Photo of the Month: Voting Open

[andel]

Submissions

This months topic:
"I guess, as the time of the year suggests now, it would be time to have a "spring" competition. I have some things in mind, but I would like to see, how others interpret the topic."

there you go


Please send entries to: potm@users.tt-forums.net

Voting @ http://users.tt-forums.net/potm/

Previous winners at http://users.tt-forums.net/potm/prevwinners.htm

Please do not disclose to anyone on here which you have voted for as that can often influence those who have yet to vote.


Photo of the Month - I stole these rules from Dave.

Welcome, this is the home of the TT-Forums Photo of the Month Competition.

How to enter
You have the time from the announcement of the month's competition to the last day of said month to send us a photo by e-mail - potm@users.tt-forums.net - a confirmation will appear in this topics second post.

Include some details about the picture - where was it taken? What is the subject of the photo? What is it doing there, etc.

The procedure
At the end of the calendar month, the collection of photographs entered will be put on a page at http://users.tt-forums.net/potm

Voting will then take place in the first week of the following month.

How to vote
Click the link and look at the photos. Then simply vote in the poll.

The Rules

1. The photo must be related to transport generally. This may include trains, ships, planes, or any other form of transport except cars and other personal modes of travel. Obviously a certain degree of common sense is intended.
2. Most months will have a specific topic for which to post a picture about. Pictures entered that don't, in the opinion of the organisers, follow this topic will not be entered into the final vote. Discussion will be pursued with the entrant about the eligibility of the photo in regards to the topic.
3. The topic will be chosen by the previous month's winner. If they decide not to choose a topic, the following month will have a topic selected by the award organisers.
4. The photo MUST belong to the entrant. If evidence is found to the contrary the entry will be disqualified.
5. Entrants may only enter one photo, although it is possible to change the photo should they wish to.
6. Entrants may not use multiple usernames to enter multiple photos.
7. The decision of the organisers is final - although the voting process is entirely democratic and EVERYONE'S vote adds one point to the score of a photograph.
8. There must be no discussion of specific photos once voting begins - this is to prevent influencing voting. You can say that the quality is good of the general lot though.
9. Photos must not be "edited" beyond sepia toning or black and white. Colour Manipulation or image pasting is not allowed.
10. Images must be at least 1024 x 768 px.
11. Images can be re-entered for other themes if it fits.
12. Please note that acceptance is at the organisers discretion.

Comments
Most of all, it should be remembered that the competition is for fun, and is intended to allow people to show off their photography talents. Don't forget to adhere to your country's rules regarding railway enthusiasts. A copy of the British Rules can be found at the National Rail website, and I assume most of these rules apply to most other countries. Also remember that taking photos of public transport in your country may be banned.

Remember the adage - Stop, Look, Listen For God's sake don't get yourself killed; and remember to have lots of fun!

Rules updated 31/10/08

[andel]

Voting open - the next month will be the end of April due to current commitments.

[andel]

The winner is... The irish!

Please let me know the topic for March/April

[The Irish]

Thanks to all.

[Leanden]

Oh... my... god... How badly do you want to gravedig only to give comment to something which is absolutely no longer relevant.

Excellent job.

EDIT: It's a bot, and one with terrible grammar at that.

[Nawdic]

I wouldn't miind reopening this, though, if anyone is interested?

[planetmaker]

Well, would be nice

I'd like a word on the rules, though:

The Rules
1. The photo must be related to transport generally. This may include trains, ships, planes, or any other form of transport except cars and other personal modes of travel. Obviously a certain degree of common sense is intended.
2. Most months will have a specific topic for which to post a picture about. Pictures entered that don't, in the opinion of the organisers, follow this topic will not be entered into the final vote. Discussion will be pursued with the entrant about the eligibility of the photo in regards to the topic.
3. The topic will be chosen by the previous month's winner. If they decide not to choose a topic, the following month will have a topic selected by the award organisers.
4. The photo MUST belong to the entrant. If evidence is found to the contrary the entry will be disqualified.
5. Entrants may only enter one photo, although it is possible to change the photo should they wish to.
6. Entrants may not use multiple usernames to enter multiple photos.
7. The decision of the organisers is final - although the voting process is entirely democratic and EVERYONE'S vote adds one point to the score of a photograph.
8. There must be no discussion of specific photos once voting begins - this is to prevent influencing voting. You can say that the quality is good of the general lot though.
9. Photos must not be "edited" beyond sepia toning or black and white. Colour Manipulation or image pasting is not allowed.
10. Images must be at least 1024 x 768 px.
11. Images can be re-entered for other themes if it fits.
12. Please note that acceptance is at the organisers discretion.

ad 9) That's a stupid rule and should be removed w/o replacement. Any camera has a white balance which modifies colour. Changing the white temperature changes colour etc. Tuning the strenght of colour even is easily possible with chemical film. It's IMHO part of the artistic license.

ad 8 ) I think the discussion of the photos should be allowed. Discussing the strengths and weaknesses of certain shots (composition, framing, light settings,...) is the really interesting thing. Otherwise one cannot learn anything from it

Though entries are usually anonymous (which is good), motivationally I'll break this as I'm sure nearly everyone can do better than this random shot of the Prague central station, herewith released under CC-BY:

[orudge]

To be fair, this has apparently been open and stickied since 2009... if somebody wants to open a new competition, then great. Either way, this specific topic has no need to be stuck up here any more.

[lawton27]

Well then here's my entry to get this going, I think one revision to the rules could be the photograph should be recent (perhaps after this month however This one's from September last year which is still a while since the last competition so I deem acceptable ). The recent rule would be good for next month or people with a large collection of photos could just pick a new one out each month, (some might argue that's not a bad thing )

Anyway, enjoy



At the risk of shamelessly plugging myself if you like this photo there's a link to my Flickr in my signature.

[Geo Ghost]

Strangely enough, I was thinking about digging this up a few days ago!

I'm a moderator for two Photo Of The Month competitions on another forum so I would be up for running the show here
However, I might have some issues over the next 2-3 months due to University and I also have a few ideas/questions on the existing rules.

1) Do we keep the whole 'topic' for the monthly photo or do we just open it up to anything for that month.
2) Should a rule be enforced that photos entered HAVE to be from that particular month? At the moment, people could easily enter photos from months or even years back which seems a tad silly. However, this could be difficult for the topic-based POTM. Perhaps if going with that, we open it up to "photo must have been taken within the past x-number-of months?
3) Regarding editing, PlanetMaker, I think that refers to photoshop editing. You can set up a camera however you like and it won't be classed as editing I believe. I think basic colour correction should be permitted along with simple modifications like cropping. However, anything beyond that shouldn't be permitted.
4) Previous month's winner may not enter the next month competition? Make it a bit fairer perhaps and gives others a chance at winning.

And finally, 5) How we do the entries and voting. Should we have it before with entries being emailed to the organiser and then voted by number - this has worked affectively before but is more complicated.
Or, do we have an 'entry topic' for the monthly photos and then at the end of the month, that closes and the voting topic is opened up. I wouldn't think the names of who took the photos would influence other peoples votes - or I at least hope not. It's not like we're kids just voting for our friends or something

Also, it may be worth having a section for the POTM competition so all topics can be kept together and people can view past entries. The topics also won't clog-up the main transport forum or off-topic forum. This means that we can have seperate topics i one area. For example, a 'Rules and Regulations' topic can be made a sticky and the entry / voting topics can link to that keeping each one neater and not requiring all the rules and such to be copied over again into every new topic.


Anyway, that's my input and suggestions. Be great if people could voice their views on that and the existing rules.
Like I said, I'm really up for putting myself forward as the POTM organiser as that's what I do every month anyway elsewhere Though it's whether people are happy with such and how they want to show to be run.

[orudge]

2) Should a rule be enforced that photos entered HAVE to be from that particular month? At the moment, people could easily enter photos from months or even years back which seems a tad silly. However, this could be difficult for the topic-based POTM. Perhaps if going with that, we open it up to "photo must have been taken within the past x-number-of months?

I personally don't see why a photo should have to be taken that month. For people like me who don't take photos all that often (at least of things that might be interesting here), I may hypothetically have some nice photos from months or years back that I may wish to enter. I don't see why I shouldn't be able to enter them next month. You may wish to state that photos can't be entered that have been entered before, or possibly restrict it to not allowing previous winning entries from being re-entered.

4) Previous month's winner may not enter the next month competition? Make it a bit fairer perhaps and gives others a chance at winning.

If you mean the person who won, then I don't personally see why there should be such a rule. If one particular user wins 6 months in a row or something, then maybe we could ask them nicely to step aside for a couple of months, but I don't see that it has to be a written rule.

And finally, 5) How we do the entries and voting. Should we have it before with entries being emailed to the organiser and then voted by number - this has worked affectively before but is more complicated.
Or, do we have an 'entry topic' for the monthly photos and then at the end of the month, that closes and the voting topic is opened up. I wouldn't think the names of who took the photos would influence other peoples votes - or I at least hope not. It's not like we're kids just voting for our friends or something

SABRE has a Photo of the Month competition that has been running for years, and all photos are publicly uploaded into their wiki (formerly their gallery software) a week or so before the vote takes place. The vote is then a simple phpBB poll, set to close after a further week or thereabouts. Having names next to the photos doesn't seem to be a problem there, I don't see why it should be a problem here. After all, it's the photo that matters, not the photographer.

Also, it may be worth having a section for the POTM competition so all topics can be kept together and people can view past entries. The topics also won't clog-up the main transport forum or off-topic forum. This means that we can have seperate topics i one area. For example, a 'Rules and Regulations' topic can be made a sticky and the entry / voting topics can link to that keeping each one neater and not requiring all the rules and such to be copied over again into every new topic.

For the moment I'd rather not do this; you can always create wiki pages with rules and archives, though! I'd prefer to just have a single "master" topic with rules, etc. The first post of that can link to topics for previous months, as well as the current month's topic. Obviously, you'd have a topic for voting for each month, and a topic for entries (assuming entries don't end up going in the wiki or whatever).

If there is interest, I could look into creating a SABRE-style wiki gallery (see this page as an example). Or people could just upload to the forum and then you'd collate them all in the voting topic. Up to you, I guess, and whatever others here think.

Anyway, I'd love to see this competition open again, although personally I would also ask that it not be specifically restricted to trains or whatnot - this is the general transport forum, and it'd be great to have a variety of photos. Obviously, this will relate somewhat to point 1. But if people do pick 'themed' POTM topics, then let's have some for planes, ships, buses, etc, and maybe even just nice landscapes!

[planetmaker]

2) Should a rule be enforced that photos entered HAVE to be from that particular month?

I don't think such rule makes much sense. People with nice shots can just bring them forward. Especially and also as it's hard to judge when a photo was taken. Was it this year? The last year? Or maybe just last month? How do you verify that?

4) Previous month's winner may not enter the next month competition? Make it a bit fairer perhaps and gives others a chance at winning.

I agree here with what orudge wrote. We don't need it officially. Unless it's getting out of hand and we'll see only a single person always win. But I'd not go for such thing from the start.

Anyway, I'd love to see this competition open again, although personally I would also ask that it not be specifically restricted to trains or whatnot - this is the general transport forum, and it'd be great to have a variety of photos. Obviously, this will relate somewhat to point 1. But if people do pick 'themed' POTM topics, then let's have some for planes, ships, buses, etc, and maybe even just nice landscapes!

Quite so. And yes, I think we should be quite open with what constitutes 'transport'. It can IMHO range from bridges over single vehicle categories to stations to certain scenery shots. It IMHO makes sense to somewhat give a scope but not be too narrow with it. If we have zillions of entries we can always narrow it down more. Having no monthly changing topic otoh will lead to always the same kind of things. So... something in between

[Geo Ghost]

Anyway, I'd love to see this competition open again, although personally I would also ask that it not be specifically restricted to trains or whatnot - this is the general transport forum, and it'd be great to have a variety of photos. Obviously, this will relate somewhat to point 1. But if people do pick 'themed' POTM topics, then let's have some for planes, ships, buses, etc, and maybe even just nice landscapes!

To memory, the previous ones have always been open to all kinds of transport. Just rail photos always seemed to come out on top. I believe that any photo is eligible as long as the photo has some kind of relevance to transport and the theme/topic for the month

Regarding suggestion 2:
Owen and Planetmaker, that's fair enough All I wanted was people's views on that and it's clear that isn't preferred. I agree that having such a rule means old photos that may fit the topic can't be used but thought it was worth asking. I think keeping a topic/theme for each month works and can bring together a lovely array of photos. I agree with Owen saying that previous winning entries may not be submitted again. That is fair.

Regarding suggestion 4:
Again, fair points made. I think there's enough of us here so that it would be very unlikely for someone to win twice in a row. If all are fine as it is though, that's all good.

I'll see if I can put together some topics or pages in preparation for February. There's no point in starting something just yet with only 10 days left of the month in my opinion.
It would be brilliant to get this going again.


Are there any suggestions for a starting theme?
Light and Colour based theme perhaps?

[doktorhonig]

Yay! I would participate again!

I wouldn't restrict the time the picture has been taken, simply because some great moments for a photo doesn't come back. For example, I've been in a train tunnel, which was under construction and took a few photos, but it won't be possible to go there again (unless I'm in a train they evacuate).

Image editing restrictions are a more difficult topic. Personally, I'm against it, but maybe allow all the stuff an average camera can do. Even if it's not done by the camera. Cropping is actually an important aspect of taking a picture, but I would be ok with it as well. However, I don't think I'll make use of that.

Maybe it's a no-brainer, but I would include a rule, that the image has to be taken by the user who takes part in the contest.