I'm not writing this post to be disresptectful, but I feel the Money Shot contest has lost some of it's validity as a photography contest. I understand there is a need to cater to the users of this site, but I want to point out some major issues I see.
1) Changes to the rules - One week we had someone who's shot was disqualified for being in a mag he put out himself. Definitely not a major. Then we have someone that is trying to make it as a photographer get bumped because they've sold too much work. He's not pro, but he still got bumped.
2) Since the first week, it seems image quality of first place shots has gone down. We're seeing overexposed shots, soft focus on riders, chromatic aberration, and questionable composition. I wonder whether or not the selecting processed has been "dumbed" down to cater to the average rider on this site. While content of the image is important (I agree a shot of a rider with his bros watching is cool), it falls apart if the other elements aren't in place. Most of these shots would not get published.
I understand some feel that the contest should be winnable by the average joe, but the contest was announced on a website devoted to helping action photographers make it to the pro level - WheelsandWax.
Post from WAW-
"Hey fine shooters,
We're running a photo contest on http://www.nsmb.com and I thought some of you might be interested.
It's going to last four months and there are nice prizes every week. The grand prize is a full pimp $6000 Rocky Mountain Slayer.
The catch is that you can only enter if photography isn't your main source of income. If it's not you are in. The rest of the details can be found here [HTML_REMOVED] http://www.nsmb.com/shore_news/moneyshot_01_06.php"
I don't like to post problems without an idea for a solution, so maybe a second contest is in order. One for point-and-shoot guys, and one for SLR guys.