Two years. Thousands of entries. 99ish jaw-dropping winners. Today is our 100th Shooting Challenge. Your assignment? Watch that video of all our past winners. Then, try to be our next.
The Challenge
In celebration of our 100th Shooting Challenge, it's a complete free-for-all. But I should say, there are 99 great ideas if you're short of ideas, just check out our library of challenges. And there's no shame in attempting to duplicate a past winner—none whatsoever. Just have fun and do your thing. Just take photos.
The Example
Our lead video (edited by Woody Jang), is a compilation of winners from our past 99 challenges. I'd forgotten about so many of these fantastic shots, the art all of you created within each week's very strict limitations. When I pitched the idea of Shooting Challenges, I never knew if they'd take off on Gizmodo. I wasn't sure if anyone would be crazy enough to give up what's turned out to be several hours of their weekend to participate for a no-prize.
I was always frustrated by the weekly assignments I'd had in my college video classes, never understanding why I was forced to tie one hand behind my back, creating a story in a single shot or without use of dialog. It wasn't until a few years later that I realized I'd had the rare opportunity: to do isolated workouts for my creativity, to play with a single idea for that single idea's sake, and, sure, to sometimes fail but have a fantastic excuse as to why I did.
I hope that Shooting Challenges have served much the same purpose for your photography, frustrating you just a bit in your weekly workouts, but ultimately strengthening skill sets to make your personal voice stronger. If just one of you has mumbled "fuck you Mark Wilson" just before capturing an amazing shot, we've all won.
The Rules
1. Submissions need to be your own.
2. Photos must be taken since this contest was announced (read more on that above).
3. Explain, briefly, the equipment, settings, technique and story behind shot.
4. Email submissions to contests@gizmodo.com, not me.
5. Include 970px wide image (200KB or less) AND a 2560x1600 sized in email. I know that your photo may not fall into those exact high rez dimensions, so whatever native resolution you're using is fine.
6. One submission per person.
7. Use the proper SUBJECT line in your email (more info on that below)
8. You agree to the Standard Contest Rules - though we DO accept non-US resident submissions.
9. If the image contains any material or elements that are not owned by you and/or which are subject to the rights of third parties, and/or if any persons appear in the image, you are responsible for obtaining, prior to submission of the photograph, any and all releases and consents necessary to permit the exhibition and use of the image in the manner set forth in these rules without additional compensation. If any person appearing in any image is under the age of majority in their state/province/territory of residence the signature of a parent or legal guardian is required on each release.
Send your best photo by Monday, Oct 17th at 10AM Eastern to contests@gizmodo.com with "100" in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs, and use a FirstnameLastname100.jpg (970px wide) and FirstnameLastname100Wallpaper.jpg (2560px wide) naming conventions. Include your shooting summary (camera, lens, ISO, etc) in the body of the email along with a story of the shot in a few sentences. And don't skip this story part because it's often the most enjoyable part for us all beyond the shot itself!
Mark Wilson is the founder of Philanthroper, a daily deal site for nonprofits.