Winners of our Perfect Pairs Photo Contest with Bay Photo Lab
Why a contest?
We teamed up with the good folks at Bay Photo Lab this fall to kick off a contest asking photographers to submit photos representing the theme of a perfect pair — two things that go splendidly together. SmugMug and Bay Photo are like peanut butter and jelly, ying and yang, aperture and ISO. We love Bay’s hand color correction and their crazy-in-a-good-way devotion to making the best dang prints out there. They love our seamless integration, fanatical devotion to making sure your photos look the best in our galleries and prints, and 100% guaranteed customer service. We guess you can say we’re the perfect pair for picky pros whose reputations depend on us.
Photographers from all over heard our call and submitted almost 2000 shots. The time has come to announce who the winners are, and we couldn’t be more tickled to have another reason to shout to the world how much we heart Bay Photo Lab and the awesome customers we get to work with on a daily basis. Winners of the Perfect Pairs Photo Contest were picked by a group of Judges from Bay Photo Lab and SmugMug based on their editorial discretion and your votes.
Here’s what we decided.
GRAND PRIZE WINNER
“Steam Runners” by Ric Cederholm of Waunakee, WI
We love this photo because it’s two friends having the time of their lives. The shot captures a playful and fun moment that makes us long for the days we could run with our hands in the air, hollering with joy (sure, we can do it as grown ups too, but it’s definitely cuter when kids do it). What’s better than running in the sun with the mist in your face? Maybe unwrapping your first MetalPrint. Maybe.
Ric, if you’re watching, you get:
- 5 free years of SmugMug Pro ($750 value, not including bragging rights)
- $500 Print Credit to world class Bay Photo Lab
- Photo credit in major national and tradeshow advertising, including WPPI
FIRST RUNNER UP
“Coordination” by Marc Benjamin of Fairfield, CA
This shot shows the power, elegance, and artistry that can be created when two powerhouses come together. The striking contrast stopped us in our tracks, and the poetry of these dancers forms entwined in the air sealed the deal for us.
Marc gets:
- 4 free years of SmugMug Pro ($600 value)
- $300 Print Credit to Bay Photo Lab
SECOND RUNNER UP
“Relationship Stability” by Jesse Rather of Arcata, CA
Talk about a photo that makes you look twice. Managing a business and serving your customers is a fine balance of impeccable quality, dedication and fun, and we thought this photo channeled that feeling well. To top it off, the quirkiness, beauty, and humor made us smile. Thanks, Jesse!
Jesse won:
- 2 free years of SmugMug Pro ($300 value)
- $200 Print Credit to Bay Photo Lab
THIRD RUNNER UP
“The Polar Pair” by JP Diroll of Pittsburgh, PA
A bit surreal, a bit Planet Earth. It’s hard enough to resist such childlike interplay in the animal world, but drop the fuzzies into a sun-streaked pool of the deepest blue and you have double the win.
JP wins:
- 1 Free year of SmugMug Pro ($150)
- $100 Print Credit to world class printer Bay Photo Lab
FOURTH RUNNER UP
“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by Rachelle Elliott of Wymore, NE
Rub-a-dub-dub, two cuties in a tub. Parents, watch out: They’re already winning hearts!
Rachelle wins:
- 1 Free year of SmugMug Pro ($150)
- $50 Print Credit to world class printer Bay Photo Lab
Thanks. We Mean It.
We we really blown away by the enthusiastic response to this contest and totally felt the love. Thanks again to everyone who entered their photos and shared their vision of “The Perfect Pair!”
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Congratulations to all the winners! There were certainly some great shots in this contest.
Congrats to everyone. Love First Place. A great image.
Congrats to all! Well deserved!!!
Congratulations winners!
These are fantastic! Congratulations to the winners!
Congrats everyone, great shots. Love first place, great work.
Ah! “Steam Runners” –> Prismatic Pool?
Close. Just up the road at Great Fountain Geyser.
Congratulations to all the winners!
These are all awesome photos. I think the Polar Bear is the best but I love them all and they are the best of the submissions. How does getting people to vote for pictures even count in the contest though? I notice that there are a lot of photos that have way more votes. Why have people go through the trouble of getting their friends and Tweet followers to vote when it really doesn’t play into the decision? Just have a contest and don’t make people market your website for you under false pretenses. It’s a photo contest, not a popularity contest – make that clear.
Realistically, the votes have to do something with it. I mean if we were honest the last photo isn’t nearly as good as numerous shots in the contest, not even just the ones I’ve voted for. Yeah the little girls are cute but the picture has been done by every proefessional photog out there it feels like and far better by numerous ones. Cute, but cute enough to win out of 2k photos? Not a chance. I feel like some really good photos got screwed by that one making it on the list. Just keeping it real.
I agree, with all points of the above two comments. I was under the impression that it was votes. I’m disappointed in the contest. I mean Congrats and all, they’re great pictures :/
I agree, Beauty is in eyes of judge and it depends on which judge is judging. Sometimes it’s a no-brainer who the winner is but some people want to keep it basic. But if it’s a professional contest then it should be judged so.
Hey Tom, we hearing a lot of passionate feedback about the voting process and winner selection. We should have done a better job of making it clear that votes were considered by Judges, but the ultimate winners were based on the criteria of which photos best represented to the Judges the idea of two things complementing each other. Here is the line in the rules: “The winner or winners will be picked by judges from SmugMug and Bay Photo Lab. They will take into consideration the number of comments, Facebook Likes, and Tweets each image gets, but the ultimate decision comes from their editorial discretion.” You’re right on in your feedback — if we do a photo contest again, we’ll make it crystal clear how winners are picked.
Thanks for taking the time to let us hear what you think.
BEAUTIFUL SHOTS!!
I wanted to thank you (SmugMug) and Bay Photo for selecting my image!! I am honored given all the other very impressive submissions. Just so many talented photographers out there and I am continually humbled as I view them all. I love the services you both provide and your partnership is the exact reason that I decided to sign up with SmugMug back in November 2009. Thank You!!
I posted a photo that had more comments and likes than some of the winners! I guess I wasted my friends time by having them vote for me. I shoot real wildlife in the wild not in captivity/zoos. I am confused by the picks, according to the rules votes should have mattered. I guess you got what you wanted out of this!
Hey Will, there were so many fantastic images in this contest, and we are honored that you took time to share them with us. In our Rules, we state: “The winner or winners will be picked by judges from SmugMug and Bay Photo Lab. They will take into consideration the number of comments, Facebook Likes, and Tweets each image gets, but the ultimate decision comes from their editorial discretion.” We realize that there was some confusion about this process and are taking your feedback to heart — if we ever run a contest like this again, we’ll be a lot clearer about the criteria so that there is no ambiguity about how the contest works. Sorry for any confusion and thank you for taking the time to let us know what you think.
Grand Prize winner = 6 likes, 5 comments. Runner Ups = 1 Facebook Like, 1 page of comments; 3 facebook likes, 0 comments; 13 facebook likes, 2 pages comments; 9 facebook likes, 2 pages comments. The photo I voted for = 12 facebook likes; 4 pages of comments, which equals 33 comments. I VOTED FOR THIS INDIVIDUAL ON THE BASIS THAT VOTES/FACEBOOK LIKES HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE FINAL RESULTS. I am confused because according to the winning photos, votes had nothing to do with it. For future reference, if you organize a contest make sure you abide by YOUR own rules that you create or you are going to have many very angry artists/photographers.
Hi Rebecca, Thank you for taking the time to write to us. We hear your frustration and take it to heart. In our Rules, we state: “The winner or winners will be picked by judges from SmugMug and Bay Photo Lab. They will take into consideration the number of comments, Facebook Likes, and Tweets each image gets, but the ultimate decision comes from their editorial discretion.” The fundamental criteria of the winners was that they represent the idea or theme of two things going really well together — like peanut butter and jelly, Bay Photo Lab and SmugMug. Votes were taken into consideration but not the only factor in the Judge’s decision. We could have done a better job of making that clear to voters and photographers, and will do things differently if we run a contest like this again.
“After you upload your image, share it with your friends and family! Anyone can “vote” for your image by commenting on it, or using the social media icons under the image to FB Like or Tweet it. Judges will consider how many comments, Tweets, and FB Likes an image receives in making their pick. Voting closes October 7th.” On the front page… This makes it out that the votes are the major deciding factor in selection. You didn’t consider likes or comments AT ALL… They weren’t taken in to consideration. They were totally disregarded! All you wanted was people to come to your page. You lead us on. I have a good mind to even change the company I have print my photos. And I have used Bay Photo for 2 years.
I voted too… and not for one of the eventual winners. I know the photo I voted had significantly more “likes” and “comments” than the winners… in fact, you could probably add all of the winners together and the photo I chose would have still exceeded the number count.
I’m a 30 year marketing pro and sometimes photographer way back to the time when there were dark rooms! (yes, that makes me 50-mumble years old) The photo I chose was about as close to “perfect pairs” without being posed, photo manipulated, staged or cliche (as the babies are a nod to Ms. Geddes stylings.) And, it wasn’t dumb luck either… it took a skilled photographer with knowledge of equipment AND an eye for such things.
Frankly, I’m disappointed by your choices for “winners”… not that they are not lovely photos but that there is little to no connection to the rules of your competition… the ones YOU wrote. If you just wanted to pick some nice photos then perhaps you should have said that!
There is a certain underlying social contract when you ask for tweets, and comments, and FBs and and and… not only did you break that contract but in essence your artists burned theirs and now have to rebuild clout before asking again. Its that whole bloggers commenting on other blogs thing… but it is doubtful you understand what I am saying else you wouldn’t have made the errors you did.
That being said… the winner’s photo is lovely, moody, and evoked feeling. Just not my choice… I would have titled it “imperfect pairs”
Hi Jennifer, Thank you for taking letting us hear your thoughts. This contest was a “first” for us, and we realize that there was some confusion about the voting process and the winner selection criteria. In our Rules, we state: “The winner or winners will be picked by judges from SmugMug and Bay Photo Lab. They will take into consideration the number of comments, Facebook Likes, and Tweets each image gets, but the ultimate decision comes from their editorial discretion.” The fundamental criteria of the winners was that they represent the idea or theme of two things that complement each other really well. Votes were tallied, reviewed, and considered, but just part of the Judge’s decision-making process.
We could have done a better job of making that clear to voters and photographers, and will do things differently if we run a contest like this again. We really value hearing frank feedback from people and know that it’s no small thing to ask photographers and voters to take even a moment to cast a vote or submit an image.
“Prints are a personal thing!”
As the social media poster child for the SmugMug Perfect Pairs contest (124 Likes & 110 Comments by the contest deadline) I feel an obligation to speak up for everyone who participated in this contest.
First, Congratulations to the winners! I hope it brings you lots of good P.R., customers, goodwill and whatever else you wish for…
Now, for the rest of us. I wasn’t going to comment. However, today’s tweet by SmugMug: “Do you get asked to work for free?” echoed SmugMug’s Contest announcement: “How to Get Famous for Free.”
And something clicked.
“The issue here is not whether you broke a few rules,
or took a few liberties with your party guests – you did.”
Right from the start, issues surfaced with the Perfect Pairs contest implementation. As an example, even though Twitter was mentioned first in the contest rules, the Twitter feed counter never worked. I’ll use my experience dealing with that issue as a representative example.
On Sept. 18, I posted to the SmugMug Perfect Pairs Blog page that the contest Twitter feed counter was not working. By Oct 3, I had not seen a response. Since Twitter was prioritized first among social media, I forwarded an email to the SmugMug help desk. To their credit, SmugMug got right back to me saying my issue would be looked into. Later the same day, I pointed out that the Twitter counters did not work site wide. SmugMug’s definitive response came on Oct. 11, saying: “we have that recorded as a “bug.” I’ll let the rest of my email that day speak for itself:
“When I ask customers to vote, I am in effect using my business capital, resources, and contacts to promote SmugMug. Yes, I also benefit when people go to SmugMug to vote. However, when people vote by “Tweeting,” and are not rewarded with an uptick in the Twitter counter, you have not upheld your end of the social contract. My customers do not get the “atta boy” for their good behavior. I have received numerous emails from my customers who voted and thought their votes didn’t count. This lack of acknowledgment frustrates my customers, reflects poorly on both of us and requires me to spend time rebuilding that relationship.
I hesitate to point this out again ’cause we all know what happens to whistle-blowers, so I chose to send this by email as opposed to posting it.
The photography business is a people business. I want to reward and thank my customers, not anger them or have them call into question my judgement for using a product that doesn’t work.”
I would extend the previous sentiments regarding the Twitter Feed to include the thought that that I also don’t want to confuse my customers. And neither should SmugMug. I am SmugMug’s customer. Incorrect dates on the contest website and linked pages, ambiguous language in contest rules, a Twitter feed that didn’t/doesn’t work are only a few of the issues with the structure and implementation of this contest. As Tom pointed out so eloquently in the blog comments above. SmugMug could have run a contest in which there was a prize for their selected best photo and another prize for the top vote getter. These issues and more should have been smoothed out or at least checked before the contest was launched.
“Do you get asked to work for free?”
But the real issue. The one that hurts the whole photography industry, is that one of our own, SmugMug, values our work — capturing the photo, building the business and marketing that business, even social marketing the business — as “Free.” I may not have won the contest, although I did win the popular vote, but SmugMug is winning the race to the bottom.
When SmugMug titled their Contest Announcement: “How to Get Famous For Free,” and encouraged voting and commenting, SmugMug belied their own prejudice and added to the problem that we all struggle with everyday – the perception that our work comes at no cost, should be free and that they should freely be able to profit from it.
Hi Jill,
Thank you for taking the time to write again to us. The passion we are hearing in your and others’ comments make it clear that there were a number of things we should have done differently with this contest, and we are taking this feedback seriously as a lesson for any future contests or initiatives we do. This was a first time for us, and we are taking your feelings of frustration to heart.
By no means did we intend to mislead or misguide the people taking the time and effort to participate through their votes and image submissions. We know your time is precious and don’t at all take any effort on the part of voters and photographers lightly.
The Judges took into consideration the votes each image received, but ultimately, each winner was picked based on the Judge’s opinion about the images that best represented the theme of SmugMug and Bay Photo Lab as “perfect pairs.” The line in the Rules that refers to this is, “The winner or winners will be picked by judges from SmugMug and Bay Photo Lab. They will take into consideration the number of comments, Facebook Likes, and Tweets each image gets, but the ultimate decision comes from their editorial discretion.”
Regarding the Tweet display, we appreciate you alerting us over email to the help desk, as this is always the quickest way to get in touch with us. The twitter issue was a display one — we looked in our database and could see how many clicks each twitter button received. That said, such a bug is inexcusable when we position it as a voting mechanism, and it’s our fault for not being able to fix the issue in a timely and satisfactory way. Please accept our apologies for the delay in our ability getting this fixed and know that this is a lesson to us and something we are working on.
One of our underlying goals with this contest was to come up with a new way to excite, engage, and celebrate the many photographers in our community by giving them a chance to show off their work and get their friends, families, and peers excited. Because there is no scarcity of talent in the world — anything we can do to celebrate and promote amazing photography and photographers is seriously important to us.
For example, we have a “Found on SmugMug” feature that we post on Twitter and Facebook to give photographers some much-deserved recognition. We do giveaways and discounts to give photographers access to gear and equipment we hope will help further their business and passion for photography. All of these efforts are underscored by our feeling and knowledge that running your own business, much less a creative enterprise, is seriously hard work and much more of a marathon, versus a sprint. The spirit behind the contest blog post title, “Get Famous For Free,” was not meant to degrade the effort and value of a photographer’s work. Rather, we wanted to give photographers a chance to get a chance to show off their amazing photography and maybe win a cool prize. We recognize now that using a word like “Free” is complicated and in this contest’s case, it probably was not a good decision.
Jill, you are right on in saying that photography is a people business. We’d add that people sometimes screw up too, and we’re sorry for any parts of the contest that may have done anything to disappoint or confuse anyone, much less give off the impression that anything related to a serious photography business should be free.
I invite you to give me a call anytime or email me to talk more by reaching out through the help desk. Like I said earlier, this contest was a first for us, and you can bet that we will be fanatically vigilant about the issues you raise so that they never happen again. We are so humbled and grateful for a chance to hear frank feedback from you and the others. Everything you say is going to help us become a better team and company so that we can in turn be a much better partner to you and your business.
Katherine
@Nikki- Excellent points. Especially as the subhead on the Contest announcement page read:
“VOTE, VOTE, VOTE” in
LARGE GREEN LETTERS.
Jill Carpenter
jcarpenterclicks(at)gmail(dot)com
FotoBento(dot)com
It wouldn’t even of been an issue if it was just simply a judging competition, but the misleading in it is what got me. Maybe it was the “assuming” part of it but what I took out of it was that they would take all the pictures that had the most voting and comments and go from there. Not completely disregard them. I wasted a BUNCH of time promoting it. It doesn’t even have anything to do with the winners they picked- the pictures are awesome. It’s got to do with the shameless promotion of themselves. I mean they didn’t even have to do that, I am always telling everyone how awesome Bay Photo (even on facebook) is but no more.
Agreed Tom & Nikki… I didn’t have a photo entered, I just spent a bunch of time asking MY friends to comment on a friend’s photo.
And, honestly, I don’t feel the heads of Smug Mug have properly dealt with the controversy… maybe the believe that ancient adage of even bad PR is good PR. Having done PR my entire career… I think bad PR is a really bad problem.
Consider the hunk of ice which sank that boat so long ago… you see the top 10%, it is what is UNDER the waterline which matters. If 20 people are voicing their opinions, how many more are upset about the situation?
For that matter… Smug Mug now has the email adr, FB links and possibly Twitter links (who knows if that is functional) on a whole bunch of people who are not even customers… what are they doing with MY information I wonder.
I feel Mugged and they are being rather Smug about it too.
I think the main issue is that people feel that they spent their time and effort marketing your website to their friends and relatives on your behalf under false pretenses. I think you have to have a contest that is based on best photo, or one that is based on votes. You cannot do both as you did in this contest and expect that people will not be disappointed. I mean SmugMug attracts THE BEST photographers in world so people look to your contest to be completely legit and not like a lot of the other contest out there that are trying to scam or get people to sign on for a service.
I gotta say as a professional contest winner (my work places in a lot of competitions), I just had to comment on how the level of whining about the results on this one is unbelievable. You all just need to congratulate the winners, thank the sponsors and move on.
The first step in trying to win a contest is to understand the rules. Those rules clearly state that while the social media aspect of the contest is considered, the final result will be picked by the judges based on what best captures the theme of Perfect Pairs. Social contract my back side, read and understand the rules.
Besides, what makes you guys think that the high voted ones did not get considered? They apparently did and just didn’t make the final selection. I think some of the better images were overlooked because they had no comments or likes at all.
Just imagine if this ended up being a voting contest and the winner was a photo of two dots on white and somehow it get 9000 votes. Should we consider that a winner? I mean what kind of ad would that be? It’s like saying, “Ey this is the best smug customers can do… We suck at our craft but are really good in asking people to click!”
What a bunch of whiny loosers. You all should really concentrate more on your photography and improve your skills first before complaining about not #winning.
Congratulations Bird you sound like an accomplished photographer. Well, I didn’t even enter the competition, my friend did. And I am not a photographer but she is (and she is good – maybe not as good as you as a professional contest winner but still I think her work is good).
The way this contest is probably viewed at BayPhoto is as a marketing campaign and customer retention. They setup a contest and photographers submit their work. They give out prizes but they get the publicity and word of mouth advertising by all the contestants. When they report the internal success of this campaign it will be XX number of submissions, XX impressions on the internet search engines, XX pictures posted to Facebook, XX Tweets, XX number of emails collected from voters for future email blast. That’s how marketing campaigns work.
Now by expressing our disappointment – I don’t think we are whining about the winners – They deserve it – their pictures are awesome. I think we are voicing a concern of how poorly the contest rules did in helping people understand that they were part of that marketing campaign engine when it really did not matter to them in the end. Hopefully when BayPhoto reports on the success of this contest – they will report on all those nice marketing statistics they generated but hopefully they will also raise that the user community of photographers were concerned about they were used in that process. In the future you might see some changes because people voiced their concerns. That is all I was trying to convey.
I believe the rules were spelled out pretty clearly, if one bothered to read them thoroughly. They said vote for the ones you like, but ultimately they were going to choose the winners based on which were the best photos that represented the theme they wanted to market, in this case, perfect pairs. I wonder if the people who are so mad that their big votes didn’t get them the win would feel the same way if someone with a lot of loyal “friends” had submitted a bad photo and won based solely on votes. It was a photo contest not a personal popularity contest.
Sam&Bird-In one respect I would agree, no one wants only the photos with the most votes to win. They want skill along with popularity. But are you seriously saying the photo with the twin girls was more deserving than numerous other photos with more or less the same amount of votes? It lacks creativity, originality, or really anything else beyond it being technically correct and cute due to being a cpl of twin babies. That that photo won is ridiculous and smells a little strange to beat out its obviously better more creative competitors. There’s something wrong with this whole competition. The others, I won’t argue with. They may not have been my choice but each were interesting, creative or at least different and yet making the message that Smugmug and Bayphoto wanted to say. Congratulations to them. But due to that one photo making it anywhere close to the top I am now highly suspicous of how any of them were actually chosen. Maybe relatives or friends of the judges? I wish I could say I trusted either of these companies and their defense for their choices but they have shown numerous things with this contest where they were seriously lacking in judgment. Something you would expect from a small contest peddling site vs. reputable companies.
Actually, no I don’t agree with either the twin girls or the polar bears as winners over numerous other photos. My point was, that the rules clearly stated that the final decision was that of the judges and not based on votes.
It was clear from many entries, that many people did not read the rules of the contest. There were many pictures submitted twice, some that were only very slightly different, and many, many that had absolutely nothing to do with pairs at all.
I would only have been really upset if either a bad picture with lots of votes won or if the picture of the two girls with umbrellas had won, not because it wasn’t a beautiful picture, but because Bay Photo is already using it on their website and therefore it shouldn’t have been entered.
It was a contest with rules that were spelled out. Congrats to the winners, everyone else should be better losers and try again next time.
Sam, you might be missing the point of the prior post or maybe my post was not communicated clearly. My point was not that the photo’s were not great. I think they were all fantastic – twin girls included. My point was that many contestants felt that votes were a primary criteria so they went out of their way to tap their friends, relatives and FB contacts to vote for them – that takes a lot of effort. In reality (rightly or wrongly so) the voting had nothing to do with the winners. People feel a little burned by that is all. I don’t think they are being sore losers – just pointing out a flaw of the contest protocol. The point has been taken by BayPhoto and I am sure that they will have this corrected in the future. If people on this thread would not have complained, we might see the same thing in the future so I am glad that people speak up. SmugMug and BayPhoto are great companies that have the best product out there so I am sure they set the bar pretty high for themselves – user communities like this help guide them to continuous improvement.
Although it appears some people didn’t agree with how this contest was handled, I appreciate your efforts to apologize to people individually, to recognize that you will handle things differently in the future and will be more transparent and clear with the rules. Hang in there while you work through this issue. Congratulations to all of the winners! Job well done!