OpenPhotoContest.com

About us
The openphotocontest.com is a different kind of photo contest, it is about allowing photographers to submit their work into a contest that is not judged by a few people, but rather the masses. By using a sophisticated preference process where viewers of the site are given a random limited number of photo options and asked to choose their favorite, we are able to create a ranking system and award winners by the overall preference of everyone who votes. Photographers, we encourage you to submit as many photos as you like. Voters, enjoy choosing your favorites! How Does It Work? If you would like to enter your photos into a contest, you start by registering with basic info about yourself and/or your photography business. Once your account is setup, start uploading your favorite photos. Once you have added photos to your account, then you can start adding them to the open contests. There are lots of contests that will open at different times and at any given time there will be multiple contests running. A contest will open for submissions, then at a specified date it will stop allowing submissions and move into voting. The images that have been submitted will then start appearing on the voting page. Once the contest date ends, the voting will be closed, results are tallied and awards are distributed. How do I Enter? To submit your photos into a contest, you must first become a member which has an initial cost. You can create your account and start adding photos, but you won't be able to add a photo to a contest until your membership is paid. Your membership will come with "credits" which you can use to enter photos into contests and you can also purchase additional credits. Contests will vary on the length of time they run and how many credits it costs to enter. The awards for each contest will be different based on the amount of time for voting and the cost to enter, but each contest will have its own winner's page that you can link to from your site. What about Cheating? Although there is potential for cheating, it is very difficult because the images that are displayed follow a distribution pattern to show each image approximately equal number of times and with an equal distribution with each of the other images in the contest. This means that if a photographer was trying to only vote for their own images, they would first have to view and vote for a lot of other images before being able to vote for their own images. Because each vote is limited to the set of images it is with, it is not a direct rating for an image or an overall vote in the contest, so you can only vote once for an image shown with a set of images. This means the only way to vote for the same image again is to keep voting until it comes up in another set. With thousands of potential voters, it then becomes very difficult to boost your own scores and instead the winners are based on a mass reaction from all who vote. Thus, a contest by photographers, for photographers. If we find individuals attempting to boost their scores, we reserve the right to normalize the weight of their votes so that one voter cannot drastically sway the competition. Because the goal of the contest is for the response of a wide number of people, excessive voting by individuals will be weighted at the conclusion of the competition. Affiliation The OpenPhotoContest.com is a product of the requests of a large number of photographers who participate in Open Source Photo, a forum for the sharing of ideas in the photography community. David Jay founded OSP four years ago and is now founding this contest as an extension of this community. The operation, development and maintenance of this site are under Showitfast, Inc, David Jay's software company that develops solutions specifically for professional photographers. The cost of membership and participation in openphotocontest.com covers the awards and prizes, hosting, and administration of this organization. For questions or more information, please contact support@openphotocontest.com

About us

The openphotocontest.com is a different kind of photo contest, it is about allowing photographers to submit their work into a contest that is not judged by a few people, but rather the masses. By using a sophisticated preference process where viewers of the site are given a random limited number of photo options and asked to choose their favorite, we are able to create a ranking system and award winners by the overall preference of everyone who votes.

Photographers, we encourage you to submit as many photos as you like.

Voters, enjoy choosing your favorites!

How Does It Work?

If you would like to enter your photos into a contest, you start by registering with basic info about yourself and/or your photography business. Once your account is setup, start uploading your favorite photos. Once you have added photos to your account, then you can start adding them to the open contests. There are lots of contests that will open at different times and at any given time there will be multiple contests running. A contest will open for submissions, then at a specified date it will stop allowing submissions and move into voting. The images that have been submitted will then start appearing on the voting page. Once the contest date ends, the voting will be closed, results are tallied and awards are distributed.

How do I Enter?

To submit your photos into a contest, you must first become a member which has an initial cost. You can create your account and start adding photos, but you won't be able to add a photo to a contest until your membership is paid. Your membership will come with "credits" which you can use to enter photos into contests and you can also purchase additional credits. Contests will vary on the length of time they run and how many credits it costs to enter. The awards for each contest will be different based on the amount of time for voting and the cost to enter, but each contest will have its own winner's page that you can link to from your site.

What about Cheating?

Although there is potential for cheating, it is very difficult because the images that are displayed follow a distribution pattern to show each image approximately equal number of times and with an equal distribution with each of the other images in the contest. This means that if a photographer was trying to only vote for their own images, they would first have to view and vote for a lot of other images before being able to vote for their own images. Because each vote is limited to the set of images it is with, it is not a direct rating for an image or an overall vote in the contest, so you can only vote once for an image shown with a set of images. This means the only way to vote for the same image again is to keep voting until it comes up in another set. With thousands of potential voters, it then becomes very difficult to boost your own scores and instead the winners are based on a mass reaction from all who vote. Thus, a contest by photographers, for photographers.

If we find individuals attempting to boost their scores, we reserve the right to normalize the weight of their votes so that one voter cannot drastically sway the competition. Because the goal of the contest is for the response of a wide number of people, excessive voting by individuals will be weighted at the conclusion of the competition.

Affiliation

The OpenPhotoContest.com is a product of the requests of a large number of photographers who participate in Open Source Photo, a forum for the sharing of ideas in the photography community. David Jay founded OSP four years ago and is now founding this contest as an extension of this community. The operation, development and maintenance of this site are under Showitfast, Inc, David Jay's software company that develops solutions specifically for professional photographers. The cost of membership and participation in openphotocontest.com covers the awards and prizes, hosting, and administration of this organization. For questions or more information, please contact support@openphotocontest.com