roxiemarty Loc: Florida

I am writing this to vent my frustration over the lack of information on the photos that are entered in the weekly contests. I find it very hard to vote for your photo, no matter how wonderful it is, when you don't take the time to read the information given you. We all learn here, and that is one of the rules of these challenges. There are some awesome long exposure shots, and I cannot vote, because you neglected to enlighten us to your settings, or what you went through to take these shots. Thanks for taking the time to read this, if you have.

juicesqueezer Loc: Okeechobee, Florida

Alas, this has been a problem for the ages! Read the instructions???? Come on! What instructions!

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Folks on the 'hog read directions and follow them?

Hahahah....good one.

krl48 Loc: NY, PA now SC

You could find the settings by downloading the photo and obtaining the exif data.

jim quist Loc: Missouri

My sister in law is a great cook, never looks at a recipe. My wife is a good cook and is always reading the recipe no matter what she makes, that cookbook is always open.

When we sit down to eat there aren't any placards telling us how the meal was made, we just like eating the food.

Pretty much the same with us hogs...

roxiemarty Loc: Florida

That is not the issue....have you actually read any of the guidelines?

krl48 Loc: NY, PA now SC

The settings, which you mentioned, are available. And yes, I've read the guidelines.

All that other stuff, well, if you've paid any attention to the challenge, you've noticed that very few submitters go into detail about their photo.

I'm from the school that the image speaks for itself, and a if it must be title, keep it short and sweet.

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

The image is what the image is, How it got there is irrelevant. All the other stuff might be interesting, but has ZERO bearing on composition, impact, focus, color, story telling, etc., etc.
What one goes through to get a shot is also meaningless. I don't care if you went on a three-month trek across the Sahara with only a cup of water and candy bar, went through several sandstorms, and got stomped by a camel to get the picture. No points for suffering! The image is great or crap on its own.

lighthouse Loc: No Fixed Abode

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

lighthouse Loc: No Fixed Abode

Yes, I know what you mean but I have a different beef.
Some of these images are so not long exposure ..... and you watch ... they will get votes
Steve does a wonderful job, but the masses just let him down so many times. It is disrespectful to all the hard work he puts in.
People - no matter how wonderful a photo is, if it does not meet the brief, please do not vote for it.

Just because a hummingbird has blurry wings or a baseball is not sharp does not mean it is a long exposure shot.
I assume you could take a blurry winged hummingbird at 1/500th sec. And even if the shot is at 1/50th, it is still not long exposure.
Maybe instead of leaving it to peoples discretion, it may have helped to stipulate that the images had to be longer than 2 seconds and to exhibit some sort of feature to make it obvious that it was a longer exposure.
But Steve should not have to do that when he went to the trouble of supplying so many links to explain.

Erik_H Loc: Denham Springs, Louisiana

You're 100% correct of course. However, if I went through all that crap to get a shot, you'd best believe I'd be telling people!

CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

LOL - Yeah - and it would probably be a riveting story.

So you could win a Pulitzer for the story and your picture would still suck. :-)

Erik_H Loc: Denham Springs, Louisiana

That would be my luck.

DavidPine Loc: Fredericksburg, TX

:thumbup: :thumbup:

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

Roxie, yes; I and a lot of others have read the guidelines. In this case, I am assuming that you are thinking about the following:

"The challenges are simple. You start with a theme, but the twist is that everyone needs to submit a title or description with their photo that explains the ‘who, what, where, why, when or how’ they went through to get it. This helps us ‘feel’ the moment as you did, but can also help with voting. You might even find some great tips along the way."

I don't want to get into a war on semantics, but please notice that in the phrase, ‘who, what, where, why, when or how’, the conjunction is "OR", not "AND", a phrasing that gives the contributor a great deal of latitude in the amount of information included. Steve does a lot of work on these contests; if you want more done, perhaps you could volunteer to review each submission and extract all the relevant data. On the other hand, many of us take the entry at its own value and aren't concerned with technical details. I'm sure you don't want to have to post the camera/lens/ISO/shutter speed/aperture/WB on your avatar and/or other attachments. Please lighten up a little. Thank you.