Craftgawker, oh how I loath thee!

  

vs.

RicochetandAway!

Have you heard about Craftgawker?  You can submit a photo, and if it's approved, your photo will show up on the site and link back to a corresponding blog post.  I thought it would be an easy way to get the word out about Ricochet and Away.  Well, I was wrong about the easy part.  After 30+  attempts, I have managed to get 3 photos accepted.  Not great odds.  I know.

I have developed a serious love/hate relationship with Craftgawker, which in turn has created a serious love/hate relationship with both my camera and my digital photo editing program.  I'm a wreck.  Well, maybe not a wreck, but I'm definitely spending an inordinate time with this whole Craftgawker thing.  To make matters worse, now I'm even posting about Craftgawker!!!

Like I said, I was able to get 3 photos accepted onto the site:

Craftgawker asks that you submit high quality digital photos that are 250 X 250 pixels in size.  If your photo is deemed unworthy, Craftgawker sends you an email telling the reason(s) why the photo didn't make the cut.  That's a infuriating nice feature.  I often try to fix the problems and re-submit.   More often than not, that doesn't work.

One time I was certain there was absolutely nothing wrong with the photo I submitted.  So I simply waited 8 hours and resubmitted the exact same photo, thinking that the next photo-judger on shift would not be so aesthetically-challenged.  That brilliant plan didn't work in my favor.  *sigh*

The main reasons they gave for my photos not being up to par are as follows:

• Harsh lighting and/or overexposed
• Lighting issues - dull/unsharp
• composition - too tight and cluttered
• grainy image - may be overly sharped in photoshop
• Low lighting and/or underexposed
• Lighting/exposure issues
• lighting/shadow issues

You see the trend?  Yep, I got a lot of lighting and exposure issues.  

Here's a big graveyard of photos that didn't make the Craftgawker cut:

And in no particular  order, here are the rejects>>

Rather than continue with the bitching and complaining, I'd like to finish this post with some good information and positive inspiration.  No one likes a whiner, right?  Here are some of things I've learned.  I hope you'll find some of this helpful.

1. No amount of digital photo editing will fix a photo that was poorly shot in the first place.  I can fiddle with exposure and contrast and sharpness all I want, but I just produce photos that look over-edited.
2. My best photos were taken outdoors on overcast days.  Natural light is best and the flash is not my friend.
3. My original photos need to be smaller to begin with.  I.e. shrinking a 3888x2592 pixel photo down to a 250x250 pixel photo will not produce as good of results as shrinking a 1936x1288 pixel photo down to 250x250 pixels.  This is where all my dull/not-sharp/unfocused issues sprang from.
4. Some photos won't crop down to perfect squares.  A good example are the photos I took of my daughter's pink quilt.  My best photos from that shoot didn't look right when I cropped them down into squares.  I wasn't taking those photos with appeasing Craftgawker in mind.  The results were none of photos could be cropped to show the whole quilt and Craftgawker labeled my submissions as being too tightly composed.
5. Include a nice square photo in every blog post.  Craftgawker requires the photo you submit to be found in the corresponding blog post or it is automatically denied.  Plus, it's nice to have a good square-shaped photo for linky parties as well.  Two birds.  One stone.  
6. The results are worth the effort.  For my little blog, I usually get +/- 200 daily pageviews.  When I have a photo up on Craftgawker, I jump up to over 1000 daily pageviews for several days.  The numbers taper down slowly as my photo moves further back in the que, but they never go away completely.  

Thanks for taking the time to read through this post!  Please let me know if you've had similar frustrations with Craftgawker, as I'd love to have someone to commiserate with!  I'm also interested in any good photography tips you may have or good links you've ran across.

Happy crafting and bug hugs from Montana,

p.s.  Don't forget to vote for your favorite tote from the Solids-Only Tote Challenge.  There are 18 wonderful totes to choose from made by creative bloggers from all over the world.  Anyone can vote once a day until December 31st.  You can find the poll HERE.