>>> Last Photographer Standing - Initial Discussion <<<

Andy

Stop the presses! We're redefining the photo challenge!
Starting on March 5th, we all enter a new era. Forget what you know about old fashioned photo challenges, because they have just been made obsolete. Starting March 5th, brace yourself for the most compelling photographic contest ever devised. Prepare yourself for...

Dgrin presents...
The Last Photographer Standing Contest!

• Contest themes: this or that... no, not both, you have to pick the one from a pair of opposites! Choose the one that speaks to you and let your creative juices guide you. This means more interesting competition, each photo has to stand on its own as a great "photo", not just a great "photo of (blank)". Your photo will be pitted against others of like theme, but it will also have to withstand the onslaught of contrasting themed entries. Will your photo still be good enough?
• Building excitement: Each contest cycle will have 5 qualifying rounds open to everyone and a 6th semifinal round open only to finalists of the preceding qualifying rounds. The goal of the 5 qualifying rounds is to be one of the top 10 finalists as this qualifies you to participate in the semifinal. The semifinal will be open themed, you are on your own, your artistic and photographic abilities will be the only thing to guide you to produce a shot good enough to make you the winner of the semifinal.
• Grand Finale: Once a year there will be a mind-blowing Grand Finale pitting the cream of the crop against each other in a knock-down drag-out fight to the finish. Only one photographer will emerge as the Dgrin World's Best Photographer!
• Critique: Our Artists-in-Residence and other guests are going to be giving feedback on the finalists. You are going to learn from the best!
• Prizes: Forget what you knew... how does more than $25,000 (USD) sound?!?

Think you can handle it? Stay tuned for details... :deal

Thanks to our Artist-in-Residence Shay Stephens for the major design elements of this contest!

DoctorIt

Well, you didn't have to stay tuned very long

I present to you... the full rules >>> HERE

Nikolai

Wow!

Andy wrote:

Stop the presses!

OK, I play :-)

EDIT: question: will the current challenges and thier rules remain "as is" and will they be independent of the new procedure?

KvPhoto

Will the challenges continue as they have been?
EDIT: Ok, really I do read the whole thing it just takes my posting for it to all register! So there will only be the new contest and no more bi-weekly challenges. (Just making sure.)

DoctorIt

KvPhoto wrote:

Will the challenges continue as they have been?

Nope. We meant it when we said "forget what you knew..."

Andy

KvPhoto wrote:

Will the challenges continue as they have been?

85=end of challenges.

It's a brave new world, stay tuned

David_S85

Andy wrote:

85=end of challenges.
It's a brave new world, stay tuned

Ch. 85. Change. Get it? (we are soooo clever & sneaky )

KvPhoto

David_S85 wrote:

Ch. 85. Change. Get it? (we are soooo clever & sneaky )

Yes you are my dearies lol See my edit above

Jeffro

Wow....I guess I'll just take my camera and go home....:ian

JK...can't wait to see what this brings out of all of us!

But lets not spread word , this place may get very crowded.....

erich6

So, if you happen to be one of the fortunate ones to be selected as a finalist from one of the contests does that mean you are not allowed to enter other contests?

Also, is there a judge selection for the semifinals prior to voting on the "top ten" or is it an open vote of 50 entries?

Erich

DoctorIt

David_S85 wrote:

Ch. 85. Change. Get it? (we are soooo clever & sneaky )

David, you are just noticing this now?

Andy

Nikolai wrote:

EDIT: question: will the current challenges and thier rules remain "as is" and will they be independent of the new procedure?

No and no

But I hope these will continue

HiSPL

Wow......

As if it needed to be said again. This is the best photo related site PERIOD!

Andy

erich6 wrote:

So, if you happen to be one of the fortunate ones to be selected as a finalist from one of the contests does that mean you are not allowed to enter other contests?

You can enter, and continue to practice your art, but you can't be chosen more than once for the semis.

Also, is there a judge selection for the semifinals prior to voting on the "top ten" or is it an open vote of 50 entries?

Erich

see the rulz.

da rulz wrote:

The winner of each semifinal contest, selected by an open vote, is the recipient of Dgrin's Public Choice Award.

erich6

Andy wrote:

• Contest themes: this or that... no, not both, you have to pick the one from a pair of opposites! Choose the one that speaks to you and let your creative juices guide you. This means more interesting competition, each photo has to stand on its own as a great "photo", not just a great "photo of (blank)". Your photo will be pitted against others of like theme, but it will also have to withstand the onslaught of contrasting themed entries. Will your photo still be good enough?

I don't understand what you mean by this. Are you saying that the semifinal voting is based on a new photo (for the semifinal period) AND the photo that won the contest that made you a finalist?

Erich

DavidTO

erich6 wrote:

I don't understand what you mean by this. Are you saying that the semifinal voting is based on a new photo (for the semifinal period) AND the photo that won the contest that made you a finalist?

Erich

You'll enter a new photo each time. It needs to be fresh, shot in the contest period.

DoctorIt

erich6 wrote:

Also, is there a judge selection for the semifinals prior to voting on the "top ten" or is it an open vote of 50 entries?

Yes.

Judges pick a top 10 in every contest, the semifinals are a contest. The Grand Finale is the only one with 2 rounds of voting and no judging.

DavidTO

erich6 wrote:

So, if you happen to be one of the fortunate ones to be selected as a finalist from one of the contests does that mean you are not allowed to enter other contests?

You can enter any open contest, or if they require qualifying, you must be qualified.

As for the semi-finals, you could end up in all four in a given year, but you would only be able to enter the Finals once.

DoctorIt

Folks, this thread is meant to pump you up...

I know there will be questions, but do us a wee favor, spend some time with the full rules before this turns into a firing squad. I assure you, we put a "fair" amount of effort into them... there's even a diagram.

erich6

Andy wrote:

You can enter, and continue to practice your art, but you can't be chosen more than once for the semis.see the rulz.

Thanks Andy. This looks like it is going to be a great contest. Thanks for putting this together! Just the feedback from the judges will be a great learning experience. These will be posted for all to see right?

DoctorIt

erich6 wrote:

Just the feedback from the judges will be a great learning experience. These will be posted for all to see right?

At least 1 Artist In Residence has already promised critique for all the finalists.

KvPhoto

DoctorIt wrote:

Folks, this thread is meant to pump you up...

I know there will be questions, but do us a wee favor, spend some time with the full rules before this turns into a firing squad. I assure you, we put a "fair" amount of effort into them... there's even a diagram.

Thank you Guys!!! This will be a fun new chapter in the Dgrin life :ivar

Nikolai

Erik,

DoctorIt wrote:

Folks, this thread is meant to pump you up...

I know there will be questions, but do us a wee favor, spend some time with the full rules before this turns into a firing squad. I assure you, we put a "fair" amount of effort into them... there's even a diagram.

I told you, I'll play I was just checking if the old challenges remain. They will not, that's fine, I had my chance

The new thing looks REALLY interesting, I'm looking forward to it!

davev

This sounds interesting. It appears to be a compilation of the thread about
the last Dgrin's best photo. Hopefully there will be some way that if a
photographer takes a great, landscape let's say, they can still somehow get
it into the contest even though at the time it was shot, the challenge was birds.

Man, I'll have to open an account for the dog so she can vote for my shots.

Good luck to everyone.

Shay Stephens

erich6 wrote:

So, if you happen to be one of the fortunate ones to be selected as a finalist from one of the contests does that mean you are not allowed to enter other contests?

Fortune favors the well prepared. This contest is not looking for lucky people. It is a sifter of talent. What will get you selected as a finalist is a great photo.

With 85 challenges behind you all as training, the time has come to set you free, to inspire each other to greater heights. To push your horizons of what you thought you could do.

So the qualifying rounds will have compelling themes to play off and inspire. But the semifinals and Grand Finale will be open themed. You will be set free to craft your photo in any way that moves you. Your inner artist will come to life to rise to the challenge. This should really appeal to the artists out there, and hopefully draw out those who didn't know they had one lurking in themselves

Shay Stephens

davev wrote:

Hopefully there will be some way that if a
photographer takes a great, landscape let's say, they can still somehow get
it into the contest even though at the time it was shot, the challenge was birds.

The challenge themes for the qualifying rounds (the only contests with fixed themes) have been carefully crafted to be openly interpreted by the artists. You won't find any themes that are narrowly focused like "birds". Instead the themes will be looser and have counterpoint elements to liven up the spirit of competition.

For example, if a theme were to be close to birds, it would be more like "Up high or Down low". The artist could interpret that theme to have a bird featured prominently. But you would also be competing against the person who sees a grimy coal worker swinging a pick ax, or a mountain climber exuberantly reaching for the sky at the top of a cloud ringed mountain summit.

The idea of the themes is to inspire, wherever that inspiration leads you. This also prepares you for the semifinals and grand finale where the artists have the ultimate freedom to select whatever theme they want to express their art. Artistic freedom is the ultimate goal and destination. We want to foster that and hopefully inspire that in all the participants.

Rhuarc

Wow, this is pretty amazing! Lol, at first I was thinking how awesome this was going to be, and while I know it will be great and I plan on enjoying it... Lol, well, let's just say that there are way too many pros out there who know a lot more than me for me to have a chance, but at least I know that my photography can only get better from this!!

Shay Stephens

Rhuarc wrote:

Wow, this is pretty amazing! Lol, at first I was thinking how awesome this was going to be, and while I know it will be great and I plan on enjoying it... Lol, well, let's just say that there are way too many pros out there who know a lot more than me for me to have a chance, but at least I know that my photography can only get better from this!!

Pro's can get bogged down artistically while a total noobie can have some amazing inspiration. Of course experience helps any photographer, but you never know when inspiration will make everything fall into place to produce a real work of art.

So don't sit the contests out thinking you will never be good enough. The contest is designed to visually inspire and let those ideas compete. Use that opportunity. It might just turn out to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

Rhuarc

Shay Stephens wrote:

Pro's can get bogged down artistically while a total noobie can have some amazing inspiration. Of course experience helps any photographer, but you never know when inspiration will make everything fall into place to produce a real work of art.

So don't sit the contests out thinking you will never be good enough. The contest is designed to visually inspire and let those ideas compete. Use that opportunity. It might just turn out to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

I have no intention of sitting anything out! I figure I can't win if I don't enter, right? Plus, assuming this contest continues for more than a year or 2, I'll only get better, and hopefully give some people a run for their, I mean DGrin's, money!

Shay Stephens

Rhuarc wrote:

I have no intention of sitting anything out! I figure I can't win if I don't enter, right? Plus, assuming this contest continues for more than a year or 2, I'll only get better, and hopefully give some people a run for their, I mean DGrin's, money!

That's the spirit

Manfr3d

Oh boy, this is great! A lifetime smugmug pro account is waiting for
the winner. This awesome long term competition is going to be
a tough photographic challenge and excellent fun. Compliments to
the brains that came up with this masterly plan!