How do you vote (for photos other than your own?)

[Groucho]

Then, for the other heats, I vote based on the camera maker (I almost never vote for anything other than a Canon shot).

That evens things out, I make sure to vote for any picture that isn't shot with a Canon.

I always tend to lean towards the shots that had good composition, were properly exposed, had a correct WB, etc. and are still interesting. That does not seem to be what gets the most votes around here though. I think the WOW factor rules the votes here. There have been quite a few shots get good reception that would be eaten alive on places like DPReview. I guess that is part of the beauty of this place. For my own contest entries, I have been having my kids and DW pick which one to use out of about ten I feel match the contest. For the response to mine, I am happy when I get just a few votes.

I think you're right, but also I think it has to do with (without trying to get pretentious here) a "trained eye". I certainly notice WB immediately now, whereas 3 years ago, I would probably barely notice when the indoor shots are all yellowy and the night shots have brown skies. My first round of posted shots from my first WDW trip with a DSLR had little WB adjustment and I shudder when I look at the awful brown skies in some of the night shots. (I just recently went through and edited some of my old posts to point to the newer, tweaked photos. I also fixed a ton of old broken links and was able to delete a ton of duplicates off my online gallery in the process!) I've just glad that I shot in RAW on that trip and was able to adjust them months later. That's one of the biggest reasons that I encourage people to shoot in raw even if they won't do anything with it yet. But that's a separate topic...

Anyway, WDW is such an emotional connection for many of us that it only makes sense that people tend with vote with their heart ("wow" factor) instead of their mind (technical nit-picking).

rtphokie, I agree on the new trick of putting letters rather than usernames in the contest. If it helps even the playing field, that's good for everyone.

One thing that this reminds me of is when I met ukcatfan in April. He was mentioning how the standard of photo talent on Disboards has really been skyrocketing over the past year or two. We've got a pretty good number of people who are churning out notably better photos than they were a year or two ago, and new people who have pretty solid skills as well. What this means for contests is that there are a lot more "amazing" photos than there have been in the past, and the competitive nature of humans means that as each of us goes back, the task is to top what's out here now. The bar is constantly being raised.

Yet, even with all that, it's still possible (and fairly common) for a "humble" PnS to produce a contest-winning photo. It's just got to touch the right nerve, and technical merit be darned!

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Mark, you are unique.

Huh? Weren't you paying attention? With all the ID's I had to create to stuff the weekly contest ballot box, I'm anything but unique. I'm actually half of the people posting on this board. The worst part is that I keep loosing arguments with myself.

HA!!!! I think have caught you in your little lie!!!! As far as I know, she does not enter the contests b/c she has not visited WDW since owning a DSLR.

That just what she claims. She's so intimidated by my voting machine that she's afraid to enter.

yeah uk is right so liar liar pants on fire mark although i do try to be equally mean to everyone here so as not to be partial

See, there she is being mean to me again.

That evens things out, I make sure to vote for any picture that isn't shot with a Canon.

I think that in the upcoming US elections, I'm going to vote that all of the candidates be shot by a canon...and I'm not talking about a camera.

 

[DebºoºS]

I should have added that I always consider who posted it. For example, I would never vote for a GDad picture because he cheats by sticking cute little girls in his pictures. jann1033 is always mean to me, so I immediately rule hers out. I ignore everything that DebºoºS posts because the little "º" things in her ID bother me. In fact, now that I think about it, I never vote for anyone who's ID I recognize.

TU, Mark for once again enlightening me
and giving away your voting technique. I thought my shots were losers because they were not up to par. Great, I don't need to improve my skills. I'll just change my name to DebCanonS and then get some fake id's and stuff the weekly contest ballot box. ºº ºº maybe I'll get to the finals this week!