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GOOD IDEA?


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OK Guys, bear with me. It's been a while since I followed the forums as religiously as I once did and this might have been hashed out before (although I did do a search)

 

The idea:

 

The thought struck me on my last cache hunt that with the popularity of photography and the proliferation of digital cameras and the resulting combination of geocaching and the aforementioned past time, we should investigate the possibility of a geocaching photo contest. ???

 

I throw this out to the masses to twist as we oft do and come up with a workable plan. Add your twist.....

 

POSSIBLE TWISTS:

1. Only photographs taken during cache hunts to be entered.

2. With the abundance of geocaching shutter-bugs the initial stage of contest to be by region. i.e Northeast, Midwest, New Jersey etc...

3. Catagories such as wildlife, bugs, vistas, sunsets, etc..as many as appropriate...

4. Winner of region to move on to nation competition then to world competition...

5. $10 entry fee (pay pal or other means) for each photo

6. Winner --- 2 round trip tickets to any cache location on earth.?????

 

Wellllll ??????????? Jeremy?

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It's an excellent idea. The entry fee means lots of legal issues that we may not want to get into, but we have almost a quarter of a million photos deep in the site now, and I'm working on better ways to share these images.

 

One problem is that we have a lot of photos but they aren't organized well. My solution is to create another web site IsMyCacheHotOrNot.com that will allow folks to define the image they see and rate it.

 

So you can say that the photo is of a person, of scenery, etc. and you rate it an 8. After a while we can "bubble up" lots of the more popular images for display in a gallery. Prizes would follow icon_smile.gif

 

frog.gif Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location

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quote:
ounds good to me...but I think I will elave our digital cam behind and take the 35mm instead and start taking some photos of great places I've seen so far..

 

I still cart my Minolta SRT 201, 200, 101, 102 and SC-II bodies on cache hunts, along with a bag full of lenses (well I never bring them all at the same time, but I'll usually have a combination of several). Photos come out great, but it's a lot of stuff to carry and I often have to wait weeks for the photos since I only take a few shots on each trip.

 

I'm still thinking about getting a dig. camera just for the ease of use. No more waiting a month to finish a roll, another 2 days to develop and then scanning the pics.

 

Of course, I'd still use the Minoltas for serious photography.

 

"Au pays des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois"

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Our digital is a 4 yr old Kodak. Takes decent pics, but you really can't zoom in. So what you are photographing needs to be les than 25 or 30 feet away, depending on the subject you are capturing. I got a Canon Rebel 2000 EOS a couple Christmas' ago and got a 300mm zoom lens last year on vacation in Florida. Gotta love it...The current "Photo of the week" on my website is one I took with the 35mm in my backyard of an Eastern Chipmunk. The photo was taken about 30 yards away or so. There's a couple of other pics on my message board under the "Scenery, wildlife, and More" section. I believe one is of my wife and kis in Providence, RI that was taken with the digital and a link to one of a bird taken with the 35mm, but it didn't turn out as well as I hoped. Actually I guess it turned out ok, since I took it through the glass of the window.

 

Brian Wood

Woodsters Outdoors

http://www.woodsters.com

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Cool!!! It's great to hear TPTB endorse this idea. Integration of my photography with geocaching is what I really enjoy and is what I try to feature on our moondog3.com site. Looking forward to more details.

 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and I have seen some great pics in the gallery that embodies what geocaching is all about.

 

19973_600.gif

The adventures of Navdog, Justdog, and Otterpup

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We like the idea as well. One question to be resolved would be whether photos taken prior to the start of the contest would be eligible, or only ones taken after the start.

 

If this flies, I'll have to go back to carrying my 35mm and some lenses with me instead of just our digital with the limited zoom range. It takes very nice pictures overall, but it really can't compete with a good telephoto in many cases.

 

"Roads? Where we're going we don't need .... roads" --Dr. Emmett L. Brown

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We approve of the idea as well. It would have to be determined whether or not photos taken prior to the official start would be eligible.

 

If this flies, we'll have to start lugging our 35mm and some lenses with us to make up for the lack of a decent zoom capability on our digital camera which does a great job otherwise. That would give us more exercise. icon_smile.gif

 

Sorry about the double post, every now and then weird things happen in the forums. I entered the first one, returned to correct a misspelled word and it vanished. I logged out, logged back in, refreshed and it seemed to be gone for good. I entered a new, similar post and suddenly both of them were there.

 

Often when I first call up the forums, I get "most recent" topics that are from several days back until I refresh. After refreshing and viewing a topic, when I go back to the forums to look at others, I get the old topics again and have to refresh once more. I don't know if this is unique to me, or common. It sure takes

up a lot more time due to all the refreshing required. icon_frown.gif

 

"Roads? Where we're going we don't need .... roads" --Dr. Emmett L. Brown

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cache-potato,

Is it too late to change the topic of this thread to say "Photo Contest" or something like that?

 

it IS a good idea and a more descriptive title might get you better mileage ....

 

Also, maybe some would find the UK's Winchester Event Photographic Competition interesting?

 

-- I recognize fun when I see it.

 

[This message was edited by MissJenn on June 25, 2003 at 05:58 AM.]

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quote:
Originally posted by BrianSnat:

quote:
ounds good to me...but I think I will elave our digital cam behind and take the 35mm instead and start taking some photos of great places I've seen so far..

 

I still cart my Minolta SRT 201, 200, 101, 102 and SC-II bodies on cache hunts, along with a bag full of lenses (well I never bring them all at the same time, but I'll usually have a combination of several). Photos come out great, but it's a lot of stuff to carry and I often have to wait weeks for the photos since I only take a few shots on each trip.

 

I'm still thinking about getting a dig. camera just for the ease of use. No more waiting a month to finish a roll, another 2 days to develop and then scanning the pics.

 

Of course, I'd still use the Minoltas for serious photography.

 

_"Au pays des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois"_


 

I love my SRT 101. It's just about 36 years old now and still the best standard camera I've ever owned. I recently got a Nikon 5000 digital for my b-day so I usually take it. I think a photo contest would be a good idea also, as well as a better way to just view the images. Some of my favorites are for TBs. Bimbo Barbie for example. I did an essay for Tarzan that I had fun with.

 

Wisdom comes with age... but sometimes age comes alone.

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I love the idea! I always carry my digital camera with me while caching and love to take pics of things other than my wife holding an ammo box! One suggestion for an added category: black & white. Even taken with a digital, it is easy to convert a photo to black & white. Black & white photography takes a completely different "eye" for composition and would add a nice variation to the usual photos. ALSO-- how about 2 overall categories: One for those who want to pay $10 and be eligible to win a prize; and one that's free to enter and just want to be judged on content. The prize for this category simply being the pride and satisfaction of a nicely-taken photo.

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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy:

It's an excellent idea. The entry fee means lots of legal issues that we may not want to get into, but we have almost a quarter of a million photos deep in the site now, and I'm working on better ways to share these images.

 

One problem is that we have a lot of photos but they aren't organized well. My solution is to create another web site IsMyCacheHotOrNot.com that will allow folks to define the image they see and rate it.

 

So you can say that the photo is of a person, of scenery, etc. and you rate it an 8. After a while we can "bubble up" lots of the more popular images for display in a gallery. Prizes would follow icon_smile.gif

 

frog.gif Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location


 

Mention $10.00 per pic and Jeremy is all over it.

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quote:
Huntnlady wrote:

Maybe each photo should be submitted with accompanying photo with GPS in the shot to rule out old vacation photos, kind of like a locationless.


I don't like this idea. How about the only requirement is that the photo had to have been uploaded with a previous cache log?

 

The problem I have with your suggestion is that I take a lot of photos when I'm caching and very rarely do I take one with my GPS in the photo (kind of wrecks the shot). Some of my best photos have been taken while caching and as long as the location is verifiable by the cache logs I don't see where anything else should be required.

 

Some of the winning entries might make good wallpaper files and might become available for downloading -- I certainly am not going to have a wallpaper image on my computer that has someone's hand holding a GPSr.

 

Another negative aspect of this is that the potential for faking a photo goes way up -- and we've been down that road before haven't we?

 

Just take a photo -- upload it with your cache log photos -- enter it into the contest -- and may the best photos win. Simple and easy.

 

*****

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I think Huntnlady meant that two versions of each photo should be taken and submitted, one with GPSr and one without. And yes, you're right, it wouldn't be hard to fake that - although IDENTICAL shots with and without GPSr would be a little fishy.

 

As far as wallpaper goes -- I doubt the server will have the capacity to handle wallpaper-size image files?

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quote:
Sugar Kane wrote:

I think Huntnlady meant that two versions of each photo should be taken and submitted, one with GPSr and one without. And yes, you're right, it wouldn't be hard to fake that - although IDENTICAL shots with and without GPSr would be a little fishy.


If I understand what Huntnlady is saying here, is that perhaps there should be a direct caching connection attached to the contest. I agree but just feel that this suggestion may be far too limiting.

 

What I'm getting at is that a photo contest is about the photo. That's it. Having to add the GPSr will take away from the quality of the entries and inhibit the person taking the photo. For instance, if I'm walking down a trail and come across a moment where in a few seconds, the sun is going to be exactly where I envision it to make the scene 'picture perfect', the last thing I want is to stick a GPSr in there (or even have to think about it). I want to capture that exact moment. It would be a shame not to be able to enter that picture of your niece's expression when she opened the cache -- all because you didn't have your GPSr extended out at arms length to be in the photo. I think the essence of the photo is to show different aspects of caching.

 

The connection to caching is that the photo was taken while caching.

 

Some honesty is expected from entrants and I think we can take his/her word that their entry was taken at the cache location. The proximity to a cache location is the connection to caching and I think that is enough.

 

To me, adding a GPSr in the shot sounds more like a Locationless cache than a photo contest.

 

quote:
As far as wallpaper goes -- I doubt the server will have the capacity to handle wallpaper-size image files?
That very well may be. But it may be a possiblity as well. Best to keep it in mind, I'd say.

 

*****

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quote:
Originally posted by Jomarac5:

 

If I understand what Huntnlady is saying here, is that perhaps there should be a direct caching connection attached to the contest....

 

I think the essence of the photo is to show different aspects of caching. .....

 

The connection to caching is that the photo was taken while caching.

 

Some honesty is expected from entrants and I think we can take his/her word that their entry was taken at the cache location. The proximity to a cache location is the connection to caching and I think that is enough.

 

To me, adding a GPSr in the shot sounds more like a Locationless cache than a photo contest.

*****


 

I agree with these points. In one case, we walked close to 8 miles while completing a multi-cache and to my way of thinking any photos (and there were many) taken during this time have pertinence to the concept. It took us a little over a month to complete, but that is immaterial.

 

Unfortunately, if there is actually a prize or contest involved honesty often takes a back seat, but the real winners here would be the geocaching community who would get to see more of the spectacular photos taken by others. It might even lead cachers to visit areas and hunt for caches that they might have passed up otherwise, thereby increasing the benefit to them.

 

As for putting a GPSr in the photo, I have never done that yet, and don't plan to ever do so. My photos are about the area, the cache and the experience, not the technology. If it became a requirement, I would simply avoid the contest and continue posting photos on the cache and travel bug pages as I do now. icon_smile.gif

 

"Roads? Where we're going we don't need .... roads" --Dr. Emmett L. Brown

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