“We loved Andrew’s image for many reasons. The composition was slightly complicated and yet, extremely pleasing and well designed to keep your eyes staring at it for a while. It contained beautifully vivid colours and gorgeous reflections. The exposure was very well controlled and so was the shutter speed. All in all, a superb image and well worth to win our February competition.”
I am SO honored to have been chosen the Winner with so many other awesome entries!
For what it is worth, I bought my current tripod, a Bogen (#3020), when I was about 18, which was over 30+ years ago, so I greatly look forward to trying out something more modern!
I had been following JPGmag.com on Facebook for some time now, and earlier in the week, I posted a link to some of the contests that they offer, and finally, yesterday, I spent some time investigating what else the site had to offer.
Signing Up
JPGmag is similar to Flickr, in that anyone can join, and for $25/year, you can get unlimited uploads to your Profile, and a number of “Spotlight credits” which are all purchased via PayPal. (One should also be aware that you are enrolled into an automatic yearly renewal, which can be disabled within your preferences.)
Your Profile
Like any other website, you are given an area to create your profile so others can learn more about you if they wish.
There is an optional field that allows one to enter their website, but I have not been able to get it to work or see where the information would be located on the Profile.
I have also tried to add an active link to my website, but the Description field does not seem to recognize the HTML code for a link.
Update – I have been able to get both the Optional Website link and some basic HTML to work within the Description area.
I was very surprised that one can include their Google Analytics code to track your views!
Uploading Images
JPGmag encourages Users to upload images at a minimal of 1000px long-side, and is done via a clean easy to use web-based interface.
After files have been up-loaded, but before Posting, the User is presented with a three tabs to enter Details (Title, Description and Tags); Categories and Geo-tagging.
JPGmag also offers an online editing package, Express by Pixlr, which I have open, but have not used yet.
“Places/Map-It” – Needs improvement
The “Places/Map-It” tab is connected to Google maps, and does leave much to be desired.
You find your location by zooming in/out and panning. There is no place to search by address or enter in GPS coordinates.
I have also tried to edit my “Places” after posting, but have not gotten my place-markers to stick yet, which needless to say, is a real pain.
Flickr definitely has the advantage here.
Now What?
Once you have images on your profile, you can then submit them to the various Themes, Challenges and Contests. (At the moment, there does not appear to be an Adobe Lightroom plug-in, which would be nice.)
JPGmag has many Themes, Challenges and Contests area, that seem to be Member based suggestions versus the “Anyone Can Create a Group” model that Flickr uses.
Theme or Challenge (JPGmag)
One does seem limited to posting one image per Theme or Challenge, and depending on which Flickr group, is rather low, which does reduce the tenancy for someone to ‘spam’ a group with images, but makes it difficult if you have an image that could be submitted to several Themes or Challenges.
Contests (JPGmag)
The Contests on JPGmag are very different from Flickr in that one can actually win cash or prizes!
There are Entrance Fees, but there seems to be a high Entrance Fee to Award ratio – i.e. $5 Entrance Fee for a $1250 Award, then on other internet sites.
Groups (Flickr)
There also does not appear to be nearly as many “Groups” as there on Flickr (“Anyone Can Create a Group” model), and I have not run into a “Post/Award” restrictions, both of which can easily overwhelm a new contributor to Flickr.
100203 Struble Trail 023 (Updated)
Conclusion
I am still within my first 24-hours of starting my membership, and so far “things” seem to be going well.
I have uploaded 22 images, submitted to 3 Themes and have already gotten several nice Comments and Favorites, as well as an “Active Spotlight”.
There is more for me to explore, and I will continue to do so.
