Ok, after a couple of weeks of what I’m sure was unimaginable waiting for all of you 
I am happy to announce the first ever photography contest and giveaway here at Mark’s Photography Spot!
The primary goal of this contest is to increase views, subscribers and participation on this blog. I’m having a lot of fun with it and I want to increase the reach of the blog. I figure that the more subscribers this blog has, the better. More subscribers & readers means more participation, more information and photo sharing and generally, more fun for everyone! I also know that nothing motivates people like the chance to win something. With it being the Holiday gift buying season, gift-cards are very popular. So I’ll be giving away an Amazon Gift Card
to the lucky winner.
Everyone is eligible to enter, and all it takes is submitting an image (or link to an image). You don’t have to be a professional, or even a serious amateur photographer, to enter this contest. All you need to do is submit a photo following the instructions below. After the contest ends I’ll post all of the entered photos, along with descriptions and other information on this blog for everyone to see, share and enjoy. So, dig through your hard drives and find a photograph to enter and share because it could win you a gift card!
Here are the details/rules:
-The contest will run from the time I post this on Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 until 7PM Eastern on Tuesday, December 6th, 2011. If your entry is received after that time, it will not be eligible for the prize. Entry time will be determined by time stamp on the email containing your photograph (see below for entry details).
-To be eligible to win the prize, you will need to email a family friendly image (sized to no more than 600 pixels wide, and under 1/2 meg in size), or a link to a similar sized image from a legitimate photo-sharing sites like Flickr, Picassa or Smugmug. Images not meeting the image and/or file size requirements will not be entered in the drawing. Please email the image or link to fridayphoto@marksphotographyspot.com Put “photo contest” in the subject line so I know you’re entering the contest. Don’t worry, I won’t automatically subscribe you to the blog or use your email to send you spam, affiliate links or any of that other nasty stuff. If you want to subscribe to the blog (and I hope you do!) you can do that on your own by clicking the “subscribe” buttons in the upper right of the blog. You can only submit 1 photograph. Multiple entries from the same email will be ignored
-The photo you submit can be of any subject you want, there are no limitations except that they must be appropriate for all ages. Please remember that the photo you submit will be shared on this site in a future blog post. I will review all images for appropriateness and decide which images are “family-friendly” (basically no nudes or profane subjects). Any that aren’t appropriate (in my judgement), won’t be included/entered. If you want to include your name and brief description of the photograph, feel free. Also, if you have a personal blog that you want to promote, feel free to note that in your email. I’ll include all links that are legitimate (based on my judgement).
What You Could Win
I’m going to start out with a minimum Amazon Gift Card amount of $10. I know that’s not a huge amount of cash but I’ve got a few ways to have all of you work together to increase that amount up to as much as $50!!!
Here’s how to make me spend more than $10 on that gift card
- Add a constructive comment to this blog post and I’ll add 10 cents to the prize pot, up to a maximum of $10 (100 blog comments)
- Share my Google+ post and I’ll add 10 cents to the pot, up to a maximum of $10 (100 shares)
- +1 my Google+ post and I’ll add 10 cents to the pot for each +1, up to a maximum of $10 (100 Google +1′s)
- Add a comment to my post on Google+ and I’ll add 10 cents to the prize pool for each comment, up to $10 (100 Google+ comments)
You can do each of these four things, so go ahead and comment here on the blog and on Google+, +1 and share to your heart’s content!
(Remember, you have until 7PM Eastern on December 6th, 2011 to add your comment, +1 or Google+ share in order for it to count toward the amount added to the Amazon Gift Card.)
How the Winner will be Determined
All entry emails that meet the submission requirements listed above will be assigned a number on a spreadsheet that I’ll create, starting with 1 and increasing by one digit as additional entries are received. When the entry time limit (7PM Eastern on December 6th, 2011) has passed, no additional entries will be accepted. All eligible entries will be entered into a random drawing using the number generator at Random.org The winning entry number will then be drawn and the corresponding email will be notified that they have won.
The winner must provide a valid email or physical address in order to receive the Amazon Gift Card.
The gift card amount will be determined by adding the additional amounts (10 cents each up to the limit) for blog comments, Google+ comments, Google+ shares and +1′s to the $10 base amount of the gift card.
I will record a video showing the drawing of the winner no later than 8PM Eastern on December 8th, 2011. That video will be posted on this blog as well as on my Google+ stream. I will contact the winner to arrange for delivery of the Amazon Gift Card at that point.
Whew, I think that’s all the rules. Good luck to everyone and I’m looking forward to seeing some neat photos.
Happy Shooting!
