July Theme 2 - Bears, Crit Night + Featured Guide

We get quite a lot of submissions to the featured gallery that are clearly below the quality guides, and I don't know if its because people aren't reading the rules or if they can't submit that particular shot to the themed gallery that week so they just submit it to the featured gallery and hope it will get in. So to try and save everyone's time (the staff's time on looking at and voting on the shots, and your time trying to submit them to a gallery they are going to get rejected from) here is a visual guide using my own shots as to what would get rejected. Bear in mind that just because a shot is popular/has lots of favs/comments does not mean it will nessicarily get accepted!

When submitting please bear in mind that we are looking for certain areas of quality which are not open to interpretation. The main ones are:

Focus. Some part of the shot should be sharp, we understand that movement blur can be a part of an excellent shot but a totally blurry shot is not acceptable unless the other aspects of the shot are exceptional (composition, exposure etc). Your best bet is to get the eyes completely sharp, as they are the part of the photo that your gaze gravitates to.

Exposure. There should not be areas of blown white or too much dark, under-exposed areas on the animal.

Composition. This is more open to interpretation than the other areas, but the general rule of thirds, or golden ratio is a good one to follow. Have animals looking or moving into the frame rather than out of it, and if there are multiple animals in the shot remeber that just because one looks good doesn't excuse another one pulling the shot down!

Editing. We support natural editing, and kept to a minimum. Thats just the way we roll.

Originality. If a shot is capturing an unusual, or special moment then we are often willing to let the other areas slide a little bit. On the flip side, if your shot is of a subject that is often photographed, then the shot you submit has to be exceptional in all other areas to make it stand out from the ones already in the gallery. For some reason we seem to get a lot of meercat portrait pictures and peacocks submissions into the featured gallery, so if you have a shot like that then by all means submit it but be aware that we will be looking at it with the ones that are already in the gallery in mind!

Please remember that if you get rejected you are always welcome to ask for critique on the shot, to ask why we rejected it but please be patient if you do, as we will aim to give you a full and detailed reply rather than a quick one.

Examples of shots that have been accepted... are in the featured gallery, go check them out!

Examples of what would be rejected...

- Focus, this shot is not in focus, and I would reject it

- Composition, the ears are cut off in this shot

- Exposure, this shot is far too dark

- Composition, the other animal is messing up this shot

- Exposure and Focus, this shot is too washed out and kinda out of focus, the colours should look like this: fav.me/d55oqkq

- Originality, while the focus and exposure are ok on this shot, the composition could definatly be improved and being as we've got so many meercats in almost exactly the same pose in the featured gallery already, this shot is nothing special. Seriously, I went and counted, there are 17 meercat shots in the featured gallery already! If this shot was sharper/not under-exposed then this would be a much better submission as the composition is more unusual than most meercat shots: fav.me/d4jzz56

So there it is, I hope it helps people when they are deciding whether to submit one shot or another. I am not trying to be mean or elitist, hence using my own shots to highlight what won't be accepted, so I hope no one gets offended by this, that is not my intention. I just want to make submitting to this folder as clear as possible.



In order to help people learn and get feedback on their shots, we are going to start having critique nights again here at Zoo-photographers. In the past there was a problem with this, as it was down to the members to give crit on each other's work and no one really did it. This time the admin of the group will be giving feedback only, of course if you are a member and feel like writting something then by all means go ahead but taking part means you will at minimum get feedback from at least one of our staff members.

here's how it will work...

starting next month (August), on the last journal of the month I will announce crit night being open for submissions
there will only be ten places available for crit night, and it will be on a first come first serve basis.
the first 10 people to comment on the journal opening crit night with a link to the shot they want crit on (and it must be a shot taken of zoo animals!) will get in, and their shot will be added to the crit night folder.
if you do get a place for crit night one month, you can't get a place for the next two crit nights to give other people a chance.

Sound good? If you have any questions then comment here! PLEASE NOTE that this will be genuine critique, do not submit a shot that you secretly think is good and you want to hear praised, this is not how this night will work. We will be purposfully looking for what can be improved to help you improve as a photographer, not to shower you in compliments



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It looks like people are enjoying the mini contests so we're keeping them coming! These are bi-weekly mini contests with point prizes. The 16th theme will be 'Animals beginning with C'. So you can enter any zoo photo that somehow fits this theme. The main focus of the shot must be an animal whos common or latin name begins with C. So in the above example shots, there is an Canis lupus arctos (Arctic Wolf), Coyote, Cheetah, Clownfish and Caiman.

To enter you must comment on this journal entry with a link to your entry. You can enter one photo per contest, and you can enter a photo that is already in this group BUT not one that was submitted to any previous mini-contest. I will then add the photo to a favourites folder for the mini contests. Once the deadline for entries has elapsed, a vote will take place to determine the winner and 2nd/3rd places. If we get more than 10 entries the staff will choose the best ten shots to go onto the member vote.

1st place - 60 points
2nd place - 30 points
3rd place - 10 points

The deadline for 'Animals beginning with C' entries is the 29th July!



Our current theme is BEARS!
For this folder, your shot can be any photo of any bear species in a zoo. We will reject photos of any species that don't fit this description.  This theme will change on the 5th August.



You may submit 2 photos per week into the bi-weekly theme and 1 photo per week into the featured folder. The current bi-weekly theme is Bears.

Here is how to submit a photo properly:

1. Join the club as a member.
2. Open our gallery and click on 'Submit to this Gallery.'.
4. Choose which folder you would like to submit to by using the drop down menu.
5. Pick your photo, and you're set!

Featured Folder
This gallery is for photos that represent the best of our member's work.  Staff members will vote on these photos, it takes two accepts to be included in this gallery.  Be sure to submit your best work because we will accept nothing but the best.  One submission per week.

Themed Folders

Our current themed folder is Bears. You may submit up to 2 photos to it per week. There is no quality control on these folders, all that is required is the animal featured in the photo is in a zoo and fits the theme. The theme changes every 2 weeks, so if you don't have any photos that fit the theme this time, you can submit when the theme changes.

Staff Choice Gallery

Each week the staff will look over the submissions to the “My Best Shot” and the current month theme and select up to 10 photos that they feel are the best of the ones that were submitted.  Those photos will be featured in the Staff Choice Gallery and put to a member vote.

Photo of the Week Gallery

The photos chosen each week by the staff are voted on by the members, the winning photo is displayed for the next week on the group’s front page as the Photo of the Week.



darkSoul4Life's jaguar shot! Congrats!


More of their work: