For almost 5 years, the Caption Contests have been a popular section of the Corner Forums. The premise: Someone posts up a funny photo, and we all come up with witty captions for said photo. The winner gets to pick the next photo and we start all over again. If you want to check out some hilarious photos with even better captions, take some time to wade through the first 200 caption contests.

That being said, as of late, we’ve noticed a dip in participation in the caption contests - maybe we’re doing them too often, maybe we need to offer token prizes? Maybe funny captions on photos are just “so 2007.” Regardless, we’re going to take a break from the Caption Contests for the summer. If you cry, beg, scream, wail and offer bribes throughout the summer in the comments thread here, we may bring them back in the Fall… maybe. Make sure to say thanks to digital2006 for hosting the contests over the past 1+ years… it’s more work than you’d think. Read more »

The PhotographyCorner forums are filled with dozens of different forums; from the Conversation Corner and Member Introductions forums, to the Photo Sharing Corner and Critiques & Feedback Corner, to the Premiere Corner, Photography Contests and The Marketplace, and all the other forums in between. One group of forums that is often overlooked however, is the Photography Equipment forums. Almost all of us have a camera (it’s not a necessity around the Corner, though you’ll find that almost everyone that participates around the Corner has at least 1 camera), and the Photography Equipment forums are all about our cameras and accessories. We can talk about our new sigma lenses, the new Olympus dSLR, which filter set you prefer, point-and-shoot cameras, lighting, computers, software, etc. Read more »

Last week we announced that, for the first time ever, the winning photographs of the Premiere Projects from the past year will be pitted against each other and voted on to determine which photograph will be the Premiere Project Photograph of the Year. Voting is now complete (check out the results here), and with over 20% of the votes, Uncommon View, the Premiere Project #59 winning photograph by tamara has emerged as the winner!

Premiere Projects are theme based, and with each project, Premiere Members have the opportunity to challenge themselves to grow as photographers. Each projects outlines a topic for the members to photograph. The photos are then submitted for discussion/critiquing/reactions. At the end of the project period (there’s a new project every couple of weeks), a vote is held to determine which photo best represents the theme while maintaining high photographic quality.

Originally the vote was only going to be among Premiere Members in the Premiere Members Only Section of PhotographyCorner, but the Premiere Members wanted to open voting up to the community at large in attempts to encourage non Premiere Members to support the Corner and become Premiere Members themselves. To that end, the HALF PRICE Premiere Membership sale will continue until Monday, January 18th, 2010. Learn about Premiere Membership here, and sign up to become a Premiere Member for HALF PRICE here.

The contest is being sponsored by DayMen Photo Marketing, and tamara will receive a prize pack courtesy of Daymen valued at over $100.

To participate in future Premiere Projects, sign up to become a Premiere Member here for HALF PRICE (Hurry - only a couple of days left to get in at HALF PRICE!!).

Make sure to drop by the award thread to congratulate tamara on her win. Read more »

It’s taken longer than expected to wade through the entries for the 2009 Photograph of the Year contest, so voting is going to be delayed a day or two. To tide you over, however, voting for the Premiere Project of the Year contest has just begun! Premiere Projects are theme based, and with each project, Premiere Members have the opportunity to challenge themselves to grow as photographers. Each projects outlines a topic for the members to photograph. The photos are then submitted for discussion/critiquing/reactions. At the end of the project period (there’s a new project every couple of weeks), a vote is held to determine which photo best represents the theme while maintaining high photographic quality.

Today, for the first time ever, the community will vote for the best Premiere Project photograph from the past year. Originally the vote was only going to be among Premiere Members in the Premiere Members Only Section of PhotographyCorner, but the Premiere Members wanted to open voting up to the community at large in attempts to encourage non Premiere Members to support the Corner and become Premiere Members themselves. To that end, the HALF PRICE Premiere Membership sale will continue through to the end of the voting for this contest. Learn about Premiere Membership here, and sign up to become a Premiere Member for HALF PRICE here.

The contest is being sponsored by DayMen Photo Marketing, and the winner will receive a prize pack courtesy of Daymen valued at over $100.

Check out the entries and cast your vote in the voting thread in the Photograph of the Year forum. Voting ends on January 15th, 2010.

To participate in future Premiere Projects, sign up to become a Premiere Member here for HALF PRICE (for a limited time only). Read more »

If you’ve been around the Corner for a while, you’re probably familiar with all the benefits of Premiere Membership: exclusive forum access; bigger prizes; Premiere Projects; Post-Processing Projects; larger Corner Photo Galleries; the ability to nominate photographs for the Photograph of the Month contests, and the list goes on and on. Now, until the end of the month, you have the opportunity to become a Premiere Member for HALF PRICE!!

Until the end of September, you can become a Level I Premiere Member for $39.50 or a Level II Premiere Member for $64.50!! In addition, the first 40 new Premiere Members will receive a $25 discount (no minimum purchase, and discount can be applied to shipping!) off your next order at Mpix.com!

1. Become a Premiere Member at half the regular price
2. Support the Corner
3. Get free $25 worth of free stuff from Mpix.com

To find out more about becoming a Premiere Member, visit www.photographycorner.com/premiere-membership, and to become a Premiere Member today, visit the Paid Subscriptions section of the UserCP in the Corner Forums. For more information on Mpix.com and to see what products they have to offer, visit www.mpix.com.

You only have until the end of September to take advantage of both half-price Premiere Membership and the $25 discount from Mpix - so BECOME A PREMIERE MEMBER TODAY!. Read more »

Since the recent restructuring of the Corner Forums, we also updated some of the guidelines, including the guidelines for the new Photo Sharing Corner, and the guidelines for the updated Critiques & Feedback Corner. After some discussion, we’ve decided to make a minor update to the guidelines. Now, the guidelines for the Photo Sharing Corner and the Critiques & Feedback Corner contain the following note: “It’s often easier to show people rather than tell them how you’d change their photographs. Some people, however, don’t appreciate it when you edit their photographs. If you want to edit someone’s photograph, please make sure to ask before going ahead and making those changes.” Pretty straight-forward and simple: if you want to help someone by editing someone’s photograph, just ask first. Other than that, everything is the same as it ever was. If you haven’t jumped in to the new Photo Sharing Corner and Critiques & Feedback Corner, you should check them out - lots of great photographs being shared in the Photo Sharing Corner, and some great feedback and critiques in the Critiques & Feedback Corner.  Read more »

With a bunch of restructuring going on in the Corner Forums, it can get confusing as to where to put your photographs. Here’s a little breakdown of what should go where. To start off, you have 3 options: the Corner Galleries, the Photo Sharing Corner, and the Critiques & Feedback Corner. Read more »

It’s been a long couple of days, but the first phase of the forum restructuring we’ve been doing is now complete. Last night we opened up the new Photo Sharing Corner, and tonight, we’ve opened up the new Critiques & Feedback Corner. Of course, it will take several more weeks for all the old threads to be moved to their new homes, but in the meantime, you can continue to post photos for fun and for critique! Read more »

One of the main changes in the Corner Forums that we’re making is the addition of the Photo Sharing Corner - a place where you can just share photographs without having to worry about feedback or critique, or having to provide EXIF data or anything like that. Want to show off a photo of your cat making “that face” or a couple photos you took at the BBQ last night? The Photo Sharing Corner is the place for those type of photos. Read more »

It’s been a long time coming, but we’re finally going to do some restructuring in the Corner Forums. But with almost 50,000 threads and more than 350,000 posts in the Feedback and Critiques Corner alone, it’s going to take some time (if you haven’t already, make sure to thank a mod today).

Right now, on top of the Critiques Corner, we have 18 Feedback Corner sub-forums. For a while, we thought it would be better to have more subject-specific forums. And, for a while, it worked well. Unfortunately with so many forums, it became confusing to old and new members alike. It has gotten to the point where the line between critique and feedback became so blurred that even the mods and myself had a hard time explaining the difference. Sub forums with so many subjects became confusing, and some went all but unused. Read more »

I’m sure you’ve noticed already, but there are some new “blue cameras” floating around the Corner. As of a couple of days ago, we’ve added some new moderators to the fold! Moderators are an integral part of PhotographyCorner - without their help the forums, contests and galleries would completely fall apart. They do everything from comb the forums for spam, to answer questions, to moving posts, to encouraging conversation, to running projects and contests, and even fixing some coding! I may be the “Site Admin,” but it’s the mods who really make this place go. Read more »

Over the past couple of months, we’ve moved all of the photographs from all of our past contests from the Corner Photo Galleries to the new Corner Contest Galleries (hosted by our friends at SmugMug.com). Thanks to some help from one of our mods, Erik Bernskiold, the design of the Corner Contest Galleries is now complete (check it out!). Read more »

As much as I would love it to be so, the Corner doesn’t run itself (take this week for instance - I’m on vacation… who do you think is taking care of everything while I’m away?). In addition to myself, there are dozens of volunteers that help make this place tick. Some are just really dedicated members of the community, while others are officially known as moderators (or “mods” for short). Every year or so, we try to mix it up a bit by adding a few new people to the mod squad. Read more »

There are a lot of moving parts to PhotographyCorner. Obviously the main attractions are the forums as well as the contests, but we also have this blog, a directory of photography-related sites, a resource center with articles, tutorials and product reviews, a free public photo gallery, as well as our contest photo galleries, and a whole bunch more. One of the best things about PhotographyCorner, in my opinion, tends to fly under the radar sometimes though. It's probably the best way to learn and improve your photography, as well as the best way to interact with other photographers. I'm talking about the Premiere Projects, of course. The only way you can participate in the Premiere Projects, however, is if you're a Premiere Member. Luckily for you, as of right now, Lifetime Premiere Memberships are HALF PRICE until the end of the month (CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP). Becoming a Premiere Member has a bunch of benefits, including the ability to participate in the bi-weekly Premiere Projects. Below is a closer look at the Premiere Projects in a brief interview I did with Nikon_Mario who runs them (and does an amazing job!) for us. After the interview, look for how you can sign up to become a Premiere Member and start participating!

Happy Holidays to everyone at the Corner! In case you missed it in the forums, Santa Claus stopped by and gave us some presents! Check out his thread in the Conversation Corner. Read more »

As most of you know, over the past 3 weeks, in conjunction with Contest Corner Challenge #60: That Bites, we partnered with the Canadian Red Cross in a fund raiser called ‘Malaria Bites.’ The purpose of the fund raiser was to purchase specially-treated mosquito nets for children in Liberia. These mosquito nets help to keep children safe from malaria-carrying mosquitoes while sleeping, when mosquitoes are most likely to bite and spread malaria. For $7 CDN (about $5.50 US), we could purchase a net through the Canadian Red Cross. Every $7 we donated could save a life. Instead of buying little trinkets and stuff this holiday season, as a community, we decided to save lives instead. Read more »

A couple of weeks ago, along with the announcement of Contest Corner Challenge #60: That Bites, we started a site-wide fund raiser called “Malaria Bites.” Our goal? To raise money to purchase mosquito nets for children in Liberia to help prevent the spread of malaria by partnering with the Canadian Red Cross. You can read all about the Malaria Bites campaign here in our initial blog post. Read more »

It’s been a long wait, but it’s finally here: The PhotographyCorner 2008 Photograph of the Year Contest - with 9 fantastic sponsors who are offering $11,500 in prizes to the top 10 finalists, with a grand prize worth approximately $3,800!!! All the details you’ll need on the contest can be found here on the 2008 Photograph of the Year Contest page. Read more »

Malaria is a life-threatening parasitic disease that attacks a person’s blood supply. It is transmitted by mosquitoes at night, striking silently while people are asleep. The more times a person is bitten by infected mosquitoes, the greater their risk. Children are especially vulnerable to the effects of malaria and can die as quickly as 24 hours after first experiencing symptoms. Symptoms include recurring chills, fever, and sometimes jaundice and anaemia. Although malaria is not always fatal to adults, the debilitating symptoms often prevent those stricken with it from working or taking care of family members–causing a serious economic burden to people already vulnerable to the effects of poverty.

So what does Malaria have to do with photography? Not much really. I've been trying to come up with a good way to tie this into the Corner (and there is a tie in, but you'll have to wait until Contest Corner Challenge #60 is announced), but what it honestly comes down to is that if you're into photography, that means you have some disposable income (let's face it, photography isn't a cheap hobby), and the most proven and cost-effective way to prevent malaria is by sleeping under a long-lasting insecticide-treated net (which we can purchase for only $7 each). I'll get to more on that below.

Last week, we paid tribute to Carl (aka ohenry) for all the hard work he’s done on the Premiere Projects over the past year (just to clarify, he’s not dead or anything… just passing along the torch!). The torch has been passed to Mario, known around these parts as Nikon_Mario. With this passing of the torch, we’re taking the opportunity to do a little retooling of the Premiere Projects. Read more »