Also, I just agree with Dennis, at the time I thought that this image was just superb and said so in the comment. But what I didn't know was that the photographer is a nine year old girl and what amazing talent she's got, wow! Just watch that space I say
"Woody, I'm not sure if we could do a uniquely fish-related competition (even if it would cause a migration from FM)"
Damn, but I could have had an advantage there.
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I have an idea for the voting.
We do it by post, snail-mail, and each voting slip must be accompanied by a genuine £20 note. This will sort out the really keen voter from the trolls. Voting envelopes to be sent to an independent adjudicator (a member without a vested interest or an entry) of course and furthermore I'd like to apply for the position.
Congrats to the winner... a worthy winner. I'm just chuffed to have made it into the top 20, though the D300 would have been nice.
As for the next round may I suggest landscape but with the proviso that it has to British so that all can compete equally as its supposed to be UK entrants only (or am I incorrect on that?). Another variation could be something along the lines of "The Historic British Landscape" to narrow it down a bit.
Can't wait to see what the prize is for Round 2 either. Thanks to the team at TK and to the sponsors.
Postscript: Decided to just add this after reading all the posts. After giving it some thought, to keep things fair and related to the merits of the actual photo (rather than biased voting, however that might arise - Facebook etc), why not try this:
Stage one voting: Anyone can vote and the short-list is drawn from this stage, with the addition of 5 entries chosen purely by the editorial team and invited panel (so top 15 from anyone plus 5 from editorial team + invited panel)
Stage two voting: This is by the editorial team and invited panel (sponsors, other photographers on other mags, sites etc or from photography related bodies).
Multiple votes from the same IP address would be excluded as in other comps.
To my mind this gives everyone a fair chance and would ensure that the final choice is less open to abuse (assuming the ed team and panel aren't open to bribes!!).
A final note: The system of one vote per image but up to 5 points; this is confusing. Why not just give have one vote and that's it?
Ah-hah! "Stage two voting: This is by the editorial team and invited panel (sponsors, other photographers on other mags, sites etc or from photography related bodies)."
Good point there Steven - SPONSORS!
They're putting up the prize, let them have final say! Can't be fairer than that.
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Still like my idea best of collecting £20 notes though.
I think the idea of hiding photographer's names is a good one too.
ref: "
I feel like I'm being made out to be a cheat here. But please believe me, nothing further from the truth."
I don't think you should feel that way. All the short-listed images seem to me to be worthy of inclusion and although the voting system is not perfect (and someone will always abuse any system) I don't feel cheated of the prize. I must admit I asked friends onredbubble to support me but it was only a handful and as far as I can tell, within the current sytem no-one abused the system. Any abuse that was picked up as mentioned was dealt with before the final result.
"Any abuse that was picked up as mentioned was dealt with before the final result." - Hmm, but the existence of any abuse ought to disqualify a contestant surely? A student found with cribnotes in their pocket usually fails an exam, even if they had the ability to pass without them.
I don't think you are a cheat, John, but I think your strategy when it came to soliciting votes went perhaps not against the letter of the rules, terms and conditions, but against the unwritten spirit of the competition. The D300 is a highly desirable and valuable prize which I think any of the finalists would have enjoyed. But the fact that most of the finalists didn't organise any block-voting is clearly an indicator of the kind of competition it's supposed to be.
As Sandman said, it's meant to be a photography competition, not a popularity (with internet-savvy people) contest.
Hiding the names of the photographers wouldn't make a difference in my mind. To get your friends to vote for you, all you'd have to do is describe your picture to them, email them a copy, or provide them with a direct link to the page it was on.
Lets be fair here. Most folk are not averse to asking friends (especially those interested in photography) to support them. I think that the fault (if any) lies with the way the system was set up in the first place. As I said in my earlier post, I think it would be best to have the final voting decided by the editorial team, an invited panel and the sponsor. My suggestion of involving members in the short-listing allows participation but not dominance (if the ed team etc nominate 5 out of the 20 for the short-list) by any one block, especially if the ip addresses are limited to one.
You will never prevent 100% block-voting as so many folk are now members of Facebook, redbubble, Zazzle, Flickr, Bebo... the list goes on. If you are well-established on nay or all of these sites then the very nature of networking means its possible to garner support from a large number of people. My suggestion would prevent this distorting the voting totally but the only way to eliminate it completely is to have closed short-listing and voting by a panel. This would exclude members though in the process but my suggestion of two stages would allow participation in the voting. Concealing the names of the photographers would also help but I imagine it would need some technical organising as you need to have a separate gallery that isn't linked to the member's own in any way and also police their posts so that they don't let 'the cat out of the bag' so to speak.
That's enough from me, what do others think? Should we only allow members who have submitted images themselves to vote, members who have made a certain number of posts (how many and how to ensure they don't just make inane posts to qualify?) or should they have made a minimum number of comments on others photographs/galleries?
If every competition gives us one active Forum member we will have tripled the activity on the site.
The last thing I like to see is a small group of people praising each others work! This is what happens a lot on the smaller sites. restricted access to competitions makes it uninteresting for other people to join, you cannot force them to be active with competition rules.
If you win a major prize you, sort of, I imagine, feel you will have to contribute to the site more than before.
I like the way the compettion system works at he moment, and it is a lot of work for the TC team, but IMO it works
I don't think you are a cheat, John, but I think your strategy when it came to soliciting votes went perhaps not against the letter of the rules, terms and conditions, but against the unwritten spirit of the competition. The D300 is a highly desirable and valuable prize which I think any of the finalists would have enjoyed. But the fact that most of the finalists didn't organise any block-voting is clearly an indicator of the kind of competition it's supposed to be.
As Sandman said, it's meant to be a photography competition, not a popularity (with internet-savvy people) contest.
Denis I didn't solicit votes. Can't keep saying it. And for the record I'm not at a Uni either. I'm a father of 7 and married to Mrs (always) Right. The only people who I gave the link to to see it was Sheldon himself, some of my family.
""I'm confused: under what conditions can this occur, if not at the prompting of the person whom the block-voting would benefit? To suggest that the results would have been the same anyway is beside the point: it'd be a bit like a politican rigging an election, and then being given the presidency anyway because, who knows, they probably would have got it anyway, without the rigging. The very fact there is any co-ordinated block-voting at all is a smoking gun as far as unfair play is concerned, surely?""
There was some block voting and I investigated this very thoroughly. There were indeed a large number of votes from Warick University, for example, among others... However, even if these same IP addresses were discounted in all situations it would still mean that Jimbob was the winner (but not be as much a margin).
There were instances of voting via work and Uni/college proxies (which, depending on the way of connection) would provide the same IP address (even if there were legitimate different people voting from different machines). In other cases there were highly similar IPs (you cannot spoof the full portion of IP) that still are traceable to approximate source.
Of course friends, family, colleagues and supporters are likely to have been on board across all cases. It was a tricky last minute thing, but was investigated thoroughly via multiple Publishing, Editorial and Technical staff to keep it as fair and inside the rules and legal jibber jabber as was possible.
There may be some amendements come round 2... however, I have to bow out as I will no longer be present at ThinkCamera... You'll find me on another series of sites... details forthcoming...
Also, I don't want the focus to drift away from the fact that the final image, for me, was actually rather exciting. It's a great capture of a very specific moment, that is engaging and has a real play off between photographer and subject. It's a statement of our times too, that gives you something to think about.
Technically the capture could have been made differently, perhaps a shallower depth of field - and yet, why does it matter? It's about the content, how this image reads. Technically many of Jimbob's other photographs are better; excellent even.
I hope Jimbob continues to post to the site and we can fire around a whole batch of constructive criticism for his and other images. For some it may have been the best image, for others it wont have been - but that's how photography and peoples' varying opinions make up a competition such as this.
"There may be some amendements come round 2... however, I have to bow out as I will no longer be present at ThinkCamera... You'll find me on another series of sites... details forthcoming..."
"I have to bow out as I will no longer be present at ThinkCamera... You'll find me on another series of sites.."
I had heard, sadly, that you'd be leaving Mike and normally I would wish you the very best of luck.
However, if you're going to be working for "the competition" then yah, boo, sucks to you! You'll be back within three months, crawling, I expect, and only too prepared to take a CUT in pay!
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Oh go on then - best of luck! (I'm not really the grumpy git people make me out to be)
Congrats to Jimbob for his winning image, (my wife voted for you - traitor ) which was certainly in my top three as was John's second place image.
I pretty much liked all of the top 20.
Regarding future competitions, I think it probably best if a panel of judges decided the winner. I normally would prefer the public to vote as it's more democratic, but it is open to abuse.
If public voting is to remain then perhaps it would be a better system if you were to simply pick your top 3 images in order of preference.
I must admit I was surprised to see the photographers names with each image. I don't think that was the case last competition.
BTW. Thanks John for your kind comments about my pic.
Being a predominantly landscape photographer, please lets not have that as a subject! how about having something a little more open to interpretation like 'splash'? or even 'dots'?
I think a good subject would be 'beaches or 'coastal theme' you could use this subject with either landscape, people, wildlife, water or whatever, a very open subject i think! Agree??
) which was certainly in my top three as was John's second place image.
