^{Photo taken by @juancarlos1175}

I just want to let all of you know that I have started running a witness for the steemit platform. If you want to know more about my witness intentions, you can check out my Witness Announcement Post or vote for @derangedvisions here. One of my goals with the witness is to be able to use the Steem generated from running the witness to be able to support the photography community more, but I won't be able to do that without witness votes. Every witness vote cast for me helps me be able to reward all of you more in the end. All of your support is truly appreciated. Anyways, end of plug and onto the competition.

Let's see those Portraits

Portraits can be tricky to get good pictures of. It is all about getting the perfect shot without making it looked staged. It can be difficult to get people comfortable in front of the camera, but once you them feeling comfortable and they forget the camera is there, then you can get some great shots. I am looking forward to seeing your great shots that you are going to share.

NOTE - We have had a lot of newcomers to the contest recently and some have not been reading the rules in their entirety. Only ONE submission per contest is allowed. Please do not enter more than once. If you see other people doing it, feel free to comment to them and inform them of the rules.

^{Photo taken by @akirachang}

How is the Deranged Photography Contest set up?

The contest will be broken up into three different tiers. Each will have a different payout for the winners based on what tier you enter into. Here is a breakdown of the winning based on the tiers:

Place	Professional	Amateur	Beginner
1st	1.25 SBD	1 SBD	1 SBD
2nd	0.75 SBD	0.5 SBD	0.5 SBD
3rd	0.5 SBD	0.25 SBD	0.25 SBD

Each contest will be open for submissions for 5 days after the post is made and then closes at 0100 UTC (1800 MST) on the 5th day.

This will give me and any guest judges time to judge the submissions and create the post announcing the winners.

How to enter

When you enter a photo in the competition, you will state what tier you want to be judged in and locked in for the month at that level.

For example if you enter a photo, you drop the photo in the comment section, state what level of photographer you are, and then give a description of the photograph.

If you want to make your own post and reference the contest in your post, that would be awesome, just remember to post your picture in the comment section along with your post link. Who knows, you may get a visit and an upvote on your post as well as an upvote on the picture. Use the tag #derangedphotography to make it easy to find your posts.

Additional Notes

This contest is in its early stages and as time goes it things may need to be tweaked to benefit the group as a whole to make it a more fun experience for everyone.

Only one submission per contest. Extra submissions will be ignored.
You can switch your tier ONE time per month, but only if you are moving up into a higher tier, for example if you are currently in the amateur tier, but you think that you have a photograph that you want to enter in the professional tier, you can state that you are changing your tier to professional. You will then be locked into the new tier for the remainder of the month. You are not able to move down to a lower tier, like going from amateur to the beginner tier.
If you do not state wish tier you want to be judged in for the month, I will leave a comment to remind you to do so, but if you don't respond, you will be assigned to a tier and locked in for that month.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated in any form. All submissions must be your own work. I will investigate every entry and one of the main sponsors is the @steemcleaners team, so if you are caught plagiarizing, not only will you be blacklisted from competing from any future contests, but you will be reported to Steemcleaners as well. It is not worth it to try and cheat, especially with the 3 tier set up where everyone has an equal shot of winning.
Deranged Photography Contests also has a discord channel that you can meet fellow photographers and keep up to date with all of the latest news that is going on with the contest. You can join at this link:

https://discord.gg/MpWstp2

Who are the amazing sponsors?

One major sponsor to the contests is @pfunk. For those that don't know @pfunk is a very active witness on the platform that is doing a lot behind the scenes to ensure that your user experience is a smooth one.

@pfunk aids in the process of new account set ups, a big part of Steemit Chat, and a part of the @steemcleaners team. @pfunk also is a huge supporter of the Open Mic contests run by @luzcypher.

You should seriously consider casting a witness vote for @pfunk.

Another major sponsor is @czechglobalhosts. For those that don't know, @czechglobalhosts puts on two daily photo contests that are open to anyone to enter. His contests cover the entire globe so that anyone can enter. The days and themes are:

Australian Monday
Antarctica and World's Oceans Tuesday
African Wednesday
European Thursday
North American Friday
South American Saturday
Asian Sunday

On top of the themed daily continent contests, he hosts a daily travel contests specific to the beautiful country of the Czech Republic. So make sure to follow @czechglobalhosts and participate in his contests because he is offering two daily photography contests that you can enter to win.

The other sponsors I have are @guiltyparties and the @steemcleaners team. @guiltyparties and everyone else behind @steemcleaners does so much for the platform as a whole, trying to reduce the spammers, phishing and plagiarism that goes on here. If you have any free slots for witness votes you should consider casting a vote for @guiltyparties, vote for @patrice, vote for @anyx, vote for @pfunk, vote for @pjau, and vote for @arcange. Your votes for these great witnesses go a long way in ensuring the platform continues to thrive.

I would also like to welcome @ats-david as another amazing sponsor to the contests. He is an awesome photographer himself and runs several of his daily own contests over on @brospn-contests. If you are a sports fan, you definitely need to check out those contests. He is also the brains behind @brospn where you can stay up to date with anything sports related. He works tirelessly to make sure everyone is informed with what is going on in the sports universe. On top of all of that, He is a witness for the Steem blockchain. So if you have free witness votes you can vote for @ats-witness here vote for @ats-witness

If you would like to become a sponsor and delegate SP to the Deranged Photography Contests you can do so by clicking on the following links:
50 SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP,5000SP.

Now get out and start shooting

I hope you are all excited about this new contest. The contest themes will be different than what you are used to seeing on Steemit, and I am doing this to encourage everyone to get out and shoot new pictures. If you are a life long professional nature photographer, some of the themes may push you to try and learn something new. If you are just a beginner photographer, this is a great place to have fun shooting all sorts of exciting styles and learn in the process.

^{Photo taken by @paniczklos}