And the winner is.......

O.K. let me first apologize for the way the judging was handled. At the beginning of the challenge I set up guidelines for the judging but then when it came time for the judging I forgot to tell the judges the guidelines. So the judging was not done on a point basis as I had planned. I also want to apologize if you think the judging was a bit harsh. I wasn't going to allow the judges to post critiques but then I decide that it was good for us to hear what other people think when they see our images so I allowed the critiques to remain a part of the judging process. Please try and take the criticism with a spirit of grace and meekness. The 3rd judge in particular was a bit harsh but I felt that the judges remarks are what you would expect in a true photography competition with open professional judges. That said I am going to instruct all of the judges to tone it down a bit in the future. My intention for this blog is for it to help us learn about photography and our cameras so that we will be better photographers. If I don't allow critiques from the judges we will not learn how to compose our images better in the future.

That said I will now explain the way I chose the winner for this months challenge. I had 3 judges judge each of the images 1st through 4th place. Each image was awarded a place by each judge. 1st place = 4 pts, 2nd place = 3 pts, 3rd place = 2 pts and 4th place = 1 pt. So for instance if an image received 1 1st place vote and 2 3rd place votes the total scores would be 8 points. The image that scores the most points will be the winner for this months challenge.

4th place winner = Eyes of Time with 5 points by Earl Pitman
3rd place winner = Elowen with 6 points by Bryce Holland
2nd place winner = Brown Eyes with 8 points by Jeff West
1st place winner = Eyes with 9 points by Gary Phillips

Winner of the challenge wins the opportunity to pick the theme for an upcoming challenge and bragging rights for the next month.

Next month is the month of Valentines day so I thought it would be appropriate for the theme to relate to love, but I wanted to narrow our focus a bit so instead of just saying the theme is love I decided that the theme for February will be "UNCONDITIONAL LOVE". I gave you a head start but the image still has to be shot on or after Feb 1st and on or before Feb 20th.

Congratulations to everyone but I really want to get more people involved. I would like to see about 10 photographers by March. I want everyone to try and invite one other photographer to participate and have them signed up by March 1st.

Photoman