Twitter as a platform comes in for a lot of criticism (sometimes rightly so), but for me one of it's greatest outputs is the annual #StileCup - this year #StileCup2023, run by the @LakesStiles Twitter account. The premise is simple and straightforward. Anyone can submit a photo of a stile by the designated closing date (it was earlier this month), and then by some dark magic, photos are randomly assigned to groups of three or four, and posted to Twitter, whereupon anyone who sees the post can vote for their favourite.
This goes on round by round in this knockout form until a winner is decided.
I first entered last year but disappointingly got the boot in round one (I wrote about it here) but have upped my game for this year's competition with a shot of a stile I came across whilst on holiday in Austria in September, which I'm hoping can at least make it to round 2 and improve my record in this competition.
Things can get quite tense, especially towards the latter stages of the competition, where lobbying for votes is an absolutely accepted norm (hint, hint - vote for me - it'll be under my Twitter name "Statto1927").
Interestingly, although it's called the "Stile Cup"and therefore ostensibly about the stile itself, you can certainly genuinely enhance your chances of progressing by ensuring that your photo of the stile also includes a cute dog (two is better) a fabulous landscape or nice sunset - as it seems in many cases people vote for the general content rather than only the actual stile.
To see the quality of what you might be up against, see this tweet of the 2021 final 4, eventually won by Quintin Lake (bottom left shot).
As an aside, @QuintinLake is well worth a follow. He's the chap who walked and photographed the entire coastline of Great Britain in his project "The Perimeter" over a period of 5 years.
All in all, the Stile Cup is a fabulous piece of social media fun that enlightens many for a week or so over this period of the year.
I'd urge you to get out and follow @LakeStiles, and me, and vote for my entry when you see it!!!
Thanks
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/simon_hiscocks/
Instagram: simon_hiscocks
No comments:
Post a Comment