There was some  controversy at the end  of the May June 2010 photo contests, but the  official results in the Lenzr machine are as follows:

Crowded Places had the most participation with 46 PHOTOS UPLOADED | TOTAL VOTES 1828.

Ve3bnw Bill Watson wins the brand new Blackberry Curve courtesy of Innate Media Group for having submitted the first place photo in the Crowded Places photo contest. Bill’s aerial photo of the Rockton Worlds Fair is quite interesting and was well received, collecting 270.2 points, the most in category.  The image was clearly taken from the sky, and so is most likely a product of Bill Watson’s remote controlled helicopter gunship and budding aerial photography business. This smart phone will certainly come in handy for the high flyer.

50 Going On 15 was won by Mommakoala, AKA Debbie Watson, Bill Watson’s wife. This long standing member of Lenzr is a Hamilton resident and part time nurse and passionate photographer. She takes imaginative pictures and has a knack for writing good titles and captions. Her ‘No Pesky Neighbours’ photo won the first Ontario Tourist Attractions photo contest on Lenzr on November 1st 2009.

Portable Luxury was won by Seattledredge when Mommakoala’s photo was deleted by admin with only 15 minutes left in the competition.  It was indeed an ugly finish to what had been a close struggle. This strange but not unwarranted eventuality is explained in great detail in What Happened to Mommakoala’s Candy Stash? The account proferred along with an apologetic  explanation and rare glimpse into the world of the Lenzr admin. Remember we are all trying to achieve something that has never occurred before, a perfectly democratic contest community where business sponsors art.

The contest itself collected a lot of very strange and amusing ideas relating to our human notions of luxury, and what it means to move your comfort zone. There were 17 PHOTOS UPLOADED | TOTAL VOTES 680.  The Portable Luxury photo contest started late and that’s why the numbers were relatively low, but the prize is the greatest gift that has ever been shared by the site admin on the behalf of Lenzr’s most generous sponsor to date.

Seattledredge plus one guest have won three days and

two nights in Las Vegas courtesy of a portable toilet rentals business in Toronto ItsMyPotty.com

Three new photo contests will launch July 10th 2010. They will be subject to a new voting ritual. A change is occurring whereby pictures are collected and displayed until the last two weeks of the contest, when votes are collected. This levels the playing field for photographers and professional contesters.  Please read more about the new Lenzr voting mechanisms in the next post.

May June contests come to a conclusion, with one strange upset…

Another unusual chapter in the story of Lenzr has been written today. An unprecedented event occurred at 11:45pm on June 30th, 2010. Mommakoala’s image, My Candy Stash was eliminated from the competition. The correction was made by admin.  The result of their decision makes her ineligible to win the Portable Luxury photo contest, and the Las Vegas vacation prize for which she has been campaigning in multiple social networks for a month.

Debbie is upset, Bill is furious, but Lenzr has to be fair to all members.

As everyone knows this blog is connected to a serial photo contest website that issues new challenges every sixty days. Its the only indy photo contest website of its kind, and as such it has developed a core following of veteran contesters that dominate each challenge and sub-divide the spoils. These individuals scour other social networks recruiting votes and promoting their work, and this activity is encouraged by admin. That’s right. We like it when that happens. When contesters put the message out on their own social platforms it compounds the quality and distribution of the marketing.

However, Lenzr website admin must also guard against proxy IP vote fraud and multiple domain registrations for / by which the only activity is voting perfect 10s for specific images from specific members (and voting 1 for everyone else) We can see when that happens.

Although Mommakoala’s My Candy Stash was the only photo removed in this session, almost all of the photos uploaded by just about every member have red flags attached to them in Lenzr reports; they are being flagged for some terms of service violation or another, by both humans and the filter. And that’s understandable because its just the way the votes are collected…

WHO’S TO BLAME? Because the abuse is so widespread across the entire database we have to believe that individual contesters themselves are not really responsible for the methods and passion of their friends, or strangers who might otherwise seek to disqualfy them.

Its a strange web we weave when we invent and launch a ‘democratic photo contest website’ made ‘by the people for the people’ wherein admin has ALMOST no control.

Remarkably, Seattledredge’s Portable City had no such red flags or suspicious activity. It appears to have collected 330 points in a most organic fashion. Admin had to act here, to be fair to Seattle and reward her for submitting some very pretty images in all three categories.

So a decision was made to reward Seattle’s image over Mommakoala’s submission, and as Admin has no power over the voting algorithm itself, our only option was to eliminate Debbie’s image entirely from competition.

Mommakoala is one of our favourite associations. As you will read in the next write-up, Debbie’s Elton Johnish photo is the winner of the 50 Going On 15 photo contest, and she will collect over 50 lbs of pure chocolate from Choclicks courtesy of TempoToronto.ca

Ve3bnw Bill Watson, Debbie’s husband will reap the Blackberry reward for having submitted the first place photo in the Crowded Places photo contest. I myself, Rob Campbell the Lenzr blogger have offered to host a banner promoting Bill’s aerial photography business in the sidebar of the Lenzr blog.

NOW WE ADAPT A SMARTER PROGRAM where VOTES ARE COLLECTED AT THE END

From July 1st 2010 forward, Lenzr has a new voting ritual. The new procedures will cure all the vote fraud malaise as we together evolve and perfect this social experiment and make it friendlier and fair for everyone that chooses to participate. Comments and queries are encouraged and will be answered directly.

Ontario Tourist Attractions photo contest on Lenzr ended on Nov1st 2009 and one image No Pesky Neighbours Here was rated a few points higher than the rest.

This quirky snapshot gleaned 93 total votes to finish with a rating of 8.7 from 20 registered votes (and 7.2 from 73 popular votes).

Mommakoala wins $200 gift certificate from Kanetix Insurance & Mortgage Rate Quotes.

Mommakoala is a 50 yr old nurse in Hamilton, Ontario who likes to photograph unusual landscapes.  She’s presently on a mission to lens all 126 Waterfalls in and around the Hamilton Wentworth area (and all up the Niagara escarpment) . This is a big adventure on her part, and I expect we’ll see more of her work on Lenzr in the near future.

The winning photo was taken when Mommakoala was with her family, enjoying the sights on the 1000 Islands boat cruise in Gananoque Ontario in August 2008. This was one of dozens of images that she snapped on that trip. But there’s something about the image thats timeless and she knew it was the best possible submission for this photo contest. She was right.

Overall, the Ontario Tourist Attractions photo contest on Lenzr was a huge success. There were over seventy five images from all across Ontario - we saw Wasaga Beach, St Lawrence Market and several shots of the CN Tower and Niagara Falls. My personal favourites include The Big Nickel, Huskie the Muskie, the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa and Old Fort Henry in Kingston.

Second place reward was $100 and this went to member Slimmswitch for his submission called Ottawa - The Spider City.  Early on in the competition this image had the highest rating, and it was the clear favourite to win - it’s interesting to note this picture has almost twice as many votes, but a slightly lower rating.

Slimmswitch, who donated the colouful self portrait seen below, did a great job using the 140 character caption to really sell the originality of his photo composition.  He writes in the description, Located in Ottawa , if you stand under this huge spider and look up you can actually see they put fake spider eggs inside the structure??

TIPS: Participants that upload images to Lenzr should always make their caption as long and colourful as possible.  It should contain ideas that are counterpoint to the subject of the picture.  In Lenzr photo contests, the most important thing is to make your submissions more interesting than everyone elses. Your pictures don’t have to be technically superior, or more aesthetically beautiful, but rather more charming, quirkier and ’storyfull’.

Occasionally people email me to complain that certain pretty pictures are not ranked higher, or fail to appear in the top 10, while other,  inferior images are ahead of them. This would be frustrating, but its important to remember that sometimes the most technically perfect and aesthetically pleasing pictures are also the most boring.  In Ontario Tourist Attractions we all watched as two wacky images pulled away from the rest of the pack to finish as prize winners.