After 3.5 years I finally made to the Guru level as a photographer! What does that mean? I’ve been a member of Gurushots during that time, working my way up through Newbie, Rookie, Challenger, Advanced, Veteran, Expert, Champion, Master and finally to Guru! Some make it quicker – I have no idea why I didn’t but there are many who have been doing it longer too, who haven’t. (I have shared a link above where I do gain some credits for tools but anyone who signs up via the link also gets the same credits for tools too – a win-win for both of us).
Below is the image that got me to that level. Gurus get to pick their top 100 choices from a challenge and from those, they pick an overall winner. I got to be that winner which is all I was waiting on (a win) to get to the Guru level. I’d been a Master at least 2 years. I had hoped that an image I took while overseas in 2019 might get that win for me and sure enough, a summer shot in Gdansk, Poland, of children playing in water fountains afforded me that privilege in the theme ‘Saltry Summer Days’.
The idea behind GuruShots is that you submit your photos to various challenges, people from around the world vote on your images (blind voting) in order for you to win a challenge, or get to the Top 10, 5%, 10%, 100, etc. You earn points to advance you through the levels and prizes in the form of swaps, fills and keys which are tools to help you through successive challenges. You can purchase additional swaps, fills and keys, but be warned, it can get addictive and there’s a possibility it might just draw you in like gambling – at least that’s how it felt to me 🙂
When I first joined I think there was only one Australian Guru but believe there are several now, although I don’t know how many. One of my photography friends achieved this level last year. For me, as with anything, it’s about the challenge and achieving something I’ve not done before. I’ve now advanced through from Guru to Guru I and Guru II but there are more levels, however being a Guru means you can run challenges, and I’m currently running my first one called “Obstructed” where 4 photos can be submitted (see below). At the time of writing this there are over 5,000 people entered times 4 photos each, and over 9 million votes. It will end around 8am my time tomorrow morning (which is probably after you will have seen this post), at which time the winning photo, top photographer and Guru Pick winner will be announced – 3 winners for this challenge but in challenges where only 1 photo is entered, then there are only 2 winners.
One of things I found though, is that there’s not a lot of information about there about being a Guru. GuruShots, itself, provides you with very little information on how to run a challenge – very limited information and, disappointingly, while they send you a congrats email to say you’re now a Guru, they don’t actually send you any information on how to be a Guru and how to run challenges. I had hoped I’d get an email that says ‘now you’re a Guru, here’s what you can do….’ A bit of a letdown really. I’ve had to feel my way, and ask questions after reading the small amount of info on the FAQs. Thankfully, there is one Guru, Victor Scicluna, who has been very helpful, has a YouTube channel to show other Gurus how to do things, and he’s willing to answer questions too.
What’s the point of my post? To help new Gurus when running a challenge so they have a bit of a step-by-step process to go through. Firstly, if you’ve made it to this level – congratulations! That is a big step and there are so many others you were competing against. So you’ve earnt it!
Next thing you’ll probably be wanting to do is run a challenge. If you’re like me you might have a list of suggested challenges already, however, it seems, at the moment, they are only offering challenges to bid on. And you have to be quick as there are many other Gurus bidding on challenges too. To do this you click on Manage Your Challenges in your new Guru panel on the screen.
And then on the next screen, if there are challenges to vote on, there will be a number on the right hand side. I have one showing as I’m running one right now, which shows the number of people participating and how many votes as well, but when I’m not running one, it might show 0, or might show other numbers. I was fortunate in that one time I checked they had 4 different potential challenges and I knew I had an image straight away for “Obstructed” so uploaded it to show I was bidding for the challenge, then waited to see if I was accepted. I got an email confirming this a few hours later. I was on my way! It was then a case of waiting for the challenge to open.
At the time of writing this I have one active challenge – which shows up below the screen you can see above. You click on the word ‘Pick’ to go through the screen of images submitted. This is where I highly recommend you view at full screen size – on your largest monitor. You can’t get these views on a phone or iPad anyway, so definitely needs to be on computer. And this is where some participating with only phone images may find it very challenging to get a win. Images should be sharp and clear and on topic. Some themes it doesn’t matter, as they can be abstract but if the topic requires a clear, sharp image, then images taken with a camera, as opposed to a phone camera, will fair better from what I have seen. And voting is better on a large screen too – smaller images often come across as distorted, very soft or blurry and they won’t get my vote in any challenge.
Each screen presents approx 200 images per viewing – I have a spreadsheet I use (thanks to Victor mentioned above) and I mark how many screens I’ve seen and how many Guru Picks (GPs) I’ve chosen. I also think about which one will be the overall winner, but can update my thinking on that right near the end of the challenge – in case something else comes along that is better than the one I had originally thought about.
I’ve been viewing roughly 800 images per day throughout this challenge, which takes me approx 2 hours each sitting – so there is time involved. But this is partly because I have slow internet (roll on NBN!) and partly because I want to make sure I’m viewing each image properly. I also use the snipping tool, to copy any image I think should get a GP and paste it into Tineye which is a Reverse Image Search program. This is just to check that any images I’m choosing haven’t been stolen or bought from an image site or Google, or whatever. It does happen, so I’m told, so just being careful.
Apparently GS will contact you if you haven’t been doing any GPs before it gets to the 24 hours left point. But I was keen to do this, and to do it as best I could, so couldn’t wait to jump in and do some voting! It takes a while to find sufficient images, anyway, to deserve that award. And I’m learning that often the best or more experienced photographers (and Gurus) won’t jump in till the last 12 hours. I’ve learnt it’s best to choose your winning image at least 2 hours out from the end of the challenge, just in case you’re not around at the time it ends, or anything else, so that it’s locked in. Otherwise those running GuruShots will choose a Guru Pick winner if you don’t. However, I believe you can change your choice right up towards the end of the challenge, if you wish to do so.
So there you are, that is my personal experience, to date, of achieving the Guru level, and running a challenge. I hope to get to run many more – I have submitted to GS some ideas I have for themes at some time. I hope they will accept them, and more to the point, let me run some of them! By the way, I have found GuruShots great for new ideas in photography, learning from what others do and present, and enhancing my skills. I do believe the past 3.5 years have been worthwile. I hope you will find it enjoyable too!
Finally, some tips for you to get a GP in one of my challenges:
- Ignore the challenge theme title and read the brief – sometimes the titles can be misconstrued. It’s amazing how many images I’ve seen (already) that don’t actually fit the brief of the challenge.
- Ensure the image is sharp, clear and the recommended size before uploading so that it doesn’t get contorted. Minimum 700px on the longest or shortest sides.
- No adult images – I don’t view them, full stop.
- If you have to use a watermark, keep it off the main subject of the image. But better if you don’t – voting is supposed to be blind and I prefer not to vote for images with watermarks.
- If your image has been submitted to tons of stock image sites and elsewhere – find another pic to submit. Many Gurus check to see if an image has been stolen – if it’s showing up on lots of other sites, it will be hard to determine if you really own it.
- Keep it real – unless the theme asks you to mock up something, don’t put in objects that are obviously just added, e.g. dinosaurs, etc. These don’t impress me at all.
- And remember that Gurus spend many hours going through thousands of pics to choose GPs. So they might not get to see all images, depending on how many are entered.
- Certainly look to see what others are doing and what Guru Picks have been chosen but don’t try to do something exactly the same. Make it your own.