^{Photo taken by me Hive account@derangedvisions}

The Perfect Portrait

The Perfect Portrait is all about capturing the personality of your subject in the picture, not just posing them in the generic poses that you see on google. When I do my portrait sessions, especially with the little ones, I tell the parents to just let their kids have fun and I will take pictures of them being themselves instead of getting forced smiles.

The above picture sums up the personality of this little boy. He was a super independent kid and he only did what he wanted to do. Every time his parents told him to smile, he would close his eyes just like this and I thought it was hilarious. I asked him if he just wanted to explore the trees and the rocks in the area we were taking pictures instead of trying to smile and then once I told him he could just play, he brightened right up and had a great time.

So grab your cameras get some pictures of some people and make it a goal to capture their personality in the shot, instead of just trying to get a nice looking picture. These are the pictures that end up being more special anyways.

NOTE - We have had a lot of newcomers to the contest recently and some have not been reading the rules in their entirety. Only ONE submission per contest is allowed. Please do not enter more than once. If you see other people doing it, feel free to comment to them and inform them of the rules.

^{Photo taken by me Hive account@derangedvisions}

This weeks contest winners

Check out the Buggin Out winners to see all of the amazing creepy crawlies that everyone captured.

The Water Works Contest had so many amazing submissions in it, it was hard to choose the winners. Make sure to head over to the winners announcement post and congratulate the winners.

How is the Deranged Photography Contest set up?

The contest will be broken up into three different tiers. Each will have a different payout for the winners based on what tier you enter into. Here is a breakdown of the winning based on the tiers:

Place	Professional	Amateur	Beginner
1st	1.25 SBD	1 SBD	1 SBD
2nd	0.75 SBD	0.5 SBD	0.5 SBD
3rd	0.5 SBD	0.25 SBD	0.25 SBD

Each contest will be open for submissions for 5 days after the post is made and then closes at 0100 UTC (1800 MST) on the 5th day.

This will give me and any guest judges time to judge the submissions and create the post announcing the winners.

How to enter

When you enter a photo in the competition, you will state what tier you want to be judged in and locked in for the month at that level.

For example if you enter a photo, you drop the photo in the comment section, state what level of photographer you are, and then give a description of the photograph.

If you want to make your own post and reference the contest in your post, that would be awesome, just remember to post your picture in the comment section along with your post link. Who knows, you may get a visit and an upvote on your post as well as an upvote on the picture. Use the tag #derangedphotography to make it easy to find your posts.

NEW FOR MAY!!

There will be a prize pool of 5 SBD for each tier for the photo of the month. At after the final contest results are posted, I will create an additional post for everyone to cast their votes for their top photo of the month.

Each 1st place winner throughout the month will be tagged in the post as notification to drop their photo in comment section and the photo from each tier that receives the highest number of votes, number not value, will win the 5 SBD, plus they get all the rewards of the upvotes on their comment too, so win win for them.

I am hoping that this is incentive for everyone to continue to go out and shoot amazing photographs. You are all doing great.

Additional Notes

This contest is in its early stages and as time goes it things may need to be tweaked to benefit the group as a whole to make it a more fun experience for everyone.

Contestants can only win 1st or 2nd place once a week.
Only one submission per contest. Extra submissions will be ignored.
You can switch your tier ONE time per month, but only if you are moving up into a higher tier, for example if you are currently in the amateur tier, but you think that you have a photograph that you want to enter in the professional tier, you can state that you are changing your tier to professional. You will then be locked into the new tier for the remainder of the month. You are not able to move down to a lower tier, like going from amateur to the beginner tier.
If you do not state wish tier you want to be judged in for the month, I will leave a comment to remind you to do so, but if you don't respond, you will be assigned to a tier and locked in for that month.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated in any form. All submissions must be your own work. I will investigate every entry and one of the main sponsors is the Hive account@steemcleaners team, so if you are caught plagiarizing, not only will you be blacklisted from competing from any future contests, but you will be reported to Steemcleaners as well. It is not worth it to try and cheat, especially with the 3 tier set up where everyone has an equal shot of winning.
Deranged Photography Contests also has a discord channel that you can meet fellow photographers and keep up to date with all of the latest news that is going on with the contest. You can join at this link:

https://discord.gg/MpWstp2

Who are the amazing sponsors?

The first sponsor is Hive account@czechglobalhosts. For those that don't know, Hive account@czechglobalhosts puts on two daily photo contests that are open to anyone to enter. His contests cover the entire globe so that anyone can enter. The days and themes are:

Australian Monday
Antarctica and World's Oceans Tuesday
African Wednesday
European Thursday
North American Friday
South American Saturday
Asian Sunday

On top of the themed daily continent contests, he hosts a daily travel contests specific to the beautiful country of the Czech Republic. So make sure to follow Hive account@czechglobalhosts and participate in his contests because he is offering two daily photography contests that you can enter to win.

The other sponsors I have are Hive account@guiltyparties and the Hive account@steemcleaners team. Hive account@guiltyparties and everyone else behind Hive account@steemcleaners does so much for the platform as a whole, trying to reduce the spammers, phishing and plagiarism that goes on here. If you have any free slots for witness votes you should consider casting a vote for @guiltyparties, vote for @patrice, vote for @anyx, vote for @pfunk, and vote for @ arcange. Your votes for these great witnesses go a long way in ensuring the platform continues to thrive.

I would also like to welcome Hive account@ats-david as another amazing sponsor to the contests. He is an awesome photographer himself and runs several of his daily own contests over on Hive account@brospn-contests. If you are a sports fan, you definitely need to check out those contests. He is also the brains behind Hive account@brospn where you can stay up to date with anything sports related. He works tirelessly to make sure everyone is informed with what is going on in the sports universe. On top of all of that, He is a witness for the Steem blockchain. So if you have free witness votes you can vote for Hive account@ats-witness here vote for @ats-witness

In keeping with my mission for humanitarian work, I have partnered with Hive account@youarehope and will be sending a portion of the proceeds to help with their global humanitarian efforts. They have been helping people all over the world using the Steemit platform.

If you would like to become a sponsor and delegate SP to the Deranged Photography Contests you can do so by clicking on the following links:
50 SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP,5000SP.

Now get out and start shooting

I hope you are all excited about this new contest. The contest themes will be different than what you are used to seeing on Steemit, and I am doing this to encourage everyone to get out and shoot new pictures. If you are a life long professional nature photographer, some of the themes may push you to try and learn something new. If you are just a beginner photographer, this is a great place to have fun shooting all sorts of exciting styles and learn in the process.

^{Photo taken by me Hive account@derangedvisions}