The rules:

1. Only one picture per contestant.

2. No voting for your own picture.

3. No previously used material. All photos must be fresh, shot for this challenge, and never displayed on any gallery / thread.

4. The winner of the last poll will set the next topic; if the same person stands as the winner two times in a row, he or she must choose another user to present the next topic.

5. In the event of a tie in the polls, the person who created the challenge casts the tie breaking vote.

6. Enhancements of the picture are allowed in terms of colour management, curves, levels, crop, sharpening, etc. Adding or removing elements in the photo, brushed enhancements, or anything that diverts into photo manipulation territory will not be accepted.

7. The challenge starts when the challenge thread is opened. It is open for new entries for 7 days (Nov. 22 - 29), after which the vote poll is opened by the challenge starter. If (s)he fails to do so, anyone is free to open the voting thread. The voting thread should have all the entries in it and have public voting to prevent cheating.

8. The voting will go on for 2 days, then the winner (or other person assigned to start a new challenge, see rule 4 and 5) starts a new thread named "The Photo Challenge - [name]", where [name] indicates the topic of the new challenge. If he fails to do so within the day the poll ends, the next person in the poll may do so.

10. Pictures should have a title to make them easy to identify, however this is optional.

11. Do not attach your entry to the thread, instead use an external host such as photobucket.com or imageshack.us, to allow hotlinking from the voting thread.

READ THIS:

I have a new book, Light Science & Magic, and I recommend you all go pick it up. It is amazing, it shows you how to think about lighting for any surface, not just easy stuff. It's focused on studio work, but can be applied to anything, even metal (which is supposedly the hardest thing to shoot). Based on this, I have chosen to make you all work with metal. Get something REALLY shiny, be it the gas tank of a Harley, a precious bit of jewelery or just a fork and play with the lighting of it. Do you want it bright or dark? Experiment with angles and light levels, etc.

So, get out there, and I look forward to the results. The deadline is a bit cheeky, but it's christmas and I'm going overseas but I still want to enter so unless Sam changes it, this is the way it will stay. Good luck, and I look forward to it!