missed the deadline. I’d like to use them this year and not go start shooting all over. A lot of us have probably already been taking shots that we want to enter this year!