Weekly #485 - Trick or Treat Competition

This week's competition is now up and running. The requirement is to produce a photograph that fits the topical theme, 'Trick or Treat.' While the photograph can certainly be based on the Halloween event coming up next Monday, it doesn't have to be. The clue is in the title! Entries can be shot for the competition or taken from your archives.

If you are intending to enter, a reminder that there is just one more day to do so. Don't leave it 'till Monday, you'll be too late!

Results now posted. Thank you to those who entered.

Remember this?


Perhaps I should let on as it's been playing on my mind following that unexpected outburst after the results were published. If you visit this page you'll see why I didn't choose the expected winner of the competition. The work wasn't wholly original. Was that an acceptable entry or wasn't it? I think clarification is needed. Using someone else's copyright work and passing it off as your own is, to my mind, theft. The source image wasn't even credited by the entrant.

I don't think any clarification is needed. All aspects of any image should be entirely the work of the photographer who is entering the image.

Thanks John. Could something to that effect possibly be added to the general rules page? It would save someone else having to receive a similar unwarranted outburst, or at least something to refer the entrant to.

I don't want to complicate the rules really, or no-one will read them. We've kept it simple with 485 weekly competitions throwing up very few problems. Hopefully common sense will be enough.

Part of the problem, identified elsewhere, is that some college courses actually encourage students to use royalty free images from the internet, so it's not surprising that sometimes this gets carried over. It is rare though.

I suppose for college use it's about learning techniques to produce graphic art, which is different to normal photography, even if the both require the same skills. I suspect they're not suggesting people take random images from the net and claim them as their own, at least I'd certainly hope not! How hard would it have been to take a photo of an old church and graveyard, process it in dark blue monochrome to give a night time feel, then superimpose the figure and end up with a perfectly acceptable original image?

Well enough said perhaps, let's keep it simple and remember it's a fun and friendly competition.