How are the pictures chosen? Are they at random or do the voters actually take time to look and them. I’m thinking they just scroll through pictures without looking and whatever it stops on is the winner. I received an honorable mention on wk 109 I think for my mustang grille emblem which I thought was the worst of the 3 pictures, so it makes me wonder. Also why the crap are people winning that have already won 20 times in the past? Not going to name names but the person is in the top 3 consistently. I JUST WANT THE SKYLINE AND GT500 UNICORN CAR!!
First thing - if all you really want are a couple specific unicorns, you’ll get them a lot faster/with less frustration by commenting in the Rear View Mirror & Week In Review threads in the News section of the forums.
If you’ve really got the photo bug however, and want some of your questions answered; please keep reading.
I’m sure you know that there is a serious contradiction in your post, namely “chosen at random” and “people winning who have already won 20 times in the past,” but I understand where you’re coming from. I also wondered the first few times I entered a contest if my photos were being looked at. Thankfully someone was kind enough to assuage my insecurities, so I’ll share all the relevant information I have and hope it helps.
The photos are gathered into a queue; presumably on a PC but in any case somewhere outside of the storefront system that players use, so they can be judged blindly. Excluding the unlikely scenario that a person has a style so distinct that it makes every photo they take instantly identifiable as theirs, you can trust that the judges have no opportunity to play favorites. You can also trust that because there are different numbers of honorable mentions from week to week, the process of selection is clearly not random.
I too have had photos place that I considered to be the worst of the 3 I’d uploaded (even had one hate-rated into oblivion on Horizon, so I guess most of those who viewed it agreed with me), and had photos that I thought were brilliant get passed over and/or down-rated on my storefront in weeks that at least one of the winners was a photo that didn’t suit my taste at all. So there’s the rub: Taste is the one thing we have no control over. I don’t know if the panel of judges is comprised of exactly the same people or even number of people each week. There are so many variables in the subjectivity factor that trying to figure out what you’re doing wrong or someone else is doing right can be maddening if you’re the type of person that puts a large amount of time and technical analysis into their artistic judgements. As time goes by, I’ve tried to get better at appreciating the beauty of others’ work & stop taking it personally when they don’t like mine. Disengaging those competitive impulses is very hard when there’s some form of reward on the line though.
Last thing - If you want to compete in photo contests with a little more transparency, check out the media sections for opportunities. Some of the contests in the FM5 section are open to photos from FM4 & Horizon as well.
Thanks for the info! I really feel like the photos are chosen randomly some times and not other times though.