I haven’t been on my bike for many days and I need a bit of inspiration from cyclists living in other places. This is why I’ve decided to hold the 2nd annual What You Missed This Morning (WYMTM) photo competition. I don’t have much to give away for prizes at the moment, but I’ll ask the site sponsors if they have anything they’re keen to throw in. For now, what I have on offer for the Grand Prize is my last SHUT UP LEGS t-shirt.
The Rules
Camera Phones only. Anyone can take a good photo with a DSLR, but it takes some real creativity to get a good shot with a camera phone. Everyone has a camera phone these days and it’s always with you. As Chase Jarvis says “the best camera is the one that’s with you”. I’ve seen some amazing camera phone photos and I’m excited to see what everyone here comes up with.
Caption it: Write a simple one or two line caption telling where the photo was shot, the camera phone used, and anything else you want to include. I always enjoy being sent the GPS details of the ride you capture. If you haven’t noticed, Strava is sponsoring CT at the moment. Open a free account and check out their ride logs, leaderboards, and performance metrics.
Make it about cycling! Landscape photos are great, but make sure put it’s onto the context of cycling. Have a bike in it, feature some writing on the road, etc. Also remember, this is a road bike website. If you have an absolutely stunning mountain bike photo then feel free to submit it, but I’d like to keep the theme primarily to road.
Post Editing: Go nuts. Do whatever you need to do with Photoshop or Lightroom (or whatever you use) to make that photo look the best it can.
How Many Photos? Submit up to three (3) photos in a set if you want. Sometimes multiple photos tells a great story of a ride. The only thing I ask is that the three photos be stitched together into one photo file.
How big? Please resize your photo to 800 pixels wide before sending.
Who can enter? Anyone in the world. The Grand Prize is a token t-shirt and bragging rights. If I manage to get sponsors to contribute it will be up to them to decide who is eligible for their prize (please understand that it sometimes doesn’t make sense for an Australian business to give a prize away to someone in another country)
How many times can you enter? As many times as you like.
Deadline? The competition opens NOW and closes on 11pm Sunday, Sept. 26 (AEST). Follow me on Twitter as I’ll frequently be tweeting the good ones submitted.
Choosing the winner? I will make a shortlist of the top 10 after the deadline and the winner will be chosen by your vote.
Photo Tips
Feel free to contribute your photography tips, but here’s a few of my own:
Shoot at magic hour. This is when the sun is coming up and the light is at its best.
Shoot lots. Often when I post a photo, there have been 50+ others shot to get one that works.
Composition. I could talk a lot about composition, but one thing I generally find is that photos of people’s faces don’t work well in this type of thing. This is about escapism. Feel free to do whatever you like, but a photo of you standing there smiling doesn’t really give right effect.
Wipe the lens. Camera phones are dirty and fingerprinted. It’s a bummer when you get the perfect shot only to find out that it’s blurry when you see it on the big screen.
Post Edit! There are lots of great iphone photo apps out there to help adjust your colors and contrast, create borders, cropping, etc. A few Apps that I’d recommend are:
- Chase Jarvis’ The Best Camera
- Camera+
- Photoshop Mobile
I’m looking forward to seeing everything you guys send to me over the next month. Last but not least, and I can’t stress enough, BE CAREFUL! Don’t take photos while you’re riding. Also remember that we’re riding on roads with other vehicles on them. Pull over at a safe place and make sure it’s safe for everyone else involved in the photo. It would shatter me if anyone got hurt or killed while doing this.
You can find some excellent examples in Elcyclista. He does a good post themed ”From the Saddle”. I believe some of these photos are taken with a camera phone. Another one is Stefan-rohner.net. Some fantastic examples of phone cycling photography there.
On a final note, congratulations to Aussie photographer Mike Hone for getting one of his photos in his TdF Gallery on the cover of Road Magazine!
Let the games begin! Send you entries to [email protected]
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Update!
Sponsors are starting to come through with some fantastic prizes:
RIDE Cycling Review is offering a subscription for 2011 and 2012. If the winner is from Australia or New Zealand it will be a two year subsription (2011 & 2012) including their massive Official TdF Guide.
If someone else in the world wins, it’s a one year subscription (postage is extremely expensive) and we can’t include their TdF guide because of licensing restrictions.
BikeForce is offering one Giro Ionos helmet to one of the winners. If there’s one thing that will make or break your PRO look, it’s the helmet. The Ionos is PRO guaranteed! Sorry, Australia contestants only.
