Over the Bars has had 6,000 visitors since I announced the Five Minute Friday Photo Contest, but only one person has entered to win the sweet prizes. And that person is a professional photographer who also works at COG Magazine. That tells me that perhaps the contest is either too hard for the average Joe or Josefina to do. So I am changing the rules to make it more appealing and easier to enter. The new categories are:
Category A: Panda shot
A Panda shot is just a self-portrait taken while you ride your bike. It is a photograph you take of yourself while riding your bicycle that includes part of you and/or your bike in the shot. It’s a self-portrait of a decisive moment of you and your bike together. According to the Flickr group Panda Portraits, it got its name from a woman who’s Flickr sign in is Faster Panda Kill Kill who shoots tons of these. Visit the Flickr page to get more ideas, but here is one I took as an example:
Jacket in the pannier, tie blowing in the breeze.
Vintage Rain or Shine overcoat in Doyne Park.
Category B: Lycra Free Riders
These are just a photograph you take of a real person riding a real bicycle in real clothes with his or her bicycle. It can be an action shot or just a portrait. Here are a couple of examples:
Bicycle BFF's
Liz and Jill went up the hill
Category C: Bicycle portraits
These are just photographs you take of a bicycle or part of a bicycle you like. Here are samples:
Parking Space
- Liz’s mixte
How to enter?
Just email photos to: overthebarsmke@yahoo.com
The deadline for entry remains is August 26th.
Prizes will be randomly drawn and announced Friday, August 27th
Hey Dave,
I suspect there are a lot of people (myself included) who intended to participate but just haven’t found five minutes to sit and take pictures of strangers on bikes (yet).
Have you thought about creating a Flickr group (OTB in MKE?) and allowing people to make their submissions there? It would be cool to see what others see.
Denny
I know there are some procrastinators out there, but if after 6,000 views, only Pete has emailed a photo, something else was holding people back. Pete’s pix will still count in Catagory B.
Cat B still cofounds me – real people don’t wear lycra or ride real bikes??? What if I’m wearing my lycra shorts and flannel top – 1/2 real?
Sorry Chris,
Lots of people ride bikes now and wear Lycra. That’s super cool and I’m glad those people are out there riding. I don’t think I need to spend any time trying to convince them to ride. But there are many people who believe you can’t ride a bike without wearing lycra, shorts, athletic clothes, hi-vis yellow, a helmet, etc. A major goal of this blog is to promote bicycling as something you can do like vacuuming or brushing your teeth without changing into a special outfit. You can just do it in whatever clothes you are wearing.
Since that is the point of this blog, that is the point of the photo contest. There are tons of other photos of people riding bikes in lycra in any bike magazine or pretty much any magazine you see someone on a bike. I want to use photos to change the way people think about bicycles. Photos of people in lycra just don’t change that perception.
Three cheers for you, for your riding and whatever you wanna wear though.
d
Do I have to be wearing clothes to qualify for Cat. B?
Hey, work what you got Erich.