Photography Diversion

To balance out free time spent playing Soccer Manager and Civilization, Mark created an account with Guru Shots, a site that calls itself "The World's Greatest Photography Game." In a nutshell, signup is free and players submit their best photos and votes are cast. Tinderesque, you swipe right for photos you like, swipe left for the ones you don't. Some contests last for days, others for only a few hours. 

The winning mechanism is a bit more complicated than winning the most votes. Players also have to put in the work, voting through stacks of photos, sometimes hundreds worth, in a wide array of categories to move up the ranks. Challenges change daily and like any good video game, it requires attention, strategy, and constant updating. The lazy ones can literally buy votes for level boosting, but you still have to depend on entering even semi-decent photos. Overall, the site advocates photographers of all sorts of talent to experiment with curating photos and it creates a like-minded, world-wide community. Mark likes it because it forces him to scour through his vast collection, edit, and also to reminisce. 

This morning's category was "Match the Cover" (https://gurushots.com/challenge/match-the-cover9/rank/gurus-top-pick) allowing only 8 hours of voting. The photo in question is displayed below. There's nothing like that in the burbs of Arlington, so David put together LEGO windows and walls, Mark photographed and uploaded it. The photo ended up earning an All Star ranking and placed 400-something in the competition. Not too bad for a few hours work and a few hours killed. 

The Challenge

The Match

The creation

The Competition