Competitions: A Topic for Discussion

I enter competitions very often (aside from here) almost on a weekly basis. And I noticed something common in almost all of them. I'm rarely convinced of say the top three entries. I find some of the other entries more deserving of winning. That's not always the case, but it happens so frequently. I know I know, it's a subjective and personal thing. But still. What confirmed this impression is that one of the contests I started to enter into are for semi-pro's, and there the winners are usually with the best photos.

I started a topic about that in one of the contests, and somebody suggested that there are three things that get votes: kids, flowers, and pets. I'm starting to believe that.

What do you think?

Btw, I'm excluding my photos when talking about the subject. I admit mine are really bad

Aam, you raise an interesting issue. One thing that I've noticed in past competitions is that quite often the 'prettiest' photo wins. However, that photo sometimes has a somewhat tenuous connection to the actual title of the competition. Similarly I notice that the most creative photos rarely do that well either.

All this begs the qustion about what should be done? I'd be interested to hear anyones thoughts about this. Here are a couple of quick options to get the conversation started:

• Provide voting guidelines.
  
• Have a panel of judges
  
• Accept that people are voting for their favorite photo and leave it as is.
  

It sounds like you want to introduce a more 'professional' view of the judging and that seems fine at first glance. Then there is the issue that most people here are keen amateurs and are not experienced at being objective, which is what pro' judges are able to do, to a greater extent. I guess the defining thing about photos here is popularity, not necessarily the 'best' image, whether technically or compositionally. If you had two categories such as peoples' choice and best in competiton that might work, but then who judges the best category, some of the pros' perhaps. I think that makes organisation more difficult. That's my HO!
Roger.

Just a couple of brainstorms: You'd have to devise a way to certify the judges with a set fair criterion. You would want to continue the blind voting to eliminate any favoratism.

Some good points roger. I feel that the popular vote is an important componant of the competition. It keeps people engaged and is a very simple and transparent way of deciding the outcome.

However, having an external judge in addition to this might be very interesting. We could get them to post their choices of photos along with a paragraph explaining their reasoning.

I was thinking of having a pool of say 4-8 judges and getting one person to judge each competition. That would mean that each judge would only be required to contribute once every couple of months.

The judges would be given the critereon, which would be published in the competition rules. The judges would also have to post their reasoning.

Absoultely.

I agree that it would be interesting to have both the popular vote and the judges vote, with an explanation of why the voted that way. That way we can learn both what people like and what the 'professionals' (maybe more than one judge is a good idea) think. I agree about the prettiest photo often winning from what I've seen - though I've only just entered my first competition on this forum.

I agree a two tiered system is a good one and I like the idea of a pool of judges alongside the popular vote. I think a panel of three judges at a time would be best and have two sets that could change order over time. That set-up would give people two chances of winning. Any suggestions for the judge selection process?
Roger.

With those assurances, I think these ideas add tremendous value to the competitions. I'll stay tuned. Thanks.

IMHO: Taking part in competitions here (and on many other similar sites too) is mainly for fun, partly for getting feedback to your photos. As bikerider said, most of us are just keen amateurs. The suggested two-tier system would certainly be interesting, and 'pro' judges and their explanations would certainly be very useful. But administering such a scheme won't be easy. You need to find the judges, they have to do their choice and explanations each time. Some of us amateurs might find this scheme a little bit too demanding and that might result in less entries.

So my suggestion is: continue with these two-week small theme competitions as is ('just for fun'), but make some guidelines for all of us to make the photos fit better into the subject, and some guidelines of what we should consider when voting.

Then, arrange quarterly, separate competitions with professional judges (maybe the 'POTN photographer of the year' could be used for this purpose - four themes a year, announced at the beginning of each year and a few professional judges. Maybe even some small price for the over-all winner...)


G3owner

I don't think monetary rewards fits with the overall philosophy of the site. Any financial gains should be used to defer costs of running the site.

I agree with you there.

Since aam started this conversation, I'd quite like him to come back on this before we take the ideas any further. Hopefully he'll get chance to drop by in the next day or two. Otherwise we'll progress as we have been discussing.

Well the intention of posting this thread was to understand why and how people vote, I wasn't complaining or anything. Honestly I'm fine with how things are right now, people are people and they have their preferences/tastes or even biases, which I respect.

I think the idea of judges is a great one. However and as someone mentioned, it requires a lot of effort to setup and administer. So maybe it's suited for the bigger contests.

Personally, If I see another flower pic it will not be long enough.
So sick of flowers!!!!!!!!!!

I don't even open flowers, kids, and pets photos in contests, let alone vote for them (of course there are exceptions).