Time for another Rapid Fire gallery competition. Mornings are chilly, when it rains it pours and people are starting to talk about whether there will be snow. All you want to do is curl up in front of the fire. All we want you to do is get out there and take pictures! The theme of this competition is “Weather”. That means any picture that features any kind of weather or the effects of weather. As usual, we won't be disqualifying any pictures on content (as long as they are decent!) but I've produced some guidelines for voting. People voting on your pictures don't have to stick to these but it shows the way we want to go with this competition.
If you're in the UK then snow's pretty unlikely in the time scale but if we get some of the white stuff then get out there with your camera! Here are some other ideas:
- Rain, hail, snow, sun, wind - as long as there's weather in there!
- People wrapped up for the cold (remember I said the effects of weather!), underneath umbrellas or just getting wet in the rain
- A beautiful foggy morning (yeah - get up early)
- Kites, windsurfers, yachts (blowing in the wind…)
- A rain gauge, water drops, ice patterns - some of these you don't even have to go outside for
- Somebody sitting by a roaring fire with a hot toddy - if that isn't an effect of weather I don't know what is!
- Sunsets - go on, get down to the beach in winter
There are plenty of ideas at the top of this article but we want to see what you can dream up.
How it works
The picture must be taken by you between NOW and the closing date of the competition - no trawling through your archives, no recycling stuff from the Autumn Rapid Fire. Get out there and take some pictures.
I've set up a special gallery called “WeatherComp”. Submit your pictures to that gallery for inclusion in the competition. These pictures will be approved as normal but people won't be able to vote on them until the close of the competition. Enter as many times as you like.
Once the competition closes, the pictures will go on display and voting will be open for one week. Every member gets to vote on all the pictures except their own from 1 - 5. You could probably vote for your own pictures but (1) that would be sad and (2) we'd disqualify you.
Competition is open for submission now and all pictures must be submitted by 9 am Monday 4th December. Voting will then open and the winner will be announced on Monday 11th December.
When voting is open, feel free to talk about your own or anyone else's pictures in the forums but if you start trying to rig the vote, well, we'll probably spot that!
Finally, the subject is up to you - anything that says “weather” to you or the effects of weather will be allowed. Pictures will not be rejected on subject matter (unless they break the site's decency rules) but if you have to explain why it's a “weather” picture you may not do so well in the competition. Check out the “guidelines for voting” below for some hints.
Click HERE to go straight to the image submission page, the correct album will be chosen for you.
You will need to be a member to submit
The prize
Let's be honest. To win this competition you're going to need a pretty amazing picture. The kind of picture you would want to put on your wall and show off to people. The kind maybe that you would want to have made into a canvas print and hang over the fireplace so all your mates can go “wow” at it. That's handy, because the prize is your picture on a beautiful stretched canvas. You'll need to supply the wall and the mates to go “wow”.
After the competition I'll contact the winner and arrange for them to send a high res file. This will be printed on canvas, stretched over a wooden frame and delivered.
Guidelines for voting
As always we are keeping the rules simple on this one. However, I thought I'd give some guidelines for voting. They are right here on the competition announcement page so that people who enter can bear them in mind when creating their prize winning images.
Remember that you don't have to enter to vote - any member can vote. But if you didn't enter I bet you find a shot where you go “I could have done better than that” - why not enter the next one?
|
- Look through and see if there are any that just don't fit the subject to you. Do they say “weather”? Can you imagine why the photographer thought they did? If not then consider just not voting on these. Have a look at the top of this article for some things I think should be allowed in - it's pretty broad. If the picture doesn't fit that then don't give it one star, just don't vote on it.
- Have a glance at all the entries and decide on the ones that leap out and make you go “wow”. Think about giving these 5 stars (you can give 5 stars to as many pictures as you like but obviously it makes no sense to give them all 5!)
- Look at the rest and judge them by your own criteria. Do you demand that shots are perfectly exposed and razor sharp? Fine, mark them accordingly. Do you give more weight to the subject or what the photographer was trying to do? Cool then give high marks where it's appropriate. Different people rate different attributes but with an active community like this everything will balance out.
- If you really think a picture fits the subject but has no merit whatsoever then give it one star. But why not take the time to explain why you did it? If you find yourself giving more than 3 pictures one star then please start a thread explaining how you think they can be improved. It's very dispiriting for the entrants just to get low marks and no clues - please help them out so they can be better next time. Isn't that why we're all here? Well, that and to win cool prizes.
| 
