Congrats Kieth.


I just wanted to share a photo I thought fit the topic. I didn't know it was turning into a contest. Thanksto all who voted for my shot.


I've entered a few over at DPS in past years but I find I'm way to busy most of the time to keep up with the weekly assignments. It's a great tool to force you to produce creative work on a dead line.


If you are going to topic the post as "Assignment", that would imply photos taken after the assignment date. (that didn't cross my mind until now)


If you are going to judge photos based on a topic then I would call the title of the post "Contest" That would imply a "best-of" taken anytime.


However, ifthe forum decides to do this there will have to be rules and a qualification judge. In this layed back senario I could easily sumbit a photo I did not take. This is why DPS scrutinizes the entries so closely. It's very time consuming.


Now, you say "but Chuck, we're just doing this to have fun and share our work." Agreed, but once the "contest" style format is initiated we as forum members will open the door to recognition seekers and those looking to build their photo resume's.


I really like the share and critique and learn aspect of this forum. I also really like the size of this community and the class of talented and knowledgable photographers posting here. I'm not sure if topic based photo contest threads are very beneficial. There are a ton of online photo contest ongoing in other forums. dpreview, fredmiranda, DPS, etc.


It could be that a thread is started to share and talk about entries made to other forum contests. That way, no one in this community will be burdened with the overseership of a contest. Just pick a topic contest from dpreview to be the bi-montly or monthly contest thread. Post your entry here as well so that members can follow along.


Or, as Bryan suggested, break "Your Best of Nature Photos" & "Your Best Portrait Photos"into sub-catagories like they do at dpreview. Instead of calling it "Best of" just create a thread with the topic. That way, we can post ongoing work to share, critique,& learn with more specificity. To keep the size of the threads respectable, start a new thread for each topicon the 1st day of each month. The Best of Nature thread is huge. Searching it can be quite a burden. i.e. Nature, Nov09; Formal Portrait, Nov09; Candid Portrait, Nov09; Macro, Nov09; Street, Nov09; Architectural, Nov09....etc.


That's my 2.341987 cents. []