STEEM PHOTO JOURNAL #2

Welcome to the second issue of the Steem Photo Journal!

The SPJ is a @photofriend community project aiming to create a ‘must-read’ for every photo-enthusiast here on Steemit. The journal is intended to inform, entertain and engage the readers.

Besides the contest, which will be always present, sections of the journal may vary depending on the authors involved in the issues and will respond to the readers’ feedback!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Captivating
Photographer's Story
Curation
Travel
Stats
Contest
Participants

CAPTIVATING

Finding visually exceptional photo posts on the Steem blockchain. No text needed.

by @axeman

by @bringolo

by @ileana56

PHOTOGRAPHER'S STORY (featuring @vmoldo)

Vlad Moldovean was born and raised in Brasov, Romania. After completing his schooling, as is the case with so many young people Vlad was not entirely sure in which direction to steer his life.

He decided to sign up for college and attended classes, but it did not take long before he was bored and restless. In his spare time he was toying with photography and discovered his passion in life. He quit college and was inspired to follow his calling.

In the early days, Vlad started out by watching videos online about photography and lighting techniques and put together a DIY studio in his bedroom. He called it his “Ghetto Studio”, starting off with cheap halogen lights, white cardboard and pringles cans in order to practice the techniques he was learning from the videos.

Initially he practiced his techniques on still life photos and later progressed to photographing people, most of which were his friends.

Over time he invested in speed lights and a few lenses but the background he uses remains unchanged to this day i.e. a white wall or a black cloth, and most of his photography is still created in his bedroom to this day. Over time he discovered that what he enjoys the most is a mixture of fashion photography and digital composition. Today he also specializes in retouching, and still photographing mostly his friends rather than professional models.

He has proven that it’s not necessary to buy the most expensive equipment in order to produce really excellent photos nor does it require expensive courses in order to learn about photography. He has proven that all it takes is passion and perseverance.

A few years down the road and Vlads’ work has been published in various magazines, was featured on 500px, fstoppers and many other photography blogs. His biggest achievement to this day was being published in "Best of the Best Photographers 2017"

This is indeed a remarkable success story, and all of this was achieved with relatively little capital outlay and driven purely by his passion for photography.

CURATION

Featuring exceptional authors worth curating.

@blastik
Great animal portraits - good approach towards the nature can be seen in every shot. I have been watching his pictures from a long time and I can surely say it is a professional nature photographer worth following and support!

@naydenova
She only uses manual focus vintage lenses. Interested in fine art photography and editing. Her work definitely deserves our support. Worth to check!

TRAVEL

Showcasing visually entertaining travel post.

Visiting Danyingon Market in Yangon, Myanmar.

STATS

TOP 20 Effective curators in Photography category

¹	Account	Votes	Authors	VAS(%)	Contr. (SBD)	Share %	Eff.
1	@esteemapp	137	92	4	170,68	0,9	5,91
2	@sweetsssj	26	9	96	1467,53	7,74	4,97
3	@isteemd	45	28	13	461,85	2,44	4,86
4	@good-karma	136	92	4	85,96	0,45	2,97
5	@newhope	59	35	16	143,14	0,75	1,88
6	@liondani	57	37	56	109,08	0,58	1,52
7	@hendrikdegrote	35	24	4	113,14	0,6	1,02
8	@alexis555	46	24	17	98,74	0,52	0,89
9	@ripperone	57	26	16	82,14	0,43	0,8
10	@roelandp	193	76	2	26,65	0,14	0,76
11	@michalx2008x	133	119	7	13,92	0,07	0,62
12	@surpassinggoogle	38	33	3	47,09	0,25	0,58
13	@redpalestino	28	16	54	95,53	0,5	0,57
14	@davidding	18	10	53	143,92	0,76	0,54
15	@redes	37	25	16	56,33	0,3	0,53
16	@jawnz	54	9	100	153,67	0,81	0,52
17	@steepshot	179	82	9	13,83	0,07	0,43
18	@grandpawhale	97	60	2	18,39	0,1	0,41
19	@slowwalker	23	11	21	94,87	0,5	0,39
20	@s4s	19	12	43	80,9	0,43	0,37

TOP of photography related categories from the TOP 200 categories by rewards

¹	Category	Authors	Posts	Reward (SBD)	Share %
1	photography	2659	7509	18958	5,338
2	travel	779	1668	9069	2,554
3	photo	370	721	2102	0,592
4	colorchallenge	289	616	1845	0,52
5	animalphotography	233	293	582	0,164
6	photofeed	54	139	551,97	0,155
7	landscapephotography	181	302	474,86	0,134
8	macrophotography	136	256	456,51	0,129
9	monomad	95	212	413,47	0,116
10	goldenhourphotography	127	152	361,68	0,102
11	foodphotography	177	264	337,91	0,095
12	smartphonephotography	161	239	331,69	0,093
13	dailytravelphoto	4	4	326,21	0,092
14	travelfeed	35	66	312,46	0,088
15	urban-photocontest	16	20	312,27	0,088
16	streetphotography	150	247	305,86	0,086
17	steepshot	102	247	270,53	0,076
18	photomag	30	101	270,40	0,076

A table explanation

Votes - Each curator distributes a certain part of the reward pool with his votes (upvote / flag).
Authors - This part of the pool he distributes between a certain number of authors.
VAS (vote average strength) - For general awareness, we can estimate the average vote strength in percents (%), with which the curator votes.
Contr. (SBD) (Contribution in SBD) - The distributed part of the pool is the contribution of the curator, it is calculated in SBD. In this case, the author's reward is taken into account. The curator's reward is not taken into account.
Share % - The percentage of the curator contribution among the contributions of all curators, we can also estimate for information purposes in %.
Eff. - The effectiveness of the curator is estimated in conventional units.

CONTEST

The SPJ’s contest is a monthly photography challenge, constituted by four parts (one a week) with different themes. The four recurrent themes are: portrait, street photography, landscape and black and white.

The way the winner is selected is the following: every week the ten best submissions will be selected by our judges and receive 1 to 10 points, based on their ranking. At the end of the month the points received in each of the four weeks will be added together, resulting in a monthly winner.

The photographer of the month will win 5 Steem! In addition, every week, the three best submissions will be rewarded with 0.5 Steem each.

Location: Danyingon Market in Yangon, Myanmar
Photographer: @jpphotography

This week’s theme is STREET PHOTOGRAPHY!

How it works:

• Post only your own original content adhering to the weekly theme.

• Create a post entitled ‘SPJ contest submission by username’, using #spj as your first hashtag.

• Copy paste a link to this post in the comments section below (deadline: Monday 12pm CET).

• Upvoting and resteeming this article is not mandatory, but highly desirable, as it will contribute to the success of this contest.

• The winners will be published in the following issue of the SPJ.

• You can join the contest at any point!

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Winners of the previous round with the theme PORTRAIT:

All winners are getting 0.5 Steem.

SPJ Project submission by @twodorks

SPJ contest submission by @cave-man

SPJ contest submission by @nolasco

MONTHLY Leader-board:

¹	Author	Portrait	Street	Landscape	B&W	Total
1	twodorks	10				10
2	cave-man	9				9
3	nolasco	8				8
4	marekwojciakcom	7				7
5	txatxy	6				6
6	maquemali	5				5
7	photoquest	4				4
8	boddhisattva	3				3
9	photobe	2				2
10	ijmmai	1				1
11	ykdesign	0				0

PARTICIPANTS

COVER: Photographer: @jpphotography | Location: Danyingon Market in Yangon, Myanmar
Captivating by @photofriend
Photographer's Story by @claudiaz
Curation by @photovisions and @brumest
Travel by @jpphotography
Stats by @boddhisattva
Contest by @photofriend | judged by @axeman and @brumest

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Previous issue: STEEM PHOTO JOURNAL #1

@photofriend is a community supporting photographers across the Steem blockchain. Come to join us on discord: https://discord.gg/qtbFfkp