GuruShots
I've been obsessed with a website called GuruShots. It bills itself as "The World's Greatest Photography Game" and I have to admit that I love playing it. It's free to sign up on the website and when you do, you will find that there are a number of current challenges. Each challenge is created by one of the "gurus" and they basically give you a category and a brief description of what it's about, though most of them are pretty self-explanatory.
When I joined, some of the challenges that were in progress were "Think Pink", "Mother Earth Day" and "Vacation Destinations", among others. And all newbies are invited to join the "Newbie Challenge". You are allowed to upload 1-4 photos to as many current challenges as you want. In order for your photos to get more exposure, you vote on other people's photos. The voting is blind--every time you vote, you are given 100 photos and you vote for the ones you choose. As far as I can tell, you can vote as often as you want. You don't see your own photos and you don't see photos that you've already voted for.
You can see how many people have voted for each of your photos and what your ranking in the challenge is. You can move up through a hierarchy of categories, with the ultimate goal being the "All Star" ranking. Your standing on the website moves from Newbie to Rookie and on up until perhaps, one day, you reach the level of Guru yourself and can run challenges. You have a certain number of "swaps" so that you can switch out a photo that isn't doing well, "boosts" to give a photo more exposure and even "auto fills", to fill up your exposure meter without the hassle of actually voting. You can win these perks or, of course, you can buy them!
Some of the photos that I've seen are simply wonderful. Amazing. And I've also seen quite a few that just aren't good--overfiltered, blurry (and not in a good way), poorly composed. But anyone can enter and I know that I've put in some photos that I don't consider all that great because they fit the challenge, so I shouldn't realize criticize anyone else's!
If a guru votes for your photo, it gets a little star and a guru's vote is worth 50 votes! That actually happened to me on a picture where I would never have expected it and when I saw it, I was bowled over! Now, for all I know, the guru can vote for hundreds and hundreds of photos, but the fact that I got a little star on one of mine made me tingly! The weird thing is that it was one that I just swapped into the "Smiley Faces" challenge on a whim--a selfie taken on a boat in the Caribbean after snorkeling. I like the picture, but it's not what I would consider one of my better photos!
I have gotten to the All Star Ranking just once so far. It's just fun to watch your votes increase and to try to figure out if another picture would be better to swap in. I'm sure that the novelty will wear off, but for right now, I'm having a lot of fun with it!
When I joined, some of the challenges that were in progress were "Think Pink", "Mother Earth Day" and "Vacation Destinations", among others. And all newbies are invited to join the "Newbie Challenge". You are allowed to upload 1-4 photos to as many current challenges as you want. In order for your photos to get more exposure, you vote on other people's photos. The voting is blind--every time you vote, you are given 100 photos and you vote for the ones you choose. As far as I can tell, you can vote as often as you want. You don't see your own photos and you don't see photos that you've already voted for.
You can see how many people have voted for each of your photos and what your ranking in the challenge is. You can move up through a hierarchy of categories, with the ultimate goal being the "All Star" ranking. Your standing on the website moves from Newbie to Rookie and on up until perhaps, one day, you reach the level of Guru yourself and can run challenges. You have a certain number of "swaps" so that you can switch out a photo that isn't doing well, "boosts" to give a photo more exposure and even "auto fills", to fill up your exposure meter without the hassle of actually voting. You can win these perks or, of course, you can buy them!
Some of the photos that I've seen are simply wonderful. Amazing. And I've also seen quite a few that just aren't good--overfiltered, blurry (and not in a good way), poorly composed. But anyone can enter and I know that I've put in some photos that I don't consider all that great because they fit the challenge, so I shouldn't realize criticize anyone else's!
If a guru votes for your photo, it gets a little star and a guru's vote is worth 50 votes! That actually happened to me on a picture where I would never have expected it and when I saw it, I was bowled over! Now, for all I know, the guru can vote for hundreds and hundreds of photos, but the fact that I got a little star on one of mine made me tingly! The weird thing is that it was one that I just swapped into the "Smiley Faces" challenge on a whim--a selfie taken on a boat in the Caribbean after snorkeling. I like the picture, but it's not what I would consider one of my better photos!
I have gotten to the All Star Ranking just once so far. It's just fun to watch your votes increase and to try to figure out if another picture would be better to swap in. I'm sure that the novelty will wear off, but for right now, I'm having a lot of fun with it!
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