These are the catagories for what I hope will be the first annual " View Finder Awards"
This is for all of 2006, so do your best for your choices.

Funniest Photograph (Include URL)

Favorite Photograph (Include URL)

Most Helpful Poster

Best Thread( Include URL)

PR.com member you'd want to meet

Best Avatar

Best Forum(Make Sure You Put The Critique Forum!)

Best Forum Moderator(HHHMM! )

Best Technical Advice(Include URL)

Cutest Photograph (Include URL)

Email me your top three votes.
You should be able to do so through here, but just in case, its:
mtbbrian at mtbbrian dot com

You don't have to provide three votes nor do you have to vote for all categories.
Vote your conscious !
Since I came up with these, no one can complain.
Fair enough?
I'll compile them and post them at the end of the month or so.

Any questions?

And don't forget, Brian's First Rule of Photography...
Have Fun!
This is what the "View Finder Awards" are all about my friends, FUN!
Get it?
Fun It's Contagious! Pass It On!

Brian

Yep, Brian, this looks like it will be fun. I think we should make the awards regional, though. IOW, all these catagories for each of four different regions of the country (and oh, all right, one for furiners).

That would increase my chances of winning something... :D :p :thumbsup:

That would increase my chances of winning something... :D :p :thumbsup:

LOL Steve!
So far you are the only one that has even commented here, and I haven't gotten any responses either....
So there is hope for you to at least get one vote...
:D :rolleyes: :p
Brian

By three votes, I presume you mean three for each category?

Mike

By three votes, I presume you mean three for each category?

Mike

You are correct sir!
Brian
:thumbsup:

I'm going to get on this today. And I will also include it in the next newsletter.

Brian, you should probably make a post on the news forum and some of the other forums.

Can we vote in increments? A few categories there's an obvious choice or two that come to mind and some others it could be a close call (but that's why we're voting).

What is the time frame for the cut off date?

Seems you may have let yourself in for a bit of work! !

Thanks in advance for the effort. I'll ruminate and send at least some votes hopefully before the end of the weekend.

Can we vote in increments? A few categories there's an obvious choice or two that come to mind and some others it could be a close call (but that's why we're voting).

What is the time frame for the cut off date?

Seems you may have let yourself in for a bit of work! !

Thanks in advance for the effort. I'll ruminate and send at least some votes hopefully before the end of the weekend.


I think it would be easiest for me if you sent in one vote, you have time to research it.
Deadline for "Votes" is 31 January 2007.
You can send in three votes per category.

I already have two submissions!
They are good ones too!

If for some reason when you send the email, it WILL go through despite any message you may get back.
Brian
:thumbsup:

Yep, Brian, this looks like it will be fun. I think we should make the awards regional, though. IOW, all these catagories for each of four different regions of the country (and oh, all right, one for furiners).

That would increase my chances of winning something... :D :p :thumbsup:

Maybe if you posted some photos.....

If for some reason when you send the email, it WILL go through despite any message you may get back.

Do you have mine? You might have it four times... I was just about to PM it to you because it didn't go thru from work, home or to your old mindspring address...

What can I say, I'm near Chicago (the "vote early, vote often" place). :D

Do you have mine? You might have it four times... I was just about to PM it to you because it didn't go thru from work, home or to your old mindspring address...

What can I say, I'm near Chicago (the "vote early, vote often" place). :D

Yeah, I got it.
Didn't you get my reply back to you?
Thanks for your vote!
Come one let's get some more votes!
Brian

I started working on this last night. It's really cool to go back through everything that was posted last year. I am finding this a bit difficult since I see so much stuff and don't bookmark threads. So I thought I'd share some of the tricks I'm using to look for stuff:

Featured Photo Archive (http://www.photographyreview.com/featuredgallerycrx.aspx)
The Featured Photo Archive is an archive of all the photos that were chosen as weekly Featured Photos. They're posted in (more or less) chronological order. I'm using that as a guide to help me find my favorite and the funniest photos.

Gallery Favorites
Near the top of the gallery you'll notice a link that says, "Favorites." And down below every image in the gallery there's a link that says, "Add to Favorites." If you've been using your Favorites gallery through the year, you can refer back to it to see remember what you liked. If not, you can use the Favorites gallery now to build a library so that you can choose photos for the awards - that's what I'm doing.

Humorous Gallery (http://gallery.photographyreview.com/showgallery.php?cat=537)
There's a "Humorous" gallery category. You can check that for funny pictures. Unfortunately, that limits your search to the gallery. But it is one way to look.

Forum Search (http://forums.photographyreview.com/search.php)
Use the forum's Advanced Search to look for posts by your favorite member or search for specific subjects or text. I was thinking of searching for the phrase, "LOL" to look for funny posts.

Gallery Search (http://gallery.photographyreview.com/search.php?cat=)
Pretty much the same as above, but for the gallery.

Member Profiles (http://forums.photographyreview.com/memberlist.php)
If you want to track down a specific post by a member, use their profile page to check all the threads they started, all the posts they made, see their member gallery, read all of their gallery comments, and read the reviews they've posted. The profile page tells you almost everything about a a PhotographyREVIEW.com member. The link above goes to the Members List, which you can search to find members, too.

Last but not least, don't be afraid to share what you find and lobby for it. There was a ridiculous amount of stuff posted here last year and trying to remember it all is impossible. So if you find something cool, post a link to it in this thread. You can consider it a service to the rest of us. Plus, the process of going through all of this stuff is fun. Sharing what you find makes it even better. Last night I posted some comments on old photos that I'd forgotten about. It's good to go down memory lane :)

Thanks John!
That was a lot of work there!
:thumbsup:
Brian

Great tips PJ. I have been baffled as to how I was going to try and accomplish this task. I want to participate but it just seemed like an enormous task. Your tips are going to make it easier. Brian please give some of us slow pokes time to get all this done.

Great tips PJ. I have been baffled as to how I was going to try and accomplish this task. I want to participate but it just seemed like an enormous task. Your tips are going to make it easier. Brian please give some of us slow pokes time to get all this done.

I agree. It is a big task. But once it's all done it's going to be really neat to see the results. And I do have some special insight to how things work here :)

I have a Word doc that I started last night to record my findings. That way I don't have to try to do it all at once. And I ca also change my mind if I discover something that I missed earlier. It's also important not to be too much of a perfectionist with this project. The important thing is that as many people as possible participate in some respect. I may not have picks for every category. But other people might. The more people contribute the better it will be. But if we all try to do it all, a lot of us might choke and not turn in anything. So do the best you can do and don't worry about trying to do it all.

Hey Brian,

Just checking to see if you got my email.

What about most improved photographer for 2006...
Greg

I just used the gallery sort tools to sort by rating and go through all the top rated photos for 2006. Holy cow - there is a ton of awesome stuff that I missed. This is a time consuming process but I am psyched about what I'm seeing. There's so much great photography in that gallery!

Hey Brian,

Just checking to see if you got my email.

Mike,
Yes I did!
Thanks for the votes!
Brian
:thumbsup:

Yep, Brian, this looks like it will be fun. I think we should make the awards regional, though. IOW, all these catagories for each of four different regions of the country (and oh, all right, one for furiners).

That would increase my chances of winning something... :D :p :thumbsup:

I didn't realise it was an American only website :mad2:

Jurgen

go get 'em Yogestee...hehe...
Also...I cast one vote for the Reviews Moderator...hmmm...what's his name....ummmm....oh well...we all know who is...right...
Ken

I'm back to working on my choices. This is tough work. Choosing my favorite photos was especially difficult. But I am committed to getting this done.

Who else is still working on their awards choices?

I am still working on them .. you will have something Monday from me.

Cheers
Mike

I'm going to try and get this done over the weekend. It is an awesome task!!!!

Let's see your votes!
I have some already!
Let's see some more!
Thanks to those of you have already submitted your votes!
:thumbsup:
Brian

I am doing my final review.

Brian found my blog on this topic and knows I've given this serious consideration. As I said before this became more difficult that I thought, if it was going to be serious at all. I've written a bit more for that particular entry on the items I consider and why.

Good luck to all who are conscientiously reviewing the MANY choices available.

Good luck to all who are conscientiously reviewing the MANY choices available.

I think that sentence sums it up. I have taken this very seriously and it's been a lot of work. There's so much stuff on the site that it's hard to find and remember things. And a year of data is a lot to go through. But I think this is a great way to keep track of and highlight the best content on the site. Hopefully, in a few years we'll have a section here with the best of every year listed and linked. Any way we can set aside and show off the best stuff on the site is good.

In spite of the amount of work, I really enjoyed going back through everything posted in the past year. There was tons of good stuff that I'd forgotten or missed. And it was an excellent exercise in using the search and sort tools available here. Anyone who hasn't fully explored them is missing out. I'm sure we could have more and we might be able to present them better. But the gallery and the forums both have very powerful tools for finding things and I found them absolutely invaluable in my review of 2006.

One thing I wanted to share was that I found so many great images in the gallery and I want to be able to share them all. I used the "My Favorites" tool to save the stuff that I thought was the best. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a unique URL so I can't share my favorites gallery with you. But since I like it so much, I'm going to manually build a copy of that gallery and post it in my blog. And I'm also going to put in a request for a unique sharable link for the "My Favorites" feature so that we can share and look at other photographer's favorites.

Brian-
On the "Best Technical Advice" category - do mean for us to name a member or just refer to what we think is the best tech advice thread? I'm looking through threads from the past year but I'm not sure what you want.

By the way, I'm almost done. This may be the last category for me :)

Thanks-

Brian-
On the "Best Technical Advice" category - do mean for us to name a member or just refer to what we think is the best tech advice thread? I'm looking through threads from the past year but I'm not sure what you want.

By the way, I'm almost done. This may be the last category for me :)

Thanks-


I was thinking of a specific thread, but if there is one peson that gives good technical advice, that would work too.
Brian

This really is a very formidable task .. and inevitably there will be a lot of deserving images I don't look at. I imagine a lot of people will be put off submitting votes simply because of this. Therefore, can I make the following suggestions for next year? a) Perhaps have a few less categories? b) (my preferred solution) Perhaps the moderators could do a shortlist of (say) a dozen within each category?

Cheers
Mike

This really is a very formidable task .. and inevitably there will be a lot of deserving images I don't look at. I imagine a lot of people will be put off submitting votes simply because of this. Therefore, can I make the following suggestions for next year? a) Perhaps have a few less categories? b) (my preferred solution) Perhaps the moderators could do a shortlist of (say) a dozen within each category?

Cheers
Mike

This is all about having fun.
You don't have to vote for every category nor do you have to submit three.
Do what you can and have fun!
Brian
:thumbsup:

This really is a very formidable task .. and inevitably there will be a lot of deserving images I don't look at. I imagine a lot of people will be put off submitting votes simply because of this. Therefore, can I make the following suggestions for next year? a) Perhaps have a few less categories? b) (my preferred solution) Perhaps the moderators could do a shortlist of (say) a dozen within each category?

I think we have a volunteer for next year's awards! :D :p

I have a thought;

Is it possible to have a running "best of," sorta like on Craigslist, where the best threads and pics get nominated all year long, and are collected in a short list somewhere. That would make the end-of-year tabulation easier for some (as long as your favorites are their favorites lol) "The Best of Photography REVIEW" would be tabulated by votes, therefore eliminating the need for mods or Photo John to maintain it. Clicking a "nominate me" box in each thread in the forums and each picture in the galleries would allow the computer to tabulate the most nominated by members and post the most popular in a separate thread, gallery, or forum, whichever would be the most helpful to users.

I know an idea like this came up years ago and I think it was shot down for some reason, but I can't remember why now.

Rick

It's a good idea. Generally, ideas like this don't happen because we don't have enough resources to make the engineering changes. Anything that requires developer time is much, much harder to do. That's not to say it's impossible. But if we can do it ourselves it's much more likely to actually get done. Plus, mtbbrian and I both know that they've been doing it just like this for years on mtbr.

I Am Done!!!

The choices are made, now I'll blog later.

:23:

Plus, mtbbrian and I both know that they've been doing it just like this for years on mtbr.

Yup!
Just keeping it simple ad fun!
Over on mtbr they have way more categories...
Brian
:thumbsup:

So when is the finale date to turn in our votes?

I'm gonna get busy later today and send some in!

So when is the finale date to turn in our votes?

I'm gonna get busy later today and send some in!

January 31 or so...
Hurry!
Brian
:thumbsup: