One question regarding the way the monthly "Thaivisa Photography Competition" is judged?

[smo]

I guess this question should be directed to the two mods of this forum, samuijimmy and Ron19 (please correct me

if I'm wrong.)

A bit of preamble here: I am a long time "genuine contributing Thai Visa Member", however, I only recently set

foot in this forum by wandering a bit "too far south" and discovered to my delight the competition aforementioned. I promptly entered my first pic this month, and excitedly was chomping at the bit to prep my second entry...

For inspiration I browsed the past winner pics, and to my, for lack of a better word, "dismay" noticed that the

winning pics, though well-deserved, are kind of more or less of the same "mold" or shall we say, sport the same "look" even though by different participants. My jaws kind of dropped: How could that be...? Then I stumbled upon the not-so-small "small prints" in the winner announcements indicating that "Over the weekend Laurie McMurtrie CEO of Bizpaye International looked at all the photos and... picked out two winners."

Before going any further I want to be cleared that this post is not a criticism of any kind directing at anyone. My point is, with all due respect to the Bizpaye International CEO (someone whom I do not know), this method of judging reminds me of a children tale somewhere I have read (a long time ago of course) in which a palace held a competition to hire a new royal chef, and they all ended up producing different versions of the same dish, which after diligent research and speculation was aimed to please the palate of one single person, ie the king/queen, whatever. This dawned on me when I found myself going through my modest "portfolio" thinking, "hmmm, lessee if I have anything that looks like last month's - or the month before last - winners. It's got to be this and that..."

No, I can't. I just can't. If this is a math competition, then yes one person can do the judging alone, with or without the help of a calculator, by tallying up the most points of each contestant and ranking the scores. But we are dealing with "Photography and the Arts" here - or some of us would like to think as such - and to peg the merits of the entries pool to just one individual arbiter of taste really is like cookie cuttering the "Arts" in question to death. I would like to suggest a hors-de-competition alternative where we can submit our personal best without having this thought hovering over our head "Now, I really want that 10k baht room at the picturesque Palm Grove Resort in Pattaya." But seriously, where there are a panel of (two to three - a la thumb-up thumb-down "Sickel and Ebert" of time past) judges to deflect the INDIVIDUAL biases.

I know, this is wishful thinking of my part and I can kind of already guess what your response is gonna be. But

maybe I'm not alone in feeling this way...Nevertheless someone's got to say it so I'm gonna step onto the box and open my mouth first.

Respectfully,

[samuijimmy]

Thank you for your post SMO..

We used to do the judging based on "likes" by members only, but back when I just over we discovered that one member was using multiple user names and giving likes to his own entry... it was too obvious as the image was not that great, which in prompted checking the IP addresses, and believe me that was hours of tedious work for the other moderators who had more experience. The member was subsequently banned from Thai Visa and rightly so, for trying to falsify his entry. and believe me he was extremely rude in his comments. (no member is allowed to have multiple user names).

That's when it was decided to make a separate gallery with any member who receives more than ten "Likes" submitted to the Competition thread ... Ron checks daily and adds the over 10 entries to the gallery to submission gallery. This is what is sent to the judges.... for the final decision.

Ron and I along with the adminstration guys, came up with several ideas to change the way it was done... One idea was to pick potential winners from the general treads who meet the number of like threshold. 10 likes and submit those for final judging. .... and that still may happen, I'll just say that we are working on it, along with other ideas.

As for what people enter, to the competition, that is up to the members, one thing I will say looking at this month's entries so far, there is a good diversity of image styles and subjects... quality is generally a lot better than some entries made in the past.

The other thing I think worth saying, is that members should perhaps contribute to the photo forum as a whole, and not just the competition ... we've got a good core of members some of whom have contributed for years who participate regularly it would be great to have more new people on board

If anyone else wishes to add comments, please do so.

[Ron19]

I can't say anymore, Jim had presented it as it is.

Sent from my iris 755 using Tapatalk

[samuijimmy]

I had to remove two duplicate posts, Ron's Tapatalk repeated itself!

[Utley]

The OP does have a point. The winning photos, while all stunning and easily appreciated, all have one trait in common; they are all "extreme HDR's". HDR's do create dramatic landscapes, sunsets, and night time shots. Portrait, macro, black and white and other forms of photography cannot compete in the "WOW" factor for which HDR's are known. If the final judge favors the HDR look over other forms of photography, you know will win even before the judging begins.

An Australian chap with several photo-oriented web sites and an active YouTuber has a photo contest every month. Every month the theme changes. Perhaps we should consider something of that nature. Just a thought.

[guzzi850m2]

Using multiple user names to get more "scores" on own photos is about as low as you can sink.

I thought most posters here are grown up men?

Well not much surprises me anymore regarding posters here on different TV forums, some seems to be genuine nice persons but others well I say no more.

[samuijimmy]

The idea of "themes" has been discussed, but and I think it was Shaggy who said, "photograph what you like to photograph". Using themes, may really reduce interest, (?) but then too it may get more people to expand their horizons. It's a tough one, let's see what you guys and girls have to say.

In the past, the photo forum got flooded with images of just about everything in sight, which worked to a point, but I think did not produce the best of images, posted... I was as guilty of that as much as anyone.

That seems to have changed for the most part as generally we seeing much better quality of images....

We need to keep in mind that this is not a professional photographer's web site ... It's for both professional and keen photo enthusiasts as well as amateurs, , with the emphasis being Thailand and what we see.

As for HDR and other photo enhancing used to produce / or change the original image, that a tough one, not all images submitted or have won the competition have been given the HDR effect. ... The photos with more than ten likes, are now the only ones submitted to the final judges.

We will this week suggest again, to the top brass perhaps picking images from the general threads, with over ten likes and add those to the entries to the competition ... (It would mean that any post can be only one image. )

We've partly been waiting to see what difference there will be on the new format of TVF, it's still not clear as to what changes there will be and how it may affect how and what we can do...

***One more thing I think I should mention, is in the WIS threads, we should probably limit the maximum number of images per post to a maximum of three images.... and if it a story about a particular theme or trip for instance, break it up in to parts one, two, three etc. That would help members with slower modems.

Please feel free to give more feedback...

[smo]

The OP does have a point. The winning photos, while all stunning and easily appreciated, all have one trait in common; they are all "extreme HDR's". HDR's do create dramatic landscapes, sunsets, and night time shots. Portrait, macro, black and white and other forms of photography cannot compete in the "WOW" factor for which HDR's are known. If the final judge favors the HDR look over other forms of photography, you know will win even before the judging begins.

Same thing could be said for the "likes" if one looks closely.

That's why I don't quite trust them "likes" in the age of HDR's.

(but I do "likes" your post Utley)

[Assurancetourix]

As you can see, I don't use HDR on my photos;

I don't have the logiciel for that; and to be honest I prefer natural photos than HDR ones ;

with too many effects it's not a photo; sometimes something like a oil painting or I don't know exactly but nor a photo .

And often the shadows are too black .

[rhythmworx]

When do we find out who won the June comp?

[samuijimmy]

When do we find out who won the June comp?

Hopefully within the next week or so... We just don't know for sure!

[smo]

As you can see, I don't use HDR on my photos;

I don't have the logiciel for that; and to be honest I prefer natural photos than HDR ones ;

with too many effects it's not a photo; sometimes something like a oil painting or I don't know exactly but nor a photo .

And often the shadows are too black .

Unfortunately in our current situation it’s pretty clear that the judge(s) have shown a tendency to favor works that have been heavily processed. If there’s any doubt, take a survey of past winning entries. Individual bias regrettably has been allowed to set a trend for the competition. So let’s brace ourselves for more entries pics of divine statues ( standing or sitting) and floating barges sillouhetting darkly against sunrise/sunset. All under a psychedelic sky.

Edited July 10, 2016 by smo

[Ron19]

I had to remove two duplicate posts, Ron's Tapatalk repeated itself!

Must be a woman,it's name is Iris.

[Ace of Pop]

Very simple answer,just disregard HDR and enhanced stuff,they never get a like from me anyway, or anyone else here who can tell its false.

[samuijimmy]

This HDR is a tough one, I don't know the answer, it's an art form, and we are Photographs and Arts...

Photo competition for June will be announced tomorrow...I just heard, I have no idea yet who has won.... Jonathan will post tomorrow sometime...

[gobs]

This HDR is a tough one, I don't know the answer, it's an art form, and we are Photographs and Arts...

...

I do agree.

Art/expression has no limits. If someone likes to use HDR why not?

It's up to the photographer and/or the jury in the present case.

And where does enhancement begin and stop? Just an light exposure editing is already an enhancement IMHO...

No-no: just have fun to process your own pics as you feel its good for you, and don't bother.

This competition is just to have fun (again!), so don't take it too hard...

Cheers

Just to be clear: I'll never use HDR because I don't like its "fake" rendition