Proposal for an ongoing FT Photo Contest in Trip Reports
 

Hi Folks,

Soliciting your opinions:

Based on this thread: http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=655651 and my experiences participating in photo-specific forums, I propose that we have a periodic photo contest in

Trip Reports.<snip> See post #16

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Trip Reports is the only forum that allows images to be posted and that would be a critical part of the contest. If a photo sub-forum is created and allows images, this would also be a possible home.

We would need dispensation to post the polls and clarification of the technical limitations, if any.

The title of the contest post would be sufficient warning for those with a low bandwith connection.

Rick,

That sounds like an excellent idea! There are many very talented FTers!

The only thing I can think of would be the prizes. If they are only from the HOM and fairly low in value, it would limit the word getting out onto the 'net and we'd have a rash of newbies (non flyers) joining just to enter the photo contest.

This would keep the focus on the quality of the photos and not winning the prize.

I like the idea, but why do I suspect you'd always win? ;) :)

Ha ha ha... that was exactly what I was thinking. :D

Limiting the prize to a FlyerTalk Thong would take care of that problem :mad: :D

I didn't even know we had a FlyerTalk Thong available for purchase here until I looked at the store. :eek:

Seriously, there is lots of competition out there, even in my favorite category of wildlife. :p

The HOM should sign up as an affiliate of photo hosting and printing places such as Shutterfly, so they might make a couple of extra pennies now and then from people who set up accounts.

Excellent thought.

I'm willing to do all the legwork on this. We just need a polling system for the voting.

My last reply didn't convey the point that I really do support this idea.^

This Idea...

• seems easy to implement
• brings the FT Community closer
• is travel related
• is something that (in my guesstimate) over 95% of the FT Community could articipate in
• is FUN

I like the way that birdstrike has thought outside of the box w/ this proposal to the TalkBoard (even though he'll be a constant favorite...) ;)

This sounds like an interesting idea and I hope you can get it successfully launched.

As opposed to the creation of a separate Travel Video and Photography Forum, which we're discussing in another thread and which would require TB approval, this idea is probably just up to the Forum mod's to implement...should they agree.

I assume someone has alerted the Trip Reports Forum Mod's to the existence of this idea and thread?

Not yet, though I started composing a PM to onedog and B747-437B before I changed my mind and started this thread.

The reason I started it here was because I see a key component of the idea being able to post a poll of up to 100 items. 100 seems to be a sufficient number to meet the needs of contests currently being run in dedicated photo forums, but my understanding is that the maximum we have here is 10. I suspect that is a soft limit and have posed the question in Technical Issues.

Once the technical issue is solved, and if no one here comes up with any showstoppers I thought I would involve the TR mods (though I'll do that now). Absent being made a mod myself there would be extra work for the TR moderators in posting the poll and possibly monitoring the images for TOS violations.

That is my current thinking anyway. . .

I have a couple of issues with this rule:

Define "substantially changes". Does that mean that I can do a basic unsharp mask to clean the image, but if I use clever USM settings to cut the haze from a shot, it's verboten? Can I do local contrast enhancement? Can I clone out the foot of the guy who's just stepping into my frame? Can I even process the raw file from my camera beyond the "as shot" settings?

For example, here's a couple of photos I've taken on vacations, along with what I did in Photoshop:

Denali from the Park Road

1) Tweaked the blue in the sky a little
2) Adjusted the highlights in the clouds a little so that they didn't "pop" and the snow did
3) Removed a bit of litter in the foreground (that I then picked up).
4) There was a bus in this picture somewhere :)
5) Removing a little bit of haze
6) Removed some color noise in the sky
7) Sharpening

Slot Canyon
1) This is a blend of two exposures - one for the darker overhang, one for the remainder of the scene.
2) Some curve manipulation to enhance the contrast of the blueish color
3) Some more manipulation to dial back the brightness of the back right of the image
4) Sharpening

Depending on how you interpret "substantially changes", one or both of these images would/would not be allowed. If you're going to keep this rule, you need to explicitly spell out what is/isn't allowed.

That leads into my 2nd point. If I hadn't spelled out exactly what I did to those two pictures, would you have known unless you'd seen the raw file from my camera? Here's a test...below, I've linked to 5 images. All of the images have had basic sharpening applied. Which ones have had more done to them? (and for bonus points, tell me what you think I did)

http://ben-johnson.org/blog/v/Alaska...70_th.jpg.html
http://ben-johnson.org/blog/v/Austra...N1802.jpg.html
http://ben-johnson.org/blog/v/Hawaii...C0006.jpg.html
http://ben-johnson.org/blog/v/Hawaii...C0042.jpg.html
http://ben-johnson.org/blog/v/Hawaii...C0005.jpg.html

If you can't accurately judge whether an image has been manipulated, then what's the point?

For what its worth this might provide some ideas or food for thought:

http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/me...entid=0&from=1

Very nice photos!

I think the definition is simpler than that. After all, the camera manipulates the RAW image before it outputs a JPEG. The amount and type of manipulation done by the camera depends on the processing setting you choose. RAW images, unprocessed, usually look like garbage, no?

This is FlyerTalk, not a professional gallery driven, megabuck contest. The voters will be your FlyerTalk peers. The injunction against substantial manipulation is based on the honor system. To my mind "substantially changes" would not mean cloning out a sensor dust spot, but it would include cloning out, say, an automobile, or changing the color of said automobile, or adding AS livery to a 777.

The image should generally reflect what you saw through your viewfinder. If manipulating contrast or color balance is what it takes to achieve that, I'd say go for it.

I posted a photo of a leaping dolphin in Trip Reports recently. I think it is a lovely photo (and quite hard to capture to boot). Problem is that dolphin has a remora attached to him. I wanted to clone it out, but I didn't.

Actually, this sounds like a perfect discussion for the proposed Travel Photography forum :)

Agreed...hopefully TPTB will vote to create that forum. :)

Personally, I don't have a problem with cloning, if it's done in the proper context. I probably wouldn't clone the remora out of your dolphin shot, since that's a natural phenomena, but in the Denali shot I linked above, the bus was unfortunately occupying the foreground where you can see the thin seam of road - the driver didn't give us enough stopping time for me to get farther away and compose the shot better. The clone job takes it from just being a snapshot to being an 8x10 on my living room wall, and it still accurately reflects what I saw, just fixing the fact that I couldn't hike 3 minutes roundtrip to get the framing I really wanted.

BTW, of the other 5 shots I posted above, only the first Hawaii sunset was shopped, and that was as an HDR image. The red waterfall looks unreal, but it was just a clever framing of a very small fall.

And I would have chosen that one as being over sharpened. Just goes to show you how much we can trust our eyes.

I would never have seen the missing Denali bus in an 800x??? image. Even given the full size jpeg I might not have found where it was removed.

I think we are off to a good start for the contest. B747-437B (Trip Reports moderator) likes the idea. If we can get an extended poll set up, I think we are home free. If not, I can set up a separate polling e-mail address to collect the results, but a poll would be far more interesting and interactive.