There seems to be no consensus on the subject matter for the May Challenge. We need at least 2 votes for at least one of them. Since the previous thread seems to have gotten bogged down in various discussions of this or that I shall start this new one here. Here's the list: 1. Opposites 2. Circles 3. Warm 4. Hot 5. Vacation 6. Sexism 7. Enlightenment 8. Contentment 9. Outrageous 10. Laughter 11. Prized Possession 12. Speed 13. Life 14. Self-Portraiture 15. Red 16. Public Service 17. Winter Wonderland 18. Food! 19. Spring Marches In 20. Mornings 21. Disposable Camera The votes so far: Life 1 Laughter 1 No Postwork (?) 1 Similiar 1 Self-Portraiture 1 I had hoped to wrap this up by the end of today, but we can prolong voting another day or so if we need to.... or simply not have a challenge this month... which probably wouldn't be a good thing. :~)

I vote for 14. Self-Portraiture !!!!! huzzah :)

I vote for mornings.

No postwork! :)

ya... no postwork. woohoo. so would that meen we can't even add a border?

My vote stands at "no postwork" It's up to Michelle and Misha to say if "no postwork" also means no crop. MGD

My vote... Laughter....Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!

there was one for prized possession & if "no postwork" is picked is resizing considered postwork? how bout resharpening after resizing? or maybe RR can change their upload limit

Arghhhh..... I thought it was food? And just a question about where the prized possession resided?... Let me go back to the other thread and recount....

Sorry Cindy I missed your's the first time!! Recount of previous thread. life 1 laughter 1 no postwork 1 prized possession 1 similar 1 self portrait 1 food 1 To follow..... new votes.

life 1 laughter 2 no postwork 3 prized possession 1 similar 1 self portrait 2 food 2 Will say right now I'm not sure what No Postwork means.... I do postwork to my images, even when working in the traditional darkroom, burning, dodging, spotting with inks to remove dust spots, cropping, toning... so how does one not do postwork? And quite frankly even the best image needs some sort of post treatment, the most important being levels and sharpening... sooooo..... I would like to hear from the no postwork please crowd to clarify what no postwork means to them. And I throw my vote for food.....

food indeed!

Can I vote for food again? :}

I haven't had breakfast yet, so let's go for food. 'cuse me, I hear biscuits calling my name....

I would say digitally speaking "No postwork" means no PSP or Photoshop, including sharpening and borders. I think you could resize and that would not be considered postwork as you have a certain file size limit here to adhere to. Now as far as 35mm goes, I'm not sure what to say as touching up in the darkroom is postwork.... BUT... you actually don't have an image until you print it do you!? I would say posting an "as is" image (dust spots and all)scanning the original negative or slide, would be considered no post work. This is just my two cents. And of course once again you could resize. I personally would consider anything postwork that would be adding something more from the image then is there (clone brushing, layers etc.) or taking anything more from the image then is there (cropping out things). OK MGD Let's hear what you have to say! This is a rather interesting topic even if it doesn't become the challenge for the month, the end result will be pure photographic art, and as scary as that may seem, you may actually surprise yourself with what you can do with limited tools. Brenda :)

My thought when I suggested a "No Postwork" challenge was to concentrate our artistic efforts on subject, composition, framing, light levels, balance between shutter speed and f/stop, and not letting the gremlins into the image. It would be as though we were using "Drug Store" processing of 20-30 years ago when all they did to print a 4x6 or 5x5 was to adjust the light level -- and maybe not even that or more often to get it wrong. You could also think of it as Photography where you don't go into the darkroom. IOW, our creative control of each image would end when we trip the shutter -- after that, no crop, spot, dodge, burn, clone, erase, or frame/border. ... and then select the best image to amaze out friends (that works better with prints than slides LOL). Remember that with "Drug Store" processing leading to a 4x6 or 5x5 print, you didn't get cropping or any of the other custom services. As a practical consideration for this site, we would have to allow our usual resizing as well as "save for web" to reduce file size. We also should allow image rotation ... with most cameras, the image is wider than tall (landscape) even though sometimes the subject is taller than wide (portrait) -- that final adjustment was even available with "Drug Store" processing. That's my thought ... but the final word should be by consensus. MGD

who is this "consensus" person?

who is this "consensus" person? LOL ... just my way of saying that I know that I don't run this delightful madhouse. ... and echoing Michelle's request for additional comment from the "no postwork crowd". Hmmmmmmm ... could we be the "No Postwork Gang"? LOL MGD

I'm all for no postwork!!! I think we can make our own threads to inquire about what's possible when we get an image that we would like to use. I'm assuming that with shooting digitally in RAW format, that we need to use the Camera's automatic white-balance calculation or use the custom white balance mode(s) within camera settings and not with the RAW import utility of Photoshop? I've always strived to crop in-camera (since I don't wish to lose any detail when working with a limited number of pixels), so that's not a problem with me. I'm assuming that our thumbnails should be (once again) merely a resizing and not a crop to point out interest. Well, we always have the forum to inquire with before we post the entries! Michael

sigh... if the "no postwork" gets picked looks like it's neck & neck with food just don't want to have to leave out people with inferior equipment :p & you will most definately be losing detail after resizing if resharping is not allowed

@MrMichael - Exposure options could be whatever manual settings you want to use, or an automatic camera function. For that matter, shooting with film and before TL metering as well as when shooting macro ... it was normal to shoot 3 different exposures: under, normal, over. > thumbnails I had not thought about that. I was thinking only about the main image. Your suggestion that the thumbnails be the whole image resized to less than 200x200 is OK with me. @cynlee - > inferior equipment IMO, a superior composition will win ... I am not at all sure that the quality of the cameras will be a determining factor. > after resizing if resharping Maybe that's what I'm doing wrong ... most of what's in my gallery is just cropped, resized, and save for web. LOL MGD

life 1 laughter 2 no postwork 4 prized possession 1 similar 1 self portrait 2 food 3 We'll keep the voting going until the AM tomorrow, for anyone who wants to add anything or swing the vote.... ------------------------------------------------------- >Your suggestion that the thumbnails be the whole image resized to less than 200x200 It's supposed to be no larger than 150X150 grin, but not too many people pay attention to the directions. So I use html to resize them.... as a result some thumbs look warped...

NO POST WORK, I Vote for it..... provided........ someone lays down what constitutes post work. A simple listing would be fine like say..... Post work in studio, 1.2.3.4............ you lay down the stuff considered post work. Post work in the Potatoshops...... 1.2.3.4.......... you lay down the items considered post work. I use a dig cam and the only post work would be resize and the images comes out 2300 x2100 pix... As such most know I post huge pics after croping resizing etc. I don't want to scare anyonen with a poster size, so thats my major concern and when i down he size i need to bighten a bit, sharpen a bit etc., so, will they be considered post work?? Once its decided, it would be easy. I think we can be a bit easy of the post work thing like........ resize is okay, add border is ok, sharp after resize is ok, etec etc. adding light, adding color, adding saturation and hue, changing RGB to CYMK not okay and so on. So, I would definitely like to know what is post work. With 25 pluggins with 20 filter each........ people have a took which can fire any kinda missile......;) SNAKEY

I have just been told the kind of post work that can be done in a dark room. It is a as big a list as a post work in PC. Here is my Two cents or Two penny or Two Paisa worth...... If you are using non digital roll cam. get it printed from a photo studio as is. if you using a digi cam resize to decent size, if that is hard crop. Does that sound good?? SNAKEY

ok this is getting tough..... if I open the image in PSP and save, it auto optimizes to the level I have sent. So, I am post working without even intending it, go figure.......;) SNAKEY

As I suspected.... no postwork sounds like it should be a simple thing.... Not!

BTW..... photo labs when printing your prints do color, brightness, and contrast adjustments.... Did you know that?

ok this is getting tough Yeah, I took some time off from the discussion to document my original intention. > ... if I open the image in PSP and save, it auto optimizes > to the level I have sent. Is that "Save" or "Save for Web"? > So, I am post working without even intending it, go figure ... ;) Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but that optimization is primarily to control the degree of JPEG compression as a tradeoff against file size. MGD

ahhhhhhhhhhh... can i change my vote to food? :D

Everything is artifact. Color is illusion... With photography there is a workflow. Some practitioners consider certain elements of that workflow essentual. Others have different views. Perhaps we could interpret "No Postwork" as being true to traditional practices. As I'm not sure what this means, perhaps we could require of each submitter a short paragraph explaining what workflow was used, and why the artist feels the result is true to traditional practices? Any follow-up discussion I'm sure will be interesting and valuable.

OK here is some food for thought! LOL! This is supposed to be a challenge... Sorry couldn't resist that. I don't think "No Postwork" will be a hard complicated thing, just don't postwork your negatives or your images digital or darkroom, resizing allowed... and well if you want to allow sharpening, due to resizing I guess that wouldn't be all bad. You never know, this challenge might just be that, a challenge, and will make you think before you click the shutter, it may even make better photographers out of you all, knowing that there isn't PSP or Photoshop to back you up! Just go out and shoot your hearts desire and bring us your best is all, kind of simple me thinks! ;) But hey, that is just my two cents, something to think about. Brenda :)

Everything is artifact. Color is illusion... Yes! A similar idea ... Art Is a Falsification That Exposes a Truth. MGD

.....well -- Brenda has ordered me at gunpoint to vote for no postwork ( kidding! ) ......but why the hell not --it's controversial...( I like that ).....so I'll vote for it --- just slap those totally unedited photos up there -- be brave and make the Florida girl happy .... ( there's man eating gators down there you know! )

'Chelle starts flinging mash potatoes..... FOOD FIGHT!! Big blob lands in Dougs hair.... oooppsss.... ;~) When I think of no postwork... I think no freaky photoshop filters... but thats' just me.... the other stuff like sharpening and levels are part of my regular work flow I don't consider that to even be postwork.... but YMMV. It may be fun, or it may be the month from hell.... that remains to be seen.... :~) Whatever is decided we'll do...

....I'm for a month in hell!! ( sounds delicious ).........just throw it up there naked -- "it'll do ya no harm" ( as Sly Stone once said ).......and I must tell EVERYONE that the Nilla girl did not twist my arm --- she just said vote -- that's my story and ......(?)....I'm sticking to it.

Blows the smoke from the barrel and silently slips the gun back into her boot! Hey Doug have you ever had gator tail? It's actually pretty good! Can't say the same for frog legs, I just keep visualizing all those frogs in wheelchairs. I hear the Seminoles(FSU) eat Gator(UCF) about once a year here! LOL! ;)

.....hey Machine Gun Brenda ! ----- one of my favorite memories is when my Dad took me out for frog legs one day( tasted great! ) --- on the wall they had a little cartoon of frogs in wheelchairs coming out of the kitchen door -- I kid you not!

as i said in the last thread i thought it sounded interesting it's perfectly fine with me... shrugs i don't need any freakin frills to post a good pic rotate if needed, resize & sharpen, no problem throws some jello around ;]

Frisks my pockets and comes out with about two penny.... ooooops paisa......

Lets start all over again.

This is a Photography Challenge.

Photography can be defined in a simplest language as something you capture using an instrument called camera, position yourself in such a manner that you get a certain angle for the view.lights etc., Ofcourse, what you are capturing is as important. This is a snakeys definition, no book definition, when I say snakeys, it means, a laymans.;)

What we mean by Photography Challenge..... Photography Challenge would be the test of skill in...... using the right instrument for capture, at the right time, at the right place, with the right kind of light suitable to the mood and if the image can speak more than just merely a picture like I just happened to comment on NarayanKows post, all the more better.

Post work...... Post work would mean, trying to hide the flaws in capture, manupulate the lights in the capture, manupulate the colors, manupulate the mood itself using Potatoshops.

Finally, there needs to be a distinction between posting something for a challenge and posting something neatly dressed. We want to see the bare dare , no cover ups.

Then again, not all cams have the same features. Some are better than the others, some have more features than the other and some are ultra specific..... Lalani... the macro master, I would really like to lay my hands on her cam and filters.....hahahahah

So, a Challenge post, followed by a para graph on the kind of camera used, filter used, lights used, condition under which captured etc., should add as a bonus. For, I have reason to believe that some folks have captured some amazing pics using non hifi cams which need an acclaim for their photographic skill.

Even though, I am one of those who happen to rely a lot lot on potatoshops, like PSP, Photoshop and Photoimpact a lot and also love it very much, I feel for a challenge it should be a Big No.

Resize, crop, sharpen ........... should be the limit if at all since we are not going to a real life gallary and this is a web gallary and these softwares also help as web tools.

Enough said.....

Waiting for more.............;)

naked pics then & no cropping that cost extra at the developers & you only got 2 cents :]

Hey Cyn that's the visual I have when I hear the term frog legs!!!! :-S And Doug? they tasted rather fishy to me, didn't care for them, then again I don't like my fish to even be fishy! I'd rather eat Mahi (Dolphin) then catfish! LOL! Now a more serious level, I have only participated in one challenge before, do the pix I submit have to be taken from this point onward or can I submit an old work? The reason I am asking is because I was shooting a digi cam that was by far more inferior then any of yours up until about a month ago. My Sony Mavica was only a 1.2 mega pixels, and if you all think that would level the playing field (seeing as inferior equipment was metioned) I would be more then willing to upload images taken with that digi cam. How many entries can one submit?

Just a quick answer ('chelle usually publishes the rules over in the Challenge area if anything special applies). Usually we want new work. Usually there are no quantity limits, but since this Challenge has a pretty broad scope I think she would be wise to limit the quantity. We also need a thumbnail 150X150.

Not sure when but I did it, but I did lower the amount of entries to no more than 5 per person..... it was either that or switch back to the contest pages instead of the forum... Remember?

I have no problem with any kind of limit you choose to set! WOW 5! IMHO 1 entry per participant wouldn't be all bad either! OK noted above will go check and see! :) Is it official? Is it No postwork?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12379&Form.ShowMessage=1768446

Sorry must have missed that post! blushes