Announcing the April 2012 theme challenge - Perched Bird (1 Viewer)

The theme for April 2012 is 'Perched Bird'.

Entries should be of a single perched bird. This is defined as a single bird which is stood e.g. on the ground, in the water, on a tree branch, fence, lampost, telegraph pole, roof top etc. Birds in flight will not be accepted.

The rules must be adhered to in order to avoid disqualification. The Moderators decision is final.

Rules -

1. Entry to have been taken in the last twelve months.
2. Date taken to be included in the entry - must at least include month and year.
3. Entry to be uploaded between now and the 20th midnight.
4. Entries must contain a single perched bird.
5. Location taken to be included and must include county/state and country.
6. One entry per member.
7. Only minor image adjustment is permitted, such as cropping, sharpening, contrast, and levels. The photo must not be otherwise greatly manipulated i.e. objects should not be added / removed in order to enhance the shot - no composite images.
8. Once uploaded a photo is classed as an entry and cannot be replaced by another shot. However you have until the closing date / time of this competition to ensure that your photo meets the criteria.
9. The entry must be your own work and not previously submitted in a competition on this site.
10. The subject's common name must be given - though please add the scientific too!
11. Entries to be uploaded directly by entrants to the Monthly Photo Competitions Gallery.

A voting booth will be posted after the 20th.

Please note 30 entries will be selected for addition to the voting booth for members to vote upon.


Entries not selected for inclusion in the voting booth will be moved to their respective Geographical Gallery forum.

Comments on entries are permitted.

Any queries about this months competition - please post below.

Hi Ian:
After reading the rules, I'm still puzzled on how to enter a photo in the competition. Do I simply do my ordinary thing, and you and/or a committee tracks the gallery to pick out possible winners, or do I upload my photo in some special way?
Ron Davis (user: rdavis).

rdavis said:

Hi Ian:
After reading the rules, I'm still puzzled on how to enter a photo in the competition. Do I simply do my ordinary thing, and you and/or a committee tracks the gallery to pick out possible winners, or do I upload my photo in some special way?
Ron Davis (user: rdavis).

Click to expand...

Hi Ron,

You upload your entry in the normal way into the gallery selecting the 'monthly photo competitions entries' from the drop down geographical forum list. Normal gallery rules apply.

Once the closing date is reached we select 30 entries for inclusion in a voting booth posted in this forum for members to vote upon. Sometimes all entries made are included. A link is posted in the Gallery as well.

Hi Ian,
I followed your directions, and it worked! Now, here are some additional questions for you.
1. The photo I just entered in the contest had recently been posted in the Birds of Africa part of the Gallery. Now it appears twice in my portfolio on the Gallery. Can this double appearance be prevented?
2. Are there criteria for judging the photos? I was uncertain whether to use photo quality as my top criterion for choosing my entry, or rarity, or appealing pose, or other. Can you advise on this question, please?
3. On an entirely different matter, now that I have over 500 photos in my portfolio in the Gallery, when I search under my name only 500 of my photos appear. How can I access the others? (I'm searching my portfolio for images that I want to use in a talk at our local Audubon Center, and would like the search to include all of the images I have posted.)
Best regards,
Ron

Hi Ian,
Regarding my third question, although the rdavis portfolio says at the beginning that 500 images are shown, I just actually counted them, and there are 515. Is the initial statement of 500 simply a programming limit (as high as the statement can go), even though there may be many more photos that appear in the portfolio?
Ron

Hi Ron,

In reply to your points -

1. Double posting of the same photo can't be avoided if you already have a copy in your gallery. It needs to be a fresh copy for the competition. On completion of voting all entries bar the winner moved into their respective geographical forum so you may end up with two copies of the same photo. There's nothing wrong with that as far as the gallery is concerned though members do have the ability to delete their own photos if they wish.

2. There's no set criteria for the judging, every aspect is taken into account. There is input from several people as to preferences as to which are included in the voting booth and which aren't and opinions do differ. At the end of the day though a well taken photo that best meets the theme of the competition may well out weigh a not so well taken of a more difficult or rare subject. However don't forget that it's the membership that actually votes for the winners and I've found that opinions vary widely.

3. I'll have to get back to you on this. I see what you mean though. A search of my own brought back 575 photos rather than the total. I dare say it's an Admin setting in the software. These limits are usually set for a reason, though this one may be adjustable.

Hi Ian,

This morning I followed the instructions and posted a photo of a perched bird for this months competition. The response said upload successful but I can't see the photo anywhere. Has it worked or have I done something wrong?

Hi 2slo

The upload appears to have failed as you have no pictures in the Gallery at all. The most usual reason for failure is that the file size is too big so ensure that you resize your picture to no more than 325k and about 900 px on the longest side and select Medium quality (or whatever your photo editing software calls it).

If you still have problems, please come back and we'll try and work out what else might be happening.

D

delia todd said:

Hi 2slo

The upload appears to have failed as you have no pictures in the Gallery at all. The most usual reason for failure is that the file size is too big so ensure that you resize your picture to no more than 325k and about 900 px on the longest side and select Medium quality (or whatever your photo editing software calls it).

If you still have problems, please come back and we'll try and work out what else might be happening.

D

Click to expand...

Thank you Delia, it was the file size that caused the problem. I've resized the photo, submitted it again and now it's visible :t:

Regards,

Mark.

Hi Admin

Can you tell me if my photo up loaded it said it did but i dont see it......

\\\\\kind Rgards steve

Hi Steve

Sorry, there's no sign of it, please read my post above to 2slo and try again.

Do come back if you need more help.

D