Challenge Update

I'm not posting a challenge this week because
1. I now have 2 challenges to judge and post the winners, and need the time to catch up.
2. I need to take some time to re-organize this so that you all get results and winners are posted in a more timely manner.

Next challenge will be posted on February 22nd. Enjoy your break. Thank you all for your wonderful submissions and hanging in there.

I seem to have a lot of irons in the fire lately.

I suggest, a nice glass of wine, some music, and a few deep breaths. I hope you get caught up on everything, and enjoy some "Helene Time" as well.

Conducting (and judging) a weekly challenge all by yourself is a very demanding undertaking. By all means Helene, it sounds like a perfectily reasonable thing to do to catch up and perhaps refresh yourself a bit. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

By all means, Helene, take a break. Sheesh. And you know, get all caught up.

Well it's quite a bit past the 22nd and still nothing. I tried to create a time shortened weekly challenge to make up for it, but I don't have the forum rights to do so.

I guess everyone is too busy.

I've been researching the tilt shift technique, and I've seen a lot of spectacular results. It would make for an interesting challenge. I have no idea how to do it technically, but I've found loads of tutorials. That being said, a cool challenge would be to make everyone learn something new and then apply it as a challenge.

Just to let you know, I have not forgotten the challenge. I have been giving this a lot of thought over the past few days and believe this site and its members have evolved enough to make the challenges a little more formalized, competitive and meaningful, and still fun. Here are some of the changes that are coming:

1. Wednesday to me is an odd day to start or end anything. I know some of use have gotten confused (namely me LOL) about the day of the week, so I'm moving the challenge from Sunday to Sunday. I think this will be better for those who have weekday jobs. So the first challenge will be up this Sunday, March 4th -- so each Sunday will be the ending of one challenge and the beginning of another.

2. Judging will be based on percentage of named criteria and 1-5 rating system (1 = poor, and 5 = excellent). So, for example, if the photo is to be judged, 75% creativity and 25% technique, then scoring a "perfect" 5 on creativity and a "lousy" 1 on technique will net you a score of 4.

3. Judging panel will be composed of 3 members selected by me and remain anonymous, and it may not be the same ones for each challenge. Number of "likes" will also affect the score. I'm thinking 20% of your final score will be the "likes".

4. The winning photo will be posted on the site as "Photo of the Week" and scores will be posted in a blog on this site 3-5 days after the challenge ends.

The reason for the judging changes is to make this a more meaningful experience photography wise. I've tried to make this as objective as possible, since we can't post photos anonymously. By making it a little more "complex" mathematically, and by using the "likes", it will be harder for any one person to select a winner or adjust the scores to make sure their favorite person wins (not that anyone of us ever did that before!!) In any case, it makes this a little more professional.

Hopefully you all remember enough of your high school math to understand the scoring. If not let me know.

Sounds good to me Helene. Thanks for putting so much thought into the challenges!

Great ideas Helene!

I love the new idea's Helene!!