Rules, Guidelines, and Best Practices for CJ’s 52 Week Photo Challenge and A-Z Challenge – 2016

After completing a successful first year, CJ’s 52 Week Photo Challenge is all set to start a new challenge for the new year 2016.  Now that our Facebook group has grown significantly from where we started, we decided to update rules, guidelines, and best practices list. Also, starting from this year, we are introducing a new challenge, an A-Z challenge. While general rules, guidelines, and best practices apply to both challenges, please read through the following list to find specific rules for the  challenge that you are interested in:

• This is a photography discussion group.  Therefore, all discussions
  should be related to photography in some way.  Anyone who enjoys taking
  photos or looking at photos can join this group. Members who try to
  publish unrelated posts will be removed from the group without prior
  notice.
• Group admin does not hold any responsibility towards the security of
  personal Facebook profiles. Personal communication between members is
  solely their decision and members should bare responsibility towards it.
  Members are advised to take action to protect your personal profiles by
  changing parameters under “Security,” “Privacy,” “Timeline and
  Tagging,” and “Blocking” under Facebook “Settings.”
• 2016 Photo challenges (both 52-week and A-Z) start on January 03, 2016 and end on December
  31, 2016. Anyone interested in advancing their photography skills and
  looking for a motivational factor to keep shooting, can participate in
  this. Basically, you will take one image per week and post it on this
  Facebook group.  This is an open forum for everyone to talk about
  photography.  Everyone can provide feedback and critique each image. You
  don’t need to own a DSLR camera. Use what you already own–even phone
  cameras will work.
• As photographers (artists), we should respect other artists.  For
  the weekly challenge, you can upload only your photos. However, you may
  share photos from other artists to discuss about those and learn from
  them, providing proper credits to original artists. Any photo shared
  without proper credits will be removed from the group page.
• One member can post ONLY ONE photo per week for the 52 Week challenge, and ONLY ONE photo per two weeks for the A-Z challenge.
  However, members can share up to TWO other images per week for member
  feedback.  Please note that, for photo challenges, we will not be
  accepting pictures published on other webpages–photos must be published
  on Facebook.
• When you upload photos to CJ’s 52-Week Photo Challenge Facebook group, you grant permission to its admin(s) to feature your image(s) on ShutterFury.com website and other related publications.
• Members are required to mention week number (E.g., Week 02), for the 52-week challenge, and the alphabetical letter (E.g., Letter: A) in the
  photo description.
• You may assign a specific theme/topic for your photos or feel free to explore different avenues of photography each and every week.  Group admin will provide OPTIONAL weekly themes for members who would like to
  have one.
• For the challenges, try to post photos that are not more than TWO weeks old. This is not a rule, however, this will help us achieve our main goal, KEEP SHOOTING.
• Membersare welcome to share any information related along with your photos. You can share camera settings
  (shutter speed, aperture, and ISO) , lighting methods, equipment used, geographic location, interesting facts about geographic location, post processing techniques, software used, background information about the subject, etc., That will help other members to provide feedback and to learn from each other.
• Members are encouraged to provide constructive criticism on images. This will help you to critically analyze photography/art and to learn from each other.
• There will be quarterly photo contests during the year 2015.  Group admin will update members about rules, regulations, guidelines, and prizes, before every contest starts.

Finally, we want everyone to explore photography and have fun with it.  Feel free to get back to us should you have any questions or concerns.

Cheers!
Admin