Wednesday, July 25, 2012

There goes Bill, Blogging Again!

So What Exactly Is Going On With Capture Cincinnati? 

 As many of us know, without Capture Cincinnati, Misfits With Cameras wouldn’t exist as we were founded originally as Club Blatz during the 2009 contest. Due to how awesome everyone who joined the group was and how close we became during the event we decided to continue as a Cincinnati photography club. After a 2 ½ year hiatus Capture Cincinnati is back, leaving some puzzled, some skeptical, some joyous and some angry. I’ve received a lot of emails asking me what’s up and for the most part I really couldn’t answer any of them without a lot of speculation, until now. 






 The reason that Capture Cincinnati re-started was for two reasons, a) to capitalize on the world attention the World Choir Games was going to generate towards Cincinnati and b) to create local community for photographers to display and share their work, similar to Capture My Chicago. The only book in 2012 that Capture Cincinnati has planned to publish is a World Choir Games book. There are no plans to publish a book on the scale of all the categories featured on the website, which in my opinion they are missing out on some serious money and attention. It is apparent that Capture Cincinnati is going to run indefinitely, why everyone is having to vote for all these photos is a mystery to me, but that is the way that Capture My Chicago is set up and they didn’t have a book last year. 


 Many of you noticed in the beginning that there was a limit to the number of submissions in one week and then suddenly that was gone and photos of the Choir Games filled the pool. That is because they lifted the submission limit for the Choir Games contest. So, what is the motivation to continue to participate on the website? Well, if you don’t like viewing and voting on the Choir Games photographs, just be sure to follow who you’ve followed or vote by category, staying out of the Choir Games based categories, like “Music”, “Celebrations,” and the like. Now, there is a community there and you are getting exposure. One of the things I like about it is I get to see work from Misfits and other folks that I’ve not seen before. I get to comment on their work and “favorite” it and I get to interact with local photographers in a local file sharing atmosphere. Besides that, any photographer can set up their account for people to purchase images and it seems to me the 3rd party cost is very reasonable for both the purchaser and the seller. Then there’s also the daily featured photo and the individual and photography awards that are handed out. Weather or not this is enough to keep people motivated to continue to participate without the guarantee of a possibility of getting published is something only time will tell. But you have to admit, sometimes it’s really fun. 


In conclusion, I’m going to post a response from Chris, an admin of the Capture Cincinnati site to Misfits member Nancie Smith who contacted them with some questions… 


 “Subject: Re: Limitation on number of photos you can submit in a 7 day rolling period -- Capture Cincinnati Contact Form 


Nancie, The 2012 book is a book about the 2012 World Choir Games. If you don't care for World Choir Games photos, you won't care for the book, unfortunately. Now that the World Choir Games challenge is over, other subjects will start to dominate again. We hope to publish a broad-subject Capture Cincinnati book or calendar in 2013. Thanks, Chris”

3 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting this....I am on the fence now that I see the bigger picture (pun!)...Other than the clunky navigation of the site, I do like the community of it. My one concern with CC is the easy open access to downloading other people's work....I don't pretend that I am good enough for anyone to really want to steal my work but it seems like we should at least be allowed to watermark our photos if we would like...rule says no obtrusive text or watermarks...so does that mean we just can't place a mark across the center? It seems vague. I understand that anything posted on line is at risk but I don't like to make it easy. If its an indefinite thing with no real end or culminating purpose for all the voting I think it might be easier to continue to share photos on my Flickr account where right-click copying is deterred and I can use a wm.

    So many decisions....but stay or go I am glad I hooked up with all of you fellow misfits and will continue to hang with you here and on FB!

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  2. I agree with Helen on the watermark. You can easily right click and download.

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