CavlrZ said:
i think that the topics of what the contests are on are going to affect how many people participate.... voting isn't going to have much of an effect... a good photo is going to win regardless of the voting... even if you remove voting all together, the best photo is still going to rule the thread with tons of comments...
for example if you did a secenery contests, theres only soo many people who have well modeled stuff and only a hand full of them do it extremely well.. leaving those people to win with a chance for anyone else... you have to think up something that will be really broad that anyone can participate in without needing large sums of money or modeling hours... our contests are a bit more of a "scenery and modeling contest" than they are photography contests
maybe some contests on photography creativity, as in photo angles and lighting effects or something... something thats more photography?? i know even if i hired a professional photographer, i still wouldn't have had a change of winning half the contests i've been around and seen here soo far just for the fact that i use plasticville, a flat green platform with no landscaping, and that ugly 3 rail lionel track as opposed to anything else.... but thats what i want to model, soo i cant just go out and get photos of well modeled and landscaped stuff
I quoted your entire answer, since I am somewhat confused by your position. You may be enlighted if you take the time to look the past "contests" over again. I've been running these contests since April. Let's take a look at the ones I've done so far.
- April - Anything from your layout (which support your position, it is restrictive to be sure)
- May - "Anything unusal on the rails" (which has no relationship to anyone's modeling ability)
- June - "Anything railroad related and humorus" (Which again, can be either a layout or a prototype photo and is in no way restrictive)
- July/Aug - "Anything railroad related" (Again, layout or proto, anything, same goes)
- Sept. - Two structure contest, one scale, the other prototype (can't get more diverse than that)
- Oct. - Scenery, (yeah, here we go with model stuff again)
- Nov/Dec - Anything holiday related, cards, photos, or just a message or poem: "If it is holiday-related, it can be any holiday that falls between now and the first of the year, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years Day or any other that I may have overlooked" (Again, wide open to anyone, even those that don't have a camera)
So, out of seven contests, only two were restricted to modelers. All the others were diverse enough to allow photographers to do their thing, and this month, it is a "no contest, contest", and you don't even have to submit a photo, something you composed would be just fine.
I have done my best to make these "contests" interesting and open to the general membership. In many of the modeling "contest" rules, I've even stated that the photo can be of someone else's layout, just a long as you took the picture. You've got to remember, this is a model railroad forum, and I'd be remiss if we didn't have a "contest" now and then strictly to allow modelers to show off their work. Remember also, this is not a photography forum and as such we are not going to start judging on photo techniques.
I also have another thread here asking for suggestions, and I plan on implementing some of those starting in January. If you have any ideas for a "contest", feel free to add your comments to that thread.