The First Annual "The View Finder Awards"

[drg]

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.

[Photo-John]

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.

[Photo-John]

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-

[mtbbrian]

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

[Didache]

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

[mtbbrian]

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:

[Photo-John]

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!

[walterick]

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

[Photo-John]

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.

[drg]

I Am Done!!!

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

:23:

[mtbbrian]

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:

[jorgemonkey]

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

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

[mtbbrian]

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: