You know how the top three photos in every Combine contest automatically advanced into the Second Round? We thought, why stop at round two?

So we changed the Second Round to Round Two, and then we added Rounds 3-10.

The top three photos in the Combine advance to Round Two, the top three in Round Two advance to Round Three, all the way to Round Ten.

We have entered the winning photos from all Round Two contests into new Round Three contests. There are 16 of those Round Three contests judging right now and there are some amazing photos in there!!!

Our slack channel is a place you can ask questions, suggest features, report problems. Here’s an invite link: https://join.slack.com/t/fovi8/shared_invite/enQtMzMzMTQ2NzE0OTEzLWUyYjcxYmYyYjFlN2IxYTI2NWM5YzYyMzZhNGJhZjM5MGE0Mjc3NDUxYmIxMDYyY2FlNjMyNTA5ZWY0YTExYzE

A couple of things worth mentioning…

The Upload page has been redesigned, giving you more options to enter contests when you upload your photos.

And this is fun: There’s a new page that will show you (and allow you to enter) your photos that have earned the right to compete in stage 2-10 contests.

If you haven’t already joined fovi8 or aren’t logged in, do it now. You’ll want the things you do on fovi8 to be credited to your account.

We start you off with four stars, our basic on-site currency. We hand out stars in a variety of ways on the site, so don’t worry about using them. If you haven’t already, use one of those stars to upload one of your photographs.

When you upload a photograph it is placed into The Combine, our first round of competition. Every ten uploaded photographs compete against each other in a match. The top three photos are rewarded with stars (which you can use to upload more photos) and advance to the Second Round.

Judging is done by the fovi8 community, including you. Click over to the Judge page and follow the simple instruction: Click on the better photograph. Every contest pays out a prize to the judge whose choices are strongest.

You should check the Judge page often.

After a contest is judged its results are posted, showing every photo’s rank. Here’s an example. Clicking on a photo will give you a closer look at that photo’s statistics and progress its made in other contests.

You can access your own photos by clicking on your username in the nav bar and going to your profile. From there photos can be entered into a series of repeating fovi8 contests. We call them Stages.

The Stages are currently divided into five basic categories – Black and White, Color, People, Places, and Brawl (we’ll get to Brawl shortly).

All photographs are welcome to compete in Stage 1 of any of The Stage contests. You enter Stage contests here. Only competitive photos are allowed to advance to Stages 2 and beyond. Photos reaching even Stage 3 in a category are our best work. Beyond that, all the way up to Stage 10? Those are photographs to be very proud of.

While the categories of Stage contests all pretty explanatory except for Brawl. Brawls are free-for-all contests where all photographs are welcome regardless of subject or technique. And here things get a little more interesting. To enter a Brawl, you’re going to need a diamond. You can easily buy diamonds in our store, but you can also win them if you’re the top judge for a Brawl contest.

Diamonds are exchangeable for cash.

You can also use diamonds to buy a copy of our monthly zine, which compiles the best work on the site as chosen by the community.

At the end of each month we divide all of that month’s photographs into five stages and the community picks the Photos of the Month. Every photograph receives feedback in the form of likes, and the results are listed for all.

Of course you shouldn’t rely on fovi8 to have a contest to fit every niche or genre. That’s why you can create your own contest on the site.

For a small amount of stars, you can create a contest that you and other users will be able to enter and have your work ranked through the fovi8 judging system.

And if you have a set of photos that you need feedback on, you can create a contest that only you can enter. We call it a portfolio. You’ll get honest feedback from our community and results for all photographs. To create a portfolio, just hit the Portfolio checkbox on the contest creation page.

Much more to come, and we’ll add to this as we go.

A couple updates today –

You can now create a contest that only you can enter. We call it a portfolio. You’ve got a series of photographs you want the community to give you feedback on? Create a portfolio, enter your ten photos, and the community will judge it like any other contest. Create a contest or portfolio here

You can now see how often you like specific photographers and photographs at the top of photographer profiles and photo pages.

Our new issue is now available (shipped, numbered, and personalized) for the price of 15 fovi8 Diamonds.

Click here to get one

Amazing cover by fotoski, and thanks to everyone who uploaded photos in January. Only a week left in the month to upload for issue #7!

Contributing Photographers: fotoski, psutphin, joelaron, BWJones,Cathy Wilson, nashgraphy, bbum, Trent, JSturr, GDsimpson, manu schwendener, Robert Hendricks, chuq, Franek, NeuxMix, esined, erik

455 photos split into 5 stages. Some excellent work this month – thanks for entering.

Also, and likely more interesting: you can now create your own contests!

We already have three great player-created contests going:

Macro

Animals

Cathy’s “Make Me Laugh” Contest

Good stuff. New contests are listed as they’re created in the Activity Feed, and you can monitor the Open Contests page as well.

We will be adding a lot of features and functionality to creating contests and will keep you updated here or on slack.

First up, the Contests section of fovi8 has been revamped. We have new pages where you can see:

1. contests that are currently accepting entries
(you can click on a contest to view and enter it)

2. what contests are being judged, and how far along they are,

3. contest results

4. ???

Yeah, #4 is coming shortly, and we’re very excited to share it with you.

Thanks to everyone who entered in the month of January. We will be posting the Photos of the Month contests with all January photos shortly, and then putting together the next issue of the zine.

This month we’ve seen some amazing photographs from new photographers as well as our regulars. Welcome to all, we love to see your work.

Here’s a new invite link for the fovi8 Slack channel, where you can speak directly to us. It’s been a great source of feedback from users and we give out more news there than here. Join us if it sounds useful:

fovi8 Slack Invite Link