Olympus Global Photo Contest 2014

[esnift]

Is anyone else participating in this?

http://gpc.olympus-imaging.com

I received an email from olympus about 24 hours before the contest closed and don't remember receiving any prior notice.

 

[Matero]

I did. I also got at least two prior notices.

 

[pake]

I am. But I added my pictures way too late to get enough points to do well.

 

[m43happy]

I added a pic some time ago, but I'm too lazy to promote it on all the social media websites I'm on. I have zero points. lol

 

[Wisertime]

I entered kinda late....just checked. Got 100pts so far. Not sure what that translates to, but I don't think I'll be winning a new 40-150 F2.8 anytime soon. I didn't promote myself or anything.

 

[Wisertime]

On a side note. That site is dreadfully slow. If it's not improved no one is going to bother voting.

 

[kwalsh]

According to the rules the judges just "take into consideration" the points. So it sounds like the typical social media harvesting and vote bots won't have much of an impact on the final outcome. But probably getting at least a few votes is a good thing!

 

[Wisertime]

According to the rules the judges just "take into consideration" the points. So it sounds like the typical social media harvesting and vote bots won't have much of an impact on the final outcome. But probably getting at least a few votes is a good thing!

I was wondering about that too...however, I see where you can leave comments, but not where you can vote.??

 

[kwalsh]

I believe voting ended at the same time contest entries were stopped. In other words, if you submitted near the cutoff time it was impossible for anyone to vote on your photo!

 

[Wisertime]

I believe voting ended at the same time contest entries were stopped. In other words, if you submitted near the cutoff time it was impossible for anyone to vote on your photo!

Yeah I wasn't sure if I remembered that correctly. That's really not fair. Should be a voting only period and shuffle the entries...but I guess it's primarily based on the judges at least. I didn't hear about it til late August or Sept.

 

[nstelemark]

I put a few in 20 hours before it closed. Didn't see anything before that.

 

[pake]

I hope I'm wrong but I'm afraid they will choose 20-50 most voted pictures in each category to be shown to the judges and they will decide the winners. I can't imagine the judges going through thousends of pictures...

EDIT: And yes, they should have enabled voting after the entry period was over. This is the basic fault of almost every photography contest: it's too much about "vote whoring" (pardon my language...). It's not always really about the picture - it's about connections, sharing and who participated early. I understand the voting makes it easier for the contest organizers but there are good ways and poor ways to do it. Obviously truly spectacular pictures will triumph despite the poor voting system. Or at least I hope so.

 

[esnift]

Before re-reading the rules and answering my own question, I submitted an inquiry to Olympus support and I received this as a reply:

"As is indicated on the homepage, the voting period ended at 11AM Friday
Oct.3rd, Japan standard time (same deadline as entries), and voting is no
longer possible.

However, also as is indicated on the homepage, winners will be selected
through judging by three professional photographers.
Although user voting will be taken into consideration by the judges, a
larger number of votes does not necessarily secure a better chance of
winning."

So read whatever you want into that. To me it makes sense that they would use votes to par down the number of judged photos, but it seems like that might not be the case after all.