PHOTO ASSIGNMENT: March 14, 2007

“PHOTO ASSIGNMENT:

1. The first assignment is to get out and take of picture a hike or outdoor trip you take this week or weekend. If you’re in an area with snow, it would be nice to see snow. If there’s a raging river with spring flooding, consider that as a backdrop (don’t fall in!). This is a pretty wide category; we may get more specific as time goes on.

2. People will post constructive criticism of the shots posted here. However, Trail Talk being Trail Talk, it may get off topic or a snide remark may be made. Be prepared for that. No, we will not be sued for mental anguish perceived to have come from a bad criticism. Buck up.

3. This category starts today, Wednesday, March 14, and will run until Monday, April 2. Yes, that’s a long time. The time period may change as the PHOTO ASSIGNMENT categories continue. At least at first, let’s give people time to find this and do a photo.

4. You will have until noon (forum time) on Wednesday, April 4, to finish up critiques and voting, since voting will be done all along and not just at the end of the assignment period. (More on that below.)

5. You do need to go out and take a NEW photo, not simply posting one you’ve already taken. (Or definitely be prepared to be shunned! You’ve been warned!)

6. Ideally, photos should be posted to an album on this website, www.backpacking.com.
You can do that by going here: http://www.thebackpacker.com/pictures/ Go to the section labeled: Create an Album. You must be a registered member on the website to post an album. Also, you may want to compress your photo’s size some or post it so it’s not high resolution. (We do want to see it; we don’t want anyone being able to swipe your prized photo off the web. And we are not responsible if they do. Cover your butt yourself on photo quality: good enough to see well, but ideally not straight off a 10-megapixel camera with no work done to reduce the file size. A good, free program to keep track of photos and downsize them can be found at www.irfanview.com)

7. Here is how you post a photo (thanks, Tilt, from years back!):

A. Have two windows open on your computer screen, one on this thread, with the reply (“Post a Message”) box, and the other with your backpacker.com photo album. You will get to it by “Browse Albums” and your name. Or, just bookmark it. You may also want to print out these instructions at first.

B. Open up a page with the one photo on it that you choose to post to this thread.

C. In your reply box, copy and past this code:
(IMG SRC="http://www.thebackpacker.com/pictures/users/lizs/21cy71ch/mhan4bx.jpg" WIDTH=450)
To clarify, there is a space between IMG and SRC. There is also a space between .jpg+ and WIDTH. ***YOU DO NEED TO REPLACE THE PARENTHESES. Replace ( with < and replace ) with >

D. Now go to the photo you have up on screen. If you have a PC, right click on it with your mouse and a box will come up that says “Properties.” If you can’t do that, or have a Mac, find a menu item on your toolbar at the top of the screen that has “Properties” listed under it.

E. Use your mouse to highlight and copy the HTML coding designated by “Address (URL)” given under “Properties.” (At least that’s how my PC gives it.) It is specific to that photo.

F. Go back to the coding shown in No. 3, which should be in your message box. Highlight everything between the quotation marks and replace it with the coding you copied from your photo. That should post it. (If not, please call Tilt! LOL!)

8. ANOTHER OPTION: I think it’d be nice to keep postings consistent as mentioned above. However, you could provide a link to a photo album such as Webshots. Just keep in mind, having the photo right on the thread makes it easier for all of us.

9. Also, along with your photo, please list UNDER IT:

A. Photo Title (make it short and sweet, please)

B. Your TT name

C. Location of photo

D. Date taken

E. The camera equipment you used (Ex: digital or 35 mm scanned; flash; speed/aperture if you have that; any unusual or noteworthy circumstances)

F. Anything else you might like.

10. NOW COMES THE FUN PART: critiquing and, due to popular consensus, VOTING for your favorite photo. The photo with the most votes gets to pick the next category. (And if we find one person consistently winning, this rule may change. We want participation, not domination – well, most of us, that is)

A. You can critique at any time during the assignment period given above, through Wednesday, April 4, at noon (forum time). Please FIRST LIST THE PHOTO NAME, so we know what you’re talking about and can refer back to that photo. (I don’t feel we need to repost the photo each time… but that may also change if people like that.) Tell what you like… what might have been done better. Be positive.

B. Then, I think this might work (but can certainly be changed). As opposed to voting for your favorite shot – which requires waiting until the end of the photo assignment posting period -- let’s vote on a subjective score of 1 to 10. You are looking at the photo, voting on what you think that specific, perfect shot would look like and how the shot you’re viewing compares. 1 is a low score and 10 is a perfect score. I’d think quite a few shots would score in the 4-7 range, to give you some basis for starting. You can give half points, such as 5.5.

C. You need to have at least FIVE COMMENTS/CRITIQUES FROM OTHERS ON YOUR PHOTO to be considered for the contest. Scores given will be averaged for the five or more critiques posted.

D. If we end up with a tie at the end of the critique/posting period, we will have a vote specific to those photos involved.

E. The winner will get to pick the next assignment (and maybe put it on your resume?? Hehehe…)

11. There will be a new PHOTO ASSIGNMENT thread for each assignment, so one specific thread does not get weighed down with photos (to help our dial-up and otherwise bandwidth-challenged friends.) Please, winners, title them: PHOTO ASSIGNMENT: (date posted, including year – because we want to see if photos are getting better with time)

12. Rules may be revised as this goes on. (I can be bought off. LOL!! J/k)”

“Oh yeah ONE PHOTO PER PERSON.”

“so, the category is 'hike'?”

““Oh yeah ONE PHOTO PER PERSON.”
lizs
12:46:48 PM
3/14/07

And that's why I have 10 different troll names. lol
;-)”

“LOL..at one photo a piece we got some people here with enough troll names to make a full length motion picture.”

“TMI. Mebbe later...”

“Yeah, but LZ, can any of them take a decent picture?”

“Too many rules.”

“Yeah bacpac, it's pretty complicated. You go take a new picture, post it, and people will comment on it. I'd be discouraged too.”

“Your contest inspired me to bring my camera with me yesterday on my day hike in the dunes (Indiana National Lakeshore - Lake Michigan). I had been out in this same area three days before when the beach was covered with shelf ice. We have had a few days of beautiful warm spring weather, which had melted most of the ice. As I walked on the beach, I found a surreal surface in the sand that was left.

The large slabs of shelf ice had melted and shrunk toward the water. The small sliver of ice remaining about five feet from the shore in the water protected the sandy shore from the lapping waves. The sandy beach had been under the ice, and as the ice melted it left funky little sand stalagmites and piles of sand in its place.

I suspect that by today the formations are gone because the rest of the ice has probably melted, thus losing the protection from the waves.






I'm a little nervous about this since I am definitely not a photographer. I used my Nikon digital, point and shoot. Then I cropped the picture to focus on the formations. Let me just say that my picture is nothing special; I just thought the subject matter was pretty cool. I wish I could have captured it better.
last edited: 3/15/07 7:59:59 AM”

“ruby, that is a pretty cool scene.
i think it might have been captured better from a more interesting view point.
do you have one of those mini 2 oz. tripods? or maybe a rock could have been used to get that shot with the camera 3" off the ground.
if your camera has a macro mode, that might have been neat too.

my vote: 6.5

disclaimer: i'm a total newbie to photography and have no idea what i'm talking about. feel free to ignore my comments.”

“framing is a bit off, but high marks on the subject matter

score: 7.5

nice job! (probably make a great computer wallpaper Ruby.”

“I've been discussing this with Lizs, and at the risk of stepping on toes, I'm going to make a small post here involving the submission/display of photo entries for this little excercise. It will also involve a minor change in the rules (I hope I'm getting this right Lisa)

To submit a photo for entry into the contest, simply send it as an email attachment to the following email address:
thebackpacker.photos@frontiernet.net
Please resize your photos to 600 pixels along the largest axis prior to sending them. Only jpegs will be accepted. Please include your backpacker.com screen name in the body of the message, along with an image title if you'd like a caption included with the display of your photo. The entries will remain anonymous, and no voting will be allowed until after the photo submission deadline. After the deadline, I will enable public comments and scoring on this gallery so that people can rate the photos, critique the photos, vote for their favorite etc. I'm going to leave all of the details regarding voting, vote tallying (you're not from Florida are you Lizs?) etc. up to Lizs. If I've screwed any of this up, I apologize in advance. Remember folks, this is for fun, and for learning.

I can only upload photos from home, so your submission may not be posted immediately after emailing it. Be patient with me, and I'll get them up as quickly as I can.

The gallery can be found at the following link:

http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/2585924.

Happy shooting, and lets have fun with this and try to learn something in the process.”

“

Not a photographer either, but here is one from my hike yesterday.
last edited: 3/19/07 1:25:29 PM”

“lots of WOOD!”

“To those of you whose photos I have swiped from this thread for the contest gallery, if you would like me to add captions to your "anonymous" entries, email your captions to thebackpacker.photos@frontiernet.net

I was really hoping many of you would be out hiking and shooting all weekend. So far our photo assignment gallery is looking pretty skinny. What happened to Windwalker, Buck, USA, and of course, the creator of this thread, Lizs? Not to mention the rest of you that I KNOW take cameras with you when you hike.”

“Sorry hobbit, no hiking for me for a while. :(”

“big trip in PA this weekend should produce some entries.

haven't seen buck around TT in a long time. he prolly doesn't need us anymore, now that he's got his own infant to watch at home.”

“Yeah.... I was just lementing the same thing. I miss Buck and Wind Walker posting the occasional masterpiece..... giving us all something to aspire to.”

“yeah true, but i've seen your pics hobbit, not too shabby at all!”

“There has only been one "photo-eligible" weekend. Many of us don't get out every weekend, sometimes not even every month.

And then, some of us can't find the cord for the battery charger for our cameras. So we have to buy a whole new battery charger off of eBay. Then we'll get in the game.

I'm sure there are lots of us in that category, LOL.”

“Thanks for the kind words sacco, but I'm a poser compared to the two mentioned.”

“We are all posers compared to Buck and Wind Walker, those guys are real pros.”

“

Trees at the Upper Twin Falls viewpoint on 3/20/07.

From my Twin Falls photo album at:

http://www.thebackpacker.com/pictures/users/usa/rgjw04pn/e83qfvobcbi7g.jpg”

“Sorry about that link. Here is the correct link to the entire photo album:

http://www.thebackpacker.com/pictures/album/rgjw04pn.php”

“Don't forget folks..... you have until April 2nd to send photos. After that, I will enable comments for critiqueing etc. Again, the gallery for all the entries is located at http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/2585924, and you can send your entries to thebackpacker.photos@frontiernet.net”

“I love snakes....I just wanna touch it! It's so cute :)”

“Tiny little bugger free. I missed him entirely till sass pointed him out.”

“great pic.”

“Awwww, it's just widdle baby snake! What type is it?”

“treebait, its a garter snake. Probably 1/2" dia and maybe 14" long at best.”

“There once was a snake named Nate. One day Nate was laying on the side of a mountain sunning himself on a rock with all his other snake friends. At the bottom they saw this funny red lever with a sign that read, "To end world pull lever.".

As they were sunning a big boulder stared rolling down the hill heading straight for the lever! Nate races out in front of the boulder, gets squashed and the boulder vears off course missing the lever.

Nate's friends all gathered around him as his last breath of life was escaping his crushed little lungs and they cried, "Why oh why did you slither out in front of the boulder!?". And his last words to his friends were...







"Better Nate than lever..."”

“Only one more weekend to shoot and sumit your photos. Results are looking kind of short. http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/2585924”

“that just proves the rest of ya are just trail wanna bes!!! :P”

“This past weekend Gemini heading out Tuesday morning.

No touch ups point and shoot Nikon Coolpix L4. Using Night landscape mode.

[img]http://www.thebackpacker.com/pictures/users/jackstraw/mk0rwhji/51l8hn4.jpg WIDTH=450 [/img]”

“Huh??”

“

Very Nice Jackstraw!
last edited: 3/28/07 12:48:12 PM”

“

Early to rise...
Jackstraw
Tuesday 3/27
Black Forest Trail Pennsylvania
Nikon Coolpix L4”

“okay, you suck! that's almost teh same pic I wanted to submit.”

“I know I suck. But your picture is better. I love that pic. 10!”

“one more and that's it.
”

“

The only picture I have on my web space taken in the date range... :D

Taylor Made R5 Tour Prefered with a Mitsubishi Diamana Blueboard 83S shaft. I walk about 7 miles with it every weekend outdoors... so that counts right?
last edited: 3/28/07 4:02:21 PM”