In formats where entries are just listed in order of them being entered the most votes generally goes to the first few that were entered, and later entries don’t even get seen.
The only way to make a selection process fair is to have lal entries hidden until they all come in, then display them in a random grid that changes each time someone loads the page.
This was not the case. I was one of the first to submit pics to the entry and none of my pics are here. Also you can’t vote individual photos in the entry post; you can only like the post of the person.
There was no criteria. They probably have a judge body and they picked the 20 they thought were best to do the voting (i think they wanted to pick more but the iNat voting thing for forum posts allow only 20 items).
This is a fair competition and I love the finalists. It will be a tough choice…
I agree! I think the judges did a great job. I just went back to the submission thread and there are so many good ones on there!
As with any form of art it’s fun to think of any biases we might have in judging a photo. For example, I noticed the photos I was most amazed by were those which were of organisms I am not very familiar with. There is that initial awe still of seeing something that you had never realized existed. Conversely, there are a lot of great bird photos on here but I think my eye is much more critical of those since they are what I am familiar with and have spent lots of time looking at, taking photos of, and looking at photos of.
Beyond just that there is the means in which you are observing photos. Having used my computer and phone, different photos stand out more on each. Viewing area is larger on a computer and thus pictures appear bigger, allowing for the subject to be smaller within an image and more background info/context overall. Photos where the subject was bigger caught my eye more than the others on mobile.
At the end of the day I think it’s important to recognize that while there is a winner there is no best or worst, art is subjective and appreciation lies within the eye of the observer!
I am amazed by the curiosity we ALL share, photo in the final 20 or no. The fun of sharing interests and viewing them with an eye for art exemplifies the human spirit.
I thought the lack of plants was by design. The original rules included: “must contain some form of wildlife, excluding humans.” Wildlife biology/photography is usually understood as being limited to studying/photographing animals. If it was worded as a “nature photography” competition, including “flora and/or fauna” for example, it would sound more welcoming of other groups such as plants, fungi etc. If that is the intent, rewording the rules in the future I think would result in a lot more non-animal submissions.
Since the 80s the definition of “wildlife” has expanded and plants are generally included in the term now:
Wildlife traditionally refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans.
Wildlife defined: For purposes of these guidelines, wildlife is defined as all forms of life that are wild (including plants, animals and microorganisms).
I’m aware of that, but not everybody is and with iNat being an international community I’m not sure every non-native speaker of English knows either. E.g. the translation for “wildlife” into German is “Tierwelt” - literally “animal world.”
