February theme: Black & White

Black and white, this should be interesting.

For this month, I won't shoot in black and white; I'll do the converting via software. Chances are I'll look at what I already have before I venture to shoot anything new for this month's theme. Some of my pictures should convert well ... I have an idea on what I will put forth.
I can see the entries are going to be strong this cycle. A couple of the submissions already jump out. I'm going to have to be even better than what is showing presently ... (first time was an experiment!!)

It'll be interesting to see how I do with this. The photo I submitted has always gotten pretty good response on my blog etc.

I have gone through a bunch of pictures that I have in color that I could have converted to black and white but they weren't the same, the color is what makes the pictures so bold, so i found one that will work perfectly.

I ofter find that if a shot is missing something that I cannot pinpoint, it is because it wants to be in b&w. After I convert it and adjust the contrast I totally see what was missing. I am looking forward to seeing everyone's submissions!

I think this is going to be the best group of pictures. There is nothing like Black & Whites. Looking thru Flickr, there are a great group of pictures. Good luck to all.

err.... sorry if i missed this info... is it open for everybody? any nationality, any residency?

A question re: copyright

Are we allowed to shoot copyrighted works? For example, a sculpture in a park, or the Citgo sign...

Thanks!

Hi, Tom -- you can take a photo of anything that's on public display. You're not violating copyright, because you are not carving another sculpture or building a replica of the Citgo sign and calling it your own; you are simply taking a photo of it.

And Lia, yes, the contest is open to everybody.

Thank you for your effort - this is a great site. I thought my January photo was entered however it never came up on Part 1 or Part Deux. Do you screen before they are posted or did it just not make it to the site? Now I don't know if my February photo was received. Is there anyway to check before the deadline?

Hi, Jim -- you can see all of the February entries by searching the three contest tags on Flickr's Search page. Or just copy and paste this URL into your browser:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=boston.com+contest+february&m=tags

As for the January contest, the only photos I did not post in those galleries were those that a) from photographers who had entered more than one photo in the contest, which violates the rules, or b) did not fit the theme of "Cold" at all.

Hope that helps...

I thought I saw this comment during the January contest, but I will ask it again this time. Why are some of these entries showing up multiple times, and mine is not posted yet? I tagged it over two weeks ago.

Hi, Catherine -- Some photographers who don't read the rules closely submit more than one photo. I email them, tell them about the rule, and ask them to remove the contest tags from all but one of their photos. If they don't by the time we're ready to load the photos into the Voting Machine, then they are disqualified.

Other photographers inadvertently upload the same image with the contest tags twice. I also email them, but if they don't see my email in time or don't remove the tags, I still let one of their photos into the contest. Often, they are newbies, and since they aren't uploading different images, they're not violating the rules -- just making a rookie mistake.

As for your photo: Send me a link to your Flickr account at raw@boston.com and I'll check it out. Assuming you have checked all of your privacy and access settings in detail as outlined in the How to Enter post (linked above), I suspect it will be the usual story: Flickr is taking a minimum of two weeks, and sometimes longer, to add new accounts to its Search. But I'll see if I can see anything else awry.

It turns out you need a Yahoo account to sign up on Flickr these days. Which, I already had...so it was fairly easy. Ok, I take it back...Flickr is as good a venue as any I suppose. So, it is done. Should be fun. Thx.