As a new member I was interested to note that in the past there have been travel photography competitions here, but disappointed to see that these seem to have stopped a few years ago. Can any longer-term members tell me more about them - why they stopped, whether they might be re-introduced at any point, whether you thought the were a good feature etc? I look forward to hearing your views - thanks!
Competitions?
If there's strong demand I'd consider bringing them back. It can be a little time consuming with the setting up and organising of them but they were pretty fun and we got some really great photos submitted over the years we were running them.
Would you find a prize necessary or be happy to just have competitions for the honour of being named winner? Prizes were always nice I think but then sometimes it brought about a bit of vote rigging which was a nuisance to deal with.
I wasn't even imagining that there would be prizes! Just a warm glow, a bit of recognition from others on the site, and maybe a way to feature the top photos?
No prizes necessary. It would be wonderful just to see what people think are the best pictures of the year.
The prize could be a free Supporters Badge for a year.. So, the winner gets the benefits of being a supporter & TravellersPoint gets to give a gentle reminder about the benefits of becoming a supporter.
Double the fun.
Steve
No prizes apart from the honour of being recognised as a fine photographer!
I didn't know they had done that before? Thanks for sharing!
I'd say re-introduce the photography comptetions, I would definitely love to share my pictures!
[ Edit: Edited on 11-Jan-2017, at 07:14 by Jackson81 ]
On VT we had annual community awards (best tip-writer, best photographer, best community spirit etc) and the winners got an icon on their home page. You could maybe adopt something similar for the winning photographers if you wanted to reward them?
What is a travel photo?
A travel photo in my world communicates something to the person who took that photo, that can really only be 'seen' by the person who took the photograph. If I look at a photo I have taken in the past, it conveys to me perhaps an entire day or more in which it was taken. For example, let's suppose I take a picture at the top of a mountain. It shows lovely scenery. Is it a photo of just the scenery? Or is it a photo of what it took me to get to that place and take that photo? If it is the latter, can you see what I see in it? What can you see in this photo for example:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/GBrief/uploads/article/preview_image/499/Millennial_Explorers.jpg
What the girl sitting there perhaps sees when she looks at it is 2160 miles of the Appalachian Trail and every day of the 6 months it took her to walk it. Every blister, every night in a soaking wet sleeping bag in her tent, all the other 'thru hikers' she met, Mad Max (trail name) standing beside her who became her husband, etc. etc.
Travel photography is not portrait photography or a picture of a beautiful sunset or the Eiffel Tower. Not in my world anyway. A travel picture to me speaks to the individual, not to anyone else. Therefore, I would suggest that there can be no such thing as a competition to determine the 'best travel photo'. I or you can take a lousy, out of focus photo that is possibly the best photo we have ever taken on our travels. No one else can take one that is better.
So let's tell it like it is. A travel photo 'competition' is for people who want to enter pictures in a travel photo competition and nothing else. It is not about finding the best travel photo at all, that can't be done.
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