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Winning a Gurushots challenge has very little to do with talent and a lot more to do with both chance and manipulation.
Just look at how most, if not all members vote. The requirement for everyone to vote on so many photos demands way too much time for those of us with lives outside the app. This encourages speed voting which is simply tapping the positive vote button as quickly as possible in order to gain exposure for your own images. When your images gain the exposure you will also receive votes made by those similar fast button-pushing voters for the same exposure rewards. More exposure is given to those who wish to pay heaps of cash for image swapping and boosts. On top of this, I hear there are organised groups willing to help boost you for a price, sad but true. I also get the feeling that, like many, if I actually do get to Guru status I would simply consider this stupidity completed and give the game up. I also think Gurushots understands this mentality and have a vested interest not to let too many people attain this status. Like gambling addicts continually betting in the hopes of hitting the jackpot.
I'm in Gurushots and I'm having fun with it - mostly because photos are my hobby so what's not to like?
I never have and never will pay one single coin into it - just like I would never ever pay to boost a facebook post neither.
Yeah clearly the algorithm is corrupt and I'll probably never make it to become a Guru, but I can see through all that and I don't give a f*** about my title nor status in there. I still get all the exploration.
I enjoy looking at all those awesome good photos and compare to my own. Constantly learning to improve myself. It's cool. /brian6000
After 2 months and over 1000 challenges, like most people, I love the personal challenge to do better.
I have learnt not to post any pictures of people. My grandchildren photos went up all over Gurushots web promotions, even after I had taken them down. I complained, with a snapshot and they did not reply.
This is especially upsetting as there is so much uncontrolled pornography on this site. I don't trust the pornographers with photos of innocent children at their read disposal.
My grandchildren logged in and were shocked. There is tasteful nude art, such as an elegant curve of a back mixed with full frontal sadism and vulgarity. Gurus click on these photos and give the elegant ones picks, but they must be shocked at what the Israeli inventors of this game are unwilling to control.
I suggest you don't play under your own name, and don't buy any spam e-books from authorities on this site. It will tell you the basics of using a camera and to save your votes for the hours you think your challenge guru might log in. Not worth the 40 they charge for this e-book.
I was sucked in and quickly spent 500 on swaps. It was a total waste.
Final advice. It's for middling photographers like me who love challenges, but there is a lot of rubbish and porn.
Gurushots is a website who they just don't care for photography or photographers. I was in there for too long to see very bad quality photos winning... and poor blurred photos getting in front of great photos that deserved to win. And there are some secret groups that were created to boost the votes some photographers will receive in order to win challenges. Great photographers are robbed by cheaters, but also by Gurushots who is there to take your money, that's all. Poor quality service. They don't answer at all when you write.
Since my status has changed to guru around a bit over a month ago, I think it is interesting to see how I feel about the game from a guru perspective now.
Being a guru doesnt change the experience you have, you still have to compete with others whether better photographers or not. You sometimes also see gurus win when other non gurus had equl or better pictures- probably won with a better strategy and use of swaps etc.
There are different types of gurus out there, some really professional ones in the sense of responsibility when running a challenge- I put myself in this category, and others who are a bit more careless.
I explain what I mean by that.
One of the advantages of being a guru is that you get ro run challenges (it doent go very smoothly as there are more and more gurus, so it can take up to 3-4 weeks to run your challenge), it is very thrilling to see how people submit their photos and you can select the better photos- sometimes very difficult.
You dont see whose picture it is, just like the non gurus- so its anonymous.
I take time to go through all the pictures and enlarge the ones that fit best to check on quality and details. I check every singe photo I select for copyright- there are a lot of cheaters out there... so I report them and their account is closed most of the time, or picture removed.
This is our responsibilty as a guru, but other gurus do not spend that much time, are less selective or more carefree.
For those of you that think only gurus are selected, I can confirm that this is not the case.
From the three challenges I ran- it turned out I had selected many champions, masters, and sometimes other categories. There are professional photographers or amateurs who just start with the game and they may only be a challenger for example, but the quality of the picture is indeed excellent, so a guru pick is deserved- you can see who you have selected once it is voted.
So from a anonymity perspective, the game is fair.
Another positive aspect of the game is that you actually learn something or are reminded of what makes a good photograph.
When selecting the photos for a guru pick, I take into consideration, composition, quality and details like is there a piece of the subject missing, is there enough room between end of the frame and subject, any distracting elements etc.
There is a lot of strategy but also good luck involved and rules are changing often.
It can be very disappointing, but rewarding as well.
There are now vote-a-thon contests that bring the level of the challenges down, as it encourage people to submit crap and off topic photos to participate in as many challenges as possible.
At the moment I am trying to take down one step and see how things are evolving.
Hope this helps.
I started playing the game, posting what I love to photograph best: travel and wild life. The game has changed a bit in the past few months, and you dont get swaps, boost or fills every challenge anymore. I have progressed relatively quickly, as I was not playing every day, but I am now stuck at masters' level and really hooked :( No matter how many swaps or fills I use, how many points or guru picks i have, I dont seem to be going passed the first 30 or so when I'm lucky. I have also noticed that some good photos are hanging at number 1 until the very end, when suddenly out of the blue some 5 gurus show up and take the first price. 1st guru, second guru... until the 10th. Exce[tionnally you find anon guru amongst the first 10, but rarely from what I have experienced. Hmmm I think I have only seen a non guru win a challenge, and in some cases the guru photo was not as good as the non guru one.
I get very upset when I see really good images not getting their deserved price. It's ok to be a game, but it is set up in such a way that you need to buy swaps or fills in order to get anywhere at all star level. Poor quality images get higher places.
My best advice is play the game, dont get emotionally involved and play for the long term.
Gurushots is a scam. Not only it is a scam, it has nothing to do with photography. It is a money laundering scheme for Russian – Israeli mafia. Just look into their investors, Roman Abramovich, Altair and Buran: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/gurushots. Winning the game has nothing to do with how good your photos are. Best photos never win. The same small group of people wins most challenges, because they learned how to manipulate the rigged system best and when exactly to enter, boost, swap and fill. Those people spend 24/7 playing the game. They don't have any photographs worth mentioning. After I told the truth about Gurushots, number of people they are able to fool declined drastically. They used to run 40 challenges at the same time, now they run about 20. In retaliation they took away my guru's right to run challenges. They do that to people they don't like. It's an incredibly small greedy group of people who are after you hard earned money. Don't give them any.
Thought I'd give a go for a week or two, I've been a Pro for over 12yrs working for Getty Images etc. However what a load of crap some great photographers are ignored by pure hobbyist's that aren't even on the same topic, almost holiday snaps with zero talent most out of focus. Have can this ever improve standards of photography if it's down to money that buys your rating. Just one photography site that uses a better voting system and scored on merit would be exciting but this is garbage.
You Will not win a thing without spending your money, even with the greatest photo of all you will see weaker photos winning vexasse They paid...
Been on Gurushots for about a year now. I found a lot of complete dog$#*! images getting far higher on the leaders board not only of my images which are relativity good but some outstanding work from real photographers. I decided the other day to carry out an experiment. Two separate challenges, one for images of cakes the other for windows. For the cakes i entered an image of an old tyre beside a beach, so far I have almost 1200 votes! For the windows i entered an image of two people reading on a beach, almost 900 votes! Ridiculous! Many People just vote for the utter dog $#*! images (and there are many) or for the totally unrelated so as to keep there exposure up. I am coming off it today and do yourself a favour come off it too or don't waste your time signing up for it... its $#*!!
There are countless so-called gurus (I reached that status too, but it means nothing) running "challenges" where there are no real prizes, just "guru bundles" consisting of useless keys, fills and swaps. People enter all kinds of rubbish, from out of focus images to ones that have nothing to do with the theme, yet they make it to the top 100. Even some of the "guru picks" are of out of focus, poorly framed rubbish. This website is a total joke and money making scam.
There are countless "exhibition challenges" where all those making it to "all star level", and most who enter 4 average images get there, get prompted to pay and get their images exhibited. The so-called exhibitions are digital displays of your images where nobody views them.
The website is also taking money off unsuspecting folks who think there's value in keys, fils and swaps. These are probably those new to the site. With experience you realise that these are a total waste of money.
Overall, this is a scam, where the site owners con thousands of people and get rich in the process.
All together people have to realize it is just a game and is for free. You dont need to buy anything if you ddont want... I like it because it picked my hooby made me to go and take pictures do research how to do different fotos techniques. Sometimes frustrating but well its a game and when i dont like it any more ill just delete it.
I am a complete amateur who wanted to improve my photography skills. I joined gurushots sometime ago and it has helped me enormously. There are some great photographers and photos posted and you can generally see the settings these were taken at. When you post photos you get and overview of whether they are a strong, very strong or average image. Viewing and voting on other peoples photos has improved my composition and eye no end.
The voting system is not foolproof especially in the speed sections and yes you can spend some money buying keys and fills but nothing comes for free.
I reiterate I give it 5 stars for improving your photography!
I was a guru, and last week I deleted my account completely because it going bad and 99% of Gurus they are almost amateurs.
It's not my game, I'm professional and I don't need to share my images there,,,,, bad experience
As most other reviews state, you always get pipped at the post by so called gurus and they're pathetic oversaturated HDR rubbish. There are a few gurus on there that are genuine and talented, but overall I cannot take most of them seriously. They must have $#*! in their eyes to choose so many terrible shots as winners. Many of which are off topic! I've asked many of the gurus why they do this and even how they win with terrible images. That's like pissing against the wind!
The game drip feeds you rewards, like a bandit! Then you're hooked until the penny drops and you begin to see the pattern that other reviewers have noted. Sifting through the cliche junk when you have to vote is monotonous as well!
The platform has barely changed in the past year or so. I've revisited it from time to time hoping the developers would improve the experience. Unfortunately this is not the case. It's also full of thieves who lift your work and use it themselves. As for customer service, well that's non existent.
99% of photos there are of very low quality. Boost & fill features which should let your photo be in the top for voting are not working properly so even if you spend you key for that your photo will never be shown for others and so voted, or it will be boosted for a minute in real, even if you see that "boost indicator" for several hours.
I cannot imagine how this photo-casino can increase your photo-skills or let somebody interested in your work
The site is just a scam to get you to spend money on swaps and keys... I ran an exercise where I kept my exposure meter full for the last 24 hours of a challenge and the photo did not get a single vote during that time... on another challenge I had the exposure meter full and then did a swap the new photo got way more votes than the original... Hmmm..
Some people say... Gurushots will improve your skills. I begun to make bad photos to participate in Gurushots challenges!. Others say Gurushots challenges are for gurus and masters to win. I'm a Master and will never win a challenge!... Want to know why? Well. I'm in Gurushots for some time. I have tested it in any way and discovered hidden rules that, as they hidden, I have no direct evidences but assumptions based on my experience. First of all I will state that the only fair thing I've found is they describing the platform as a game. I agree and as is in any game it exist for the owner to win. Also I have to agree that the interface is well designed with an easy learning curve and addictive, but its technical robustness leave something to be desired. Now the real world of Gurushots. You upload your photos in a chllenge and to receive votes you have to vote to fill your exposition gauge. You can short this buying "fills" but this market has suffered an inflation of more than 1000% some tima ago... Firstly voting in a challenge in wich you participate is, at least, awkward... unless you are stupid you will never vote in the best photos or in them above your rating in the contest!... Sometimes it is dificult for me to choose the worse because quality, criativity and variety don't get recognition here. Make "clichets" if you want to have some votes: ancient buildings, native people of remote places, anything envolving culture or knouledge is ignored. Make oversaturated, blurred images of obvious places... AND spend money, much money. You can overcharge your exposition with a function called "boost". Supposedly this increases your exposition for 24 hours but after some minutes I don't receive any more votes. It continues blink but nothing more happens... Finally, the big bussiness of Gurushots. "Swaps". You can swap any picture any number of times. They say it it for you to choose your best photos in a challenge but my experience tells something different.And here comes my assumption. It seems that there is a hidden rule that determines your exposition time when you enter a challenge, boost or swap one photo. And this has something to do with goods you buy. I have thousands of "Elites", hundreds of "All Stars", dozens of %% of any kind and some "Guru Picks". I have been several times first place and in the first ten in challenges but in the last two days and last hours of a challenge I fall down miserably. At first I swap and get some 20% of votes over the swaped file but when I approch the upper positions my swaps can´t get the votes of the swaped file and most of the time loose more or less 20%. No matter how many swaps I make or the quality of the files. One file with a guru pick is ignored here because my financial rank, I suspect, doesn't allow me to win a challenge. I save swaps won in the challenges proper, don't buy them.
Quite simply, unless you have the very best equipment, a lot of lightroom/ photoshopping skills, or are willing to submit pro images "borrowed" from the net, you stand little chance of winning... well you can give them money that might have helped me. No real feed back, no input at all. I would suggest you avoid them.
Avoid! Is a rip off, with hardly existing customer service. They give nothing for the money they charge for, they ignore you if you contact them, after long if they answer with excuses and if you are not happy with it as it is not sorted, then they block you. Save screenshots of evidence, as once they block you out PayPal can help only if you can show evidence.
Like to photoshop a picture so much the art disappears from the original photo? Terrible at photography but great at photo editing? Want to get a pat on the back for blurry selfies on your cell phone? This is the site for you. Knowing how to swap and fill and spending a bunch of money will get you into the top 30% with little to no talent required. You may never see GURU slot but you will make it up to expert with a boat load of wasted time and effort. Get the validation you crave for amateur photos and poor editing techniques right here. Spend money and 12 hours a day and they will validate your photos: good or bad.
