Thank you to everyone who’s voted in our recent photography competition. We’ve gone through three rounds of voting, and received over 10,000 responses! I’m pleased to announce the ten images that have made it through to our final. Be sure to take a look, and select the one you’d like to be crowned our overall champion!
The Voting Process
We’ve picked the ten images that received the largest percentage of votes. Three from each round, and then a tenth that received the next highest percentage across all rounds.
This is the grand final. The image that receives the largest percentage of votes will be crowned our “Memories” champion, winning a brand new Canon 550D. Voting will close at Midnight (GMT) on Tuesday 25th May, and we’ll announce the winner shortly afterwards.
Spend some time looking over the following photos and, when you’ve decided which you’d like to win, scroll to the bottom of the page to cast your vote! You can only vote once, so choose carefully…
On a related note, it’s obviously not acceptable to use any type of automated voting system to push your percentage up. Any evidence of this will, unfortunately, lead to your image being disqualified.
The Grand Finalists
Entry Number: 1
This image reminds me of when I was young without a care in the world,unaware of the hate, lies, and dilemmas that surround us. Every waking day was an adventure waiting to begin, whether real or constructed in my mind. Love was in abundance, love was simply pure….but as I grew realities came into play.
Every time I take a look at this picture it reminds me that sometimes we can still close our eyes, dig a little deep and bring out that young kid in our hearts, as we know somewhere within, these things still do exit. The inner child in me still plays a big role in my life.
Entry Number: 2
When I was little I really, really wanted to fly up in the sky. Not only did I want to fly but I really wanted to be an astronaut. Ever since, I’ve been obsessed with anything sci-fi or space related, only because it helped me imagine a world beyond our own. This picture of my girlfriend reaching for the moon signifies what remember feeling as a child.
Obviously, I am not an astronaut and probably never will be. That hasn’t kept me from looking up at the sky though. Now as a photographer, I find myself looking at the clouds and sky more often than most would, while remembering how my passion for the skies all started.
Entry Number: 3
Memories are made of Paper and Music. The photo represent a “cinematic like” point of view of what memories can be, such as a music album or a photo-album, and how they can evoke other memories only looking this objects.
Entry Number: 4
Reminds me of the pictures i took with this camera when i was a child, i wanted to give it a “vintage” feel with some post processing.
Entry Number: 5
A photo of my wife being pregnant on our fourth baby and the first and my only boy on all of my children(3 girls). Everytime i look at this photo and watch my boy grow up now always reminded me of how lucky i was in having him and how he grow up so fast.
Entry Number: 6
She was sorry about her village, and its population there. She said to me: “Son, its beautiful here, I wish there were younger people here. Without them everything looks old. The young people left this place long time ago, they all went living in the cities. Now this village is dying. Long time ago there were so much happenings here, but now… I am very happy that I see young people like you here. Take care my son!”
She was remembering back when she was young. She was very sad. That’s why I named this photo “Reminiscent”. I was really sorry for her, and after taking the photo I said to her that I will come back and give her a print. I will do that in the next few months! She said that she would be happiest person if I do that!
Entry Number: 7
Eternal memory was left to us by our grandfathers who were at war for the Native land, for the future generation, in the Second World War. We cannot feel all their pains and sufferings, but we can store memoirs on them and be proud of their courage. War, in which practically in each family somebody has lost, forever remains in memory of generations.
Entry Number: 8
Shells thrown into the sea travel far to the horizons and after years, I still come back every evening, in hope of finding the shell I have thrown into the sea , so to revive the old memories of mine!
Entry Number: 9
When my boyfriend and I went to Florida last September, I had no idea that he was counting on me to wake up to photograph the sunrise one morning. I love sunrises and make it a point on most vacations to wake up for at least one. Long story short, he knew me well enough to secretly plan his proposal for whichever morning I’d decide to roll us out of bed to head for the beach.
After the sun had risen about 45 minutes later, I started to pack my camera equipment away, ready to hit the shower and eat breakfast back at the hotel. But instead, Jon proposed.
It was even more incredible than I’d have imagined that moment to be. I wanted to document it somehow, but in the true essence of early morning photography, I was still in my pajamas… and don’t even get me started on my hair. I snapped a few self portraits of us, but I wanted something that we could frame and look at forever, to preserve the memory of that special morning.
I set my tripod back up and adjusted the settings to create a silhouette of the two of us, backlit by the sunrise. I am so happy with the way this picture turned out. It brings us right back to that September morning in Florida: sand between our toes, waves washing around our ankles, and a ring upon my finger.
Entry Number: 10
We don’t know to enjoy the time when the easiest things are so difficult for us. Instead, we remember all the difficulties we approached with no thinking.
Cast Your Vote
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Wow, how did I not see #2 before? Love it.
I love the idea of the first image but the photo itself is not good enough to get my vote, there are many good photos but my favorite is the shell one(8), cause i really really like that shot, i love the sand and the kid actually i love it, JUST LOVE IT!!!, plus it brings back all my memories at the beach ( i have many )
Why are there only 10 photos in the final round? At the bottom of the third round it specifically said:
> Coming up Next…
>
> Stay tuned to the site, because we’ll have the grand final
> coming up later this week. The top ten photos from EACH
> voting round will be put to a final poll to determine the winner!
My friend was in the top 10 for round 3 so this is a bit upsetting. I love a good contest but it doesn’t feel too good when the rules change halfway through without explanation and those changes cut out 2/3rds of the competition.
Hi Clussman – I’m really sorry that you feel you’ve been mislead, and I agree that the wording wasn’t very well put together. The meaning was the that top ten photos, overall, across each of the voting rounds would enter the final. We’ll be sure to make this clearer in any future competitions!
David,
I don’t want to be argumentative or come off like a bad guy here so let me start by saying I think this was a great competition. You offered a great prize that was geared towards your audience, you structured the contest in a way that fostered and promoted your community and your site, and it was just plain fun. That said…
While the initial wording was ambiguous, that’s not what I’m referring to. I don’t “feel” anything. I’m stating a fact, not a feeling. At the bottom of the round three photos it stated “The top then photos from EACH voting round will be put to a final poll to determine the winner!” (Emphasis mine.)
And since I plan to enter whatever the next competition is, because despite my comments here, I really do enjoy this site, there are a few other things I’d like to point out for future contests. I don’t want to take up too much space here though, but drop me a line via email if you don’t mind.
Well, I didn’t expect to see the result so soon.
But I have a question: those who have been choosen in the first round has been voted for 3 weeks, until now. Those who have been choosen in the third one, just for a few days. In fact until yesterday afternoon the votes to photos of the first round are different from today’s. I’m not complaining, but that doesn’t sound completely correct to me. Results would have been different if the vote for the first and the second round were closed when the next round appeared.
Because we chose three from each round, and went on percentages rather than the total number of votes, those in an earlier round didn’t have any advantage over those in a later round. The results would have been the same either way. Hope that makes sense!
It does, but that was another thing that wasn’t clear. Also, someone had a fourth. Also, later rounds would have higher statistical variance from being available for a shorter period, making the best photos less likely to come out on top. Ideally each round would be available for the same set period of time and during the same period of the week (your own site statistics will tell you you get a different audience on weekends).
Not trying to be on a high horse or anything, just offering tips. I’m a web designer who lives landing pages, conversion statistics and multivariate testing.
Number two took my vote really cool.
great contest as well!
Thank you thank you thank you
_leo
I think photo #1 with the kids really captures a moment and it takes my vote!
I’ll vote photo number 10, there’s a lot to read in it.
U must be kidding me , Number 2 is ahead of the whole contestants ????
Mine goes for 8
My pick from last round didn’t make it through…
GO # 7!
#6 has the best emotion!!!
I’m going with number 10. There are so many levels to this photograph and to boot, I remember being like that when I was a kid trying to go up or down stairs.
How can anyone be so sure that number 2 is not shopped?? It really looks like it was to me.
#5 should be d run away winner simply
because d photo shows d origin of a child..8s really a heart warming pic
that reminds us on how lucky we are 4 having a mother 2 scarifies in
carrying us for 9 crucial months giving us d importunity in seeing
d beautiful creations of GOD…that our mothers are d greatest hero…s
that life has 2 offer -ronan-
I’m voting for #10. It really captures the moment and how strange and new something as simple as a curb is to a toddler encountering it for the first time.
Come on guys Alot look shopped. My vote is for 1!
10 by far when you really look into it. It has the most thematical depth. Sure the old lady is technically a better captured photograph, but it’s quite an easy pass, something that’s been done to death and has almost become a stereotype for these things. All the others are fairly rubbish and abstract to be honest.
Definitely number 1 ! The children are our future. And you can’t build an adult without training a child !
My voice is for the seventh picture, because it recalls me about my grandpa. We ought to proud of these people!
I really want to understand why in round 1, 2, and 3 and grand final there are so many photos from istock, I dont believe that submitters got accounts at Istock and these pics belongs to them because they sell them on istock, this is stupid good photos are missing here.
also how you can remember childhood if you are taking a photo in 21th century with camera that doesnt no exist when u was a child.
my 2 poor cents.
a lot of this pics are in the final because they autovoted themselves, it’s just scandalous that a lot of better pics are not in the final round.
Downasschix says:
May 14, 2010 at 2:24 am
Definitely number 1 ! The children are our future. And you can’t build an adult without training a child !
I agree with what she said! VOTE FOR # 1!!!!
#1 gets my vote because we all remember those warm summer days of running in the sprinklers just too cool down. great memory it was.
Clussman,
I believe you misread so i got all 3 sentences from the rounds and nowhere did it state the word “EACH”. you can google the rounds as they are still available on the web to read over the description again of the contest.
ROUND 1- Voting will take place in three parts of around 50 images each, with the 10 highest rated photos OF THESE THREE ROUNDS going into a “final”.
ROUND 2-Voting will take place in three parts of around 50 images each, with the 10 highest rated photos OF THESE THREE ROUNDS going into a “final”.
ROUND 3-Voting will take place in three parts of around 50 images each, with the 10 highest rated photos OF THESE THREE ROUNDS going into a “final”.
(I did the emphasis with the capital letters)
nothing was worded wrong, it was misread.
have a wonderful day!
#3 fail
#7 nice, russia 4ever.
Should be an age limit on these forums, shame kids like you get to run around in here.
David! Do something!
#2, #3, #6, #7 must be disqualified due to cheating. They cheated in the first rounds and it seems you don’t want to stop them (we had +1200 votes for one of the photos and we all know that is simply impossible).
We all know that one can vote more than once, but how about having a fair competition?
Alireza: I’ve emailed you, and also replied below.
My choice of photos at number seven. This is probably the least that I can do in honor of all those who saved my country and my future in those difficult years for the whole world!
for me, #7 is nice but not special…I prefer expecially # 3…and # 10 too…
yes.it’s not special for you.but you should understand the feelings of those whose grandparents fought in that war.just have a look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#Casualties_and_war_crimes
i guess it’s hard to understand,but for many people that war made an indelible impact.though i admit voting for this photo won’t change anything.
Good to see so many people casting their votes and their comments. My vote? Cast but discretely
Wow, what a breath of fresh air. I fully agree. Stop saying this sucks and this is the best..
Just be respectful, vote, and leave it be.
I want to take a minute to respond to those concerned with people voting for themselves, or “auto voting”. We want any competition we run on this site to be fair and accurate, and avoid this practice wherever possible.
In the first three rounds, we prevented people from voting more than once using cookies. In the interests of offering a completely even system throughout all the initial rounds, we stuck with this method of preventing multiple votes in rounds 1, 2, and 3, despite the fact that it wasn’t as effective as we’d hoped.
In the final round, we also blocked people by IP address from voting more than once – something that has seemed to work well.
This is the first major competition we’ve run here, and it’s certainly a learning process. When we run another, our number one priority will be to ensure that multiple voting isn’t possible through any method, in any of the rounds. We’ll also be stricter in our terms and conditions to make it very clear what is and is not acceptable.
If any of you would like to ask me something else relating to this, or offer a suggestion, I’d love to hear from you. Just email me at photo@tutsplus.com.
I also think it was an unfair competition.
1) There are ways to change the IP address too. (VPN, Proxy, etc). You should have used MAC address restriction (one device = one vote). Changing MAC address is not that easy and takes time.
2) As far as I know people could vote more than once for the final round as well by removing the cache of their browsing history (much easier in FireFox and Chrome) at least during the first hours of the competition. You have activated the extra protection thingy with a remarkable delay. One can vote for roughly 300-500 times in an hour using the method described above. It makes a huge difference. I can’t believe people could get more than 600 votes in 2-3 days only.
3) If you believe that the numbers obtained so far is fair, why not to call off this one and hold another one? They should be able to obtain the same number with MAC address restriction too.
4) Most companies/ Universities use static IP, so it’s not logical to say they have asked their colleagues or classmates to vote for them, that is, they share a common IP under a common server through different ports or subnet masks.
5) While other posts on this website hardly get more than 20 comments, it’s not also acceptable to say that viewers voted +2000 times so far, and as I said, I think that no one can get 600 of his friends online to vote for him in 2 days only.
6) This is not acceptable for me or other frequent readers to see such things and hear “we will try to do better the next time”. Fair enough. Postpone it until when you can do something about it.
Yes, I feel it’s unfair as well but I have a few things to say about your points.
1) Yes, it sucks that people can just use a proxy etc etc but do you know of a poll/voting framework that works by filtering MAC addresses? If you know of one-off hand let me know but I don’t. Pulling people’s MAC addresses is quite a bit more involved since you’d have to use something 3rd party (like JAVA, perl etc. (maybe flash)) to retrieve it.
3) Again, find a free platform for MAC address restriction in polling.
4) Total BS, my university has hundreds and hundreds of IP addresses and runs through 3 ISP’s even. I could easily send a mass email to all my student friends and get 4-5k votes in a week or two.
5) I am not saying that all the votes that have been collected are legit, but if you think about it….with social media (twitter/fbook and such) it has become monumentally easier to mobilize a large amount of people (especially if you have a lot of “friends.”
6) I think you should just keep the poll going since you already started it and stated the terms and stopping wouldn’t fix the problem. What I do suggest for the next competition is that you gather a good amount of judges, people who have a photographic eye and know what they are talking about (shouldn’t be too hard to find some people). Instead of having a vote system which can be scammed no matter what you do, you will have known judges that will vote which will eliminate the whole scamming factor. Yes, I know it sucks because it takes the general public out of the loop as far as decision-making but this is why large photo contests are judged by judges and not the public (in general).
One thing I do have to say though is that waiting until the 25th to close it is asking for trouble. I’d say end it on this Tuesday or something.
All in all I’d say this is a good first try David. Of course it’s not perfect but I can forgive that since it’s the first time. Soon the contest will be over and everyone will eventually forget. Everyone will survive. Next time though, I’d recommend a different judging system.
To me you’re probably one of those who actually cheated (From the way you’re writing to me and offending people like that).
1-3) You shouldn’t necessarily look for something free. When developing these chain websites (tutsplus websites), it’s not that hard to spend some hours to write a program for such voting processes.
4) Firstly you’d better learn how to talk to people here on tutsplus. Here’s not a place for people like you. Secondly, depending on the system your University uses, it could be different. If you’re getting this services from external ISPs, yes, what you’re saying is probable; but if the service is provided within the campus by some internal servers, no, most of the times to handle the system more easily, they use static IPs.
5) I can hardly believe that normal people can gather 600 votes within 2 days via FaceBook or other social networks, when celebrities’ posts are not liked by more than 500 people after a week! Even gathering 100 people to vote for you is too much. Do you have 100 friends IRL?
6) I agree with you. Voting for the first rounds is kind of acceptable, because there are like 500 photos submitted. For the final round, there should be experts who pick.
OK I saw that here is a discussion about the photos and the voting. One of my photos is in the finals and its going well with it, but I still support Allie about getting a judges about next competitions. If you really want votes (because will increase your site visitors) than I suggest something like 25% of the decision to go with votes and the other 75% of it should be with judges.
But I don’t agree with you Allie that you cannot have 600 votes in 2 days. Come on, 600 visits are nothing. Probably this page is visited from over 5000 unique IPs last 2 days. 600 votes are nothing!! Its the finals!
About ending the competition, i don’t know they should decide about it, but I think that in the finals there is no cheating. For example, if you see photo #1 from the finals it had over 1000 votes for few days, and now it doesn’t…. Now its not even in the first few photos. Probably your method for preventing was successful I guess. Also the same example with photo #5. Barely 20 votes in the finals, and few hundreds in the semi finals!
I really don’t know how can you judge that someone is cheating Alireza! You have mentioned few photos that you think are cheating, but please be sure about that before saying it here! I think you are wrong because of my statement that I laid in previous paragraph.
I don’t know, maybe those photos that I mentioned in the previous paragraph are waiting for the last moment to cheat, but its still something wrong with the situation. Either thay cannot cheat anymore, either they are waiting for the last moment to cheat!
I apologize for offending you (or people)
That was not the goal of what I wrote.
1) I agree. Free isn’t the way to go for something this big but it seems like they didn’t want to shell out the $200 for a pro account in the first place so I’m just thinking of free stuff off hand.
4) Instead of me saying it was BS I probably should have just said that you were wrong. I apologize, I’m not used to dealing with people sensitive to such acronyms. Some universities might funnel everything out through one IP (which is ludicrous) but the ones I have worked at certainly do not. I don’t know of too many colleges that run their own full fledged ISP in house. (you can’t pull the internet out of thin air.
5) I agree with you. It’s not probable, or too plausible, but it is doable. I’m not defending anyone in this one, trust me. Seeing someone has 700+ votes already is, as you said, crazy.
And it’s sad to see that my perspective on things has led you do think that I am voting for someone’s picture incessantly. Honestly, I have better things to do with my time.
Here’s an idea. If the next time you run a contest you want the voting to be up to the public, don’t announce what the prize is until after the contest is over. It seems that there is a lot of incentive to cheat when a nice DSLR is at stake.
I think it is highly unfair to appeal to outside websites to gather votes. Ive just recently been solicited on a travel website that millions of people frequent to come and vote for photo #6 whilst unappropriately posting on said website and breaching the TOU to gain more votes. The author of this picture, and any other using such methods, should be disqualified as it seems unfair to the other participants who may actually try to win this competition fair and square.
For those who are arguing or throwing not so good comments to the organizer of this contest: Why don’t you guys S-H-U-T U-P and STOP complaining of anything. Perhaps, you guys feel upset because your photo did not get through the final round. Comm,on your not alone, count me in. Truly, comments are good for the future competition, but some people here are stupid enough to complain the way the competition had been done. We don’t even pay a single penny to join the competition, so stop complaining please… Let them do whatever they want for the competition to proceed. We all have the right to critique or comments but we don’t have the right to complain or argue.
I think this competition is great, not so lucky for me my photo didn’t get through. Long live for the site, Love your articles, I’ve learn a lot.
OK I’m sorry. I thought using social networks to gather votes is not accepted. If it is OK (which it seems to be OK), then yes, why not? 10000 is also a possible number!
Some of my friends have like 25000 followers on Twitter. Say only half of them come here and vote, then +1000 is not too much.
Allie and everyone else, I don’t think it’s the right way to talk to David. It’s only the first main competition; there are many others on the way. We all know that Tutsplus is a generous website.
There are 7 days left. You can ask your friends to come to your help. I myself could gather more than 300 in 2 days, you just need to spend some hours behind the monitor.
They have already given away iMacs and other stuffs. You may want to take part in the next competition.
David, I didn’t mean to actuate people like this. I’m sorry. People, stop it.
These guys deserve a huge thanks for holding this competition in the first place.
This competition is supposedly choosing the best and right photograph for the theme. Not gathering hundreds or thousand of friends to vote for your photos. That doesn’t make any sense. And if that’s the case the worst photograph could win by the number of votes from thousands of his friends. That should not be the case. Perhaps, that’s exactly what the organizers of this contest wants. To gather more visitors. Clever enough while forsaking the quality of works of what has to be a person with talent.
As much as I do like phototuts.If I may suggest for the next competition if there is. Number of votes should not only be the basis of winning, there should also be experts that should to the judgement.
The purpose of the competition is to put together a community project, and offer a great prize for our readers.
We’ll certainly consider putting together a panel of judges in the future, as that seems like a fairer way to manage the process of picking a winner.
Hi,
I lost out on getting to the final. No Biggy.
What I don’t really like though, is not knowing how far off I truely was because of the system that was implemented.
Unlike a lot of entrants, I didn’t muster the help of friends on social networks (let’s not go into the auto voting thing that’s been mentioned) and I still managed to get into the top ten in my round. With public voting, it becomes a popularity contest and critical opinion is thrown out the window.
Obviously I’m biased (and everyone has different tastes), but a lot of the pictures that were getting huge amounts of votes were uninspired, cliche, or just all round not great and there were some brilliant shots not getting any votes.
I think the best solution would be to have a panel of judges critique (briefs of which could be captioned: would help us newbie photographers out) and cast their votes as to who should be announced the winner. I think it’s fair and as close to impartial as you could get.
One other point. I won’t claim to be an expert on photography gear (the opposite is true) but going by the prize, I would have thought this competition was aimed at people looking to upgrade from P&Ss and the lower model dSLRs. A lot of the shots look as though they came from mid-level/prosumer cameras which leads me to a sub-point: maybe you shouldn’t offer a cash alternative that will attract the big hitters.
The main point would be, perhaps you should identify who the competition is aimed for and then take a look at the EXIF.
Apologies if the competition was completely open in it’s design. I might have missed it but if this was stated somewhere then obviously I’ve no beef with it.
I’m not a sore looser and I thank all involved for firsty sifting through what must have been thousands of entries and keeping everything fairly organised. I just hope that my opinions might in some way help the next competition (which I will most certainly be entering!) run more smoothly.
Thanks,
Looser.
I think it’s about time I ask all my friends to vote for me
…
Don’t even try. I’ve looked into things and the SQL setup is rigged. And there are way more votes showing in the database than actual. Someone pretty much rigged it to make someone win.
Bah, the best you can do is to view the page source. If you could access the SQL codes and the main database, then you’re probably a Polldaddy man! So what you said is actually a bluff.
It’s been like 14 days or so, we’re having this competition. That is roughly 600 votes a day in total which sounds normal to me.
We had more than 10000 votes for the first rounds and we’re having quite the same number for the final round. Again pretty normal.
Yes, It was not very fair to do it this way. One can pay people 0.5$ for a click in Amazon mechanical Turk, BUT David said that they’re going to change the whole system for the next time.
This time, it has already been done.
photo n.8…4000 votes and more? it’s impossible, even if you have a lot of friends!!! came on!!!!
As I said above. The poll was sneakily rigged, deep in the SQL. I could go find the code again and post it but that would be pointless because they would just deny it.
Stop nagging people. I missed to submit my entry, but nothing is impossible. I have lots of friends who are in different musical bands (well, not very famous ones, but it still does the job). If I just have asked them to post the link on their FaceBook page, each of them has more than 10 thousand fans and that’d have been enough for me to win with definitely more than 4000.
Even if you don’t have such friends, there are still online games (browser-based) or forums that almost everyone can find hundreds of friends via them, if not thousands.
And BTW, this poll has IP protection system. There’s no way you can fake an IP and there’s no proxy software with more than 100 proxy servers.
But again as David said, the next competition would have a better judging system. Stop annoying him. It’d not change anything for now. If you have suggestions for the next competition, then you can email him.
Thanks, Ralph. I’m happy to take any comments on this via email to photo@tutsplus.com. We used an external service for all our voting, so it’s completely impartial.
6 was the best,the storry is reality, for me the best one..
No. 8 is really memorizing photo and I think No.1 is messy. There should be a a focused idea in the photo B-)
n 7