^{Photo taken by me @derangedvisions}

News Before Theme is Announced

I just want to start off by saying that we have had an amazing first two weeks of the competition. There have been so many awesome entries. All of you are super talented and I am looking forward to seeing more of your work as the Deranged Photography Contest grows. There are some rule additions and exciting news for this month so be sure to check the Additional Notes section.

First off, everyone's tier has been reset, so you are free to pick your tiers again. Just be mindful that if you are picking a tier that is way lower than what you should be, it is unfair for the rest of the competitors and I will move you up into the next tier for the remainder of the month. Be sure to state which tier you wish to be judged in for the month. If you do not, I will place you in a tier or carry your choice forward from the previous month.

Once again, I want to thank everyone for participating and helping to make this vision of mine grow. You are all awesome.

Water Works

This contest's theme is Water Works. Anything that has to do with water will be accepted, as long as there is water in the photo. This is a pretty broad topic, so don't get stuck on the obvious choices like waterfalls, lakes, rivers and oceans. There are so many different options for creativity with this one.

This photo by our guest judge @gabyoraa is a great example of using water to make an amazing photograph even better.

^{Photo taken by @gabyoraa}

New Life contest winners

The New Life contest had a lot of awesome entries and you should go check out the winner's post here and show them some love if you haven't.

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.

NEW FOR MAY!!

There will be a prize pool of 5 SBD for each tier for the photo of the month. At after the final contest results are posted, I will create an additional post for everyone to cast their votes for their top photo of the month.

Each 1st place winner throughout the month will be tagged in the post as notification to drop their photo in comment section and the photo from each tier that receives the highest number of votes, number not value, will win the 5 SBD, plus they get all the rewards of the upvotes on their comment too, so win win for them.

I am hoping that this is incentive for everyone to continue to go out and shoot amazing photographs. You are all doing great.

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.

Contestants can only win 1st or 2nd place once a week.
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?

The first 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 sponsor's 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, and vote for @ arcange. Your votes for these great witnesses go a long way in ensuring the platform continues to thrive.

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.

Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account. All delegations will go towards rewarding all of the participants of the contests by upvoting the entries. I am hoping to be able to reward everyone for taking part in my contests.

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.