I get asked very frequently to hold workshops & classes by many of my clients & friends. I don't have the availability to commit to workshops but I do have the time, ideas & creativity to help nurture your photographic artistry through monthly image challenges and critiques.
In January, I started a photography challenge that was meant to be a teaching tool with flexible guidelines to encourage you to take out your camera and apply the knowledge being shared in these posts. And because I enjoy rewarding effort and celebrating risk-takers to push themselves to try something new, I hoped that including a prize of a complimentary portrait session for the image that was voted on by the viewers as being the strongest image would make for a great incentive to really ROCK the images.
But what happened was disheartening for me. Instead of taking our your cameras and creating new art, entries were dug out of old image archives from months or even years past. NONE of the images submitted were created specifically for the challenge. I was trying to ignore that fact - as uncomfortable as it made me - but it was the part when the cheating was brought to my attention that I decided to reconsider this whole project.
I had every intention of relying on the honor system in regard to the voting for the image submissions, relying on the selections of the readership to make the most honest selection. I was shown a post on Facebook that was soliciting votes for one of the finalists. That, from my perspective is cheating. Votes were to be cast based on criteria like design, composition, posing, lighting... all the things I have been asked to teach and was trying to make available through this means.
so it is with a heavy heart that I make the announcement to terminate the Rock The Shot photo contest. I am saddened by this and hope that in the future, when contests are run that those participating will exhibit more appropriate behavior and play fairly.
all posts relating to Rock The Shot have all been deleted.
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