Entries should be entirely the photographer's own work. There's nothing wrong with photoshopped skies as long as they are your own skies.

It's no different to putting skies into your traditional print from a stock of sky negatives.

Monochrome means "one colour" and white, so read and white would be fine. In other words, toned pictures are included in monochrome. This would usually be sepia but could be blue, green or whatever other single colour you like. Selenium toning looks good as well.

Hope that clarifies it!

Don't be stuck, be happy, and just post a picture....

You haven't actually been stopped yet, but naming and shaming has an innate flaw. As a retailer, you must have had many occasions where totally unreasonable customers cause havoc and disruption and refuse to understand how they should behave reasonably. In just the same way there are retailers who refuse to co-operate and fulfill their obligations without a major fight with the customer.

It is not for this forum to get involved with that, this is about photography, not arguments between buyers and sellers. Don't forget that forums are responsible for what they host and when it becomes potentially libellous then it gets removed.

In the cae of eBay, as always caveat emptor and, fortunately, the opinions of people who have had previous dealings are there to be seen by all. Some of the feedback is spurious and unfair, both from buyers and sellers, but it's the best that we have.

My personal experience has been fine apart from one rogue buyer who left negative feedback whilst refusing to explain what was wrong and clearly having no wish to resolve it. Under those sort of circumstances, unfortunately there is nothing that can be done and I shall never know what his or her problem was...

What's the Latin for let the seller beware?

We don't want to get in the habit of naming and shaming individuals who have no effective right of reply. The correct place to do that is via the feedback system on eBay.

Having said that, the feedback system is not perfect. If I see anyone has been given negative feedback though, the first thing I do is check the other way to see how they have responded to it. If it's a reasoned rsponse that is fair enough, but a retaliation is not. It's all there for everyone to view and make up their mind about.

As regards insurance, if we don't pay for it then we should accept the risk. As a buyer I make a choice in this respect, depending on the value of the item. As a seller I sometimes insure anyway, depending on value, but that is as much to protect myself as anyone else.

Unjustified poor feedback will always be annoying, but I'm not sure that there is much defence against it.

Probably.

Than you, George, that would have done very nicely.

This usually means selective shots of parts of a nude. For example, using texture and shape to perhaps mimic the form of sand dunes.

I suppose it would also be possible to make a psychic-style portrait and suggest that it was representing J G Ballard's concept of the "inner landscape" - the lanscape of our thoughts. He wrote SF novels that tried to mirror our external and inner landscapes, suggesting that the one was influenced by the other.

Heady stuff...

The winner has always been able to set the parameters for the week's challenge - that's the whole point.

In the case of my Monochrome Landscape, if it can be called a rule, then I did say that the interpretation was up to the photographer. I would just call that a guide to the intent of the brief, which in this case was to be as wide as possible to encourage imagination.

Interesting that no-one opted for the human landscape or macro landscape.

Perhaps we are talking about different things, because I see the rules as being simply the instructions as to when and for how long the competition runs, size of images to be posted, and no discussion of the images within the competition thread until the judging is done. There are likely to be unspoken rules such as no pornographic images, but that has probably been understood by tacit agreement of all parties.

So don't feel constrained when setting the challenge, just state the brief and if you wish also what you have in mind. The challenge is to make the best image within the defined parameters.

It's a debate that crops up from time to time in other places as well, but ever since photography was invented there has been manipulation of the images.

Even in the 1850s photographers were putting in fake skies and assembling images from dozens of different negatives. The very famous photo of a young woman lying dying in bed whilst the doctor attends and a relative looks out of the window is actually a multiple-negative fake. But it gets its message across with power and is one of the greats in vintage photography.

Photoshop is no different, it only lets us do what we did in the darkroom more conveniently.

Let's not confuse rules by the way with the competition brief. If someone set a competition, for example, "The Natural Landscape" there could be a stipulation that it was for straight shots only. I don't really see the point, but in this rule-light bit of fun you could if you wanted to.

It's quite interesting that some of us want to be bound by more rules, whereas the competition is designed to allow our imaginations full rein without too much hinderance. I think we have enough rules and regulations in life, but suggestions for new rules can always be posted...