I Don't Stand A Chance...

I'm not entering or voting for anyone. Seems silly and useless to me to do so. Don't really disagree with anything you said.

I think that voting is a way to hone down the selections so the judge has an easier job of it. I suppose another alternative would be having us pay to enter. That would narrow the entries down, too. I'm pretty much ignoring the contest this time, as it is crazy-making. You may have answered your own dilemma with your last sentence, I'm afraid.

The 250 is meant to advertise FAA plane and simple.

While your recommendation has merit let's think about how much time would be required to go through 25 thousand images? How about 50k?

The reality is making people get 250 whittles down the number but it also demonstrates the willingness of the artist to do whatever it takes to get there...

not entering this time. I think I would just assume FAA staff pick the first cull of +/- 50ish images and post them for votes...but I would like to think they would pick from known artists and lesser known artists....of course that completely ignores all the reasons JC just mentioned!! oh well :o)

[dup]

I haven´t, and I never will beg for votes! Even if it would take only 1!

"demonstrates the willingness of the artist to do whatever it takes to get there..."

I get your point JC but isn't that also sort of an official invitation to game the system? I guess maybe in this case, what we think of as 'gaming' is actually in line with the business goals of FAA. Oh well.

I was part of a jury for my camera club. I sat through over 650 images. This was just to pick the "image of the year" for a camera club in a small town. First prize? $25.00 and bragging rights!

This is for a national TV spot. I think someone could put in the time to judge a bunch of entries. Even if they have to pay the judges. If they limit the entries to 1 per member that will cut down on the number to go through.

To me, asking people to beg for votes to pick finalist sounds a lot like the companies that want to use our images "for credit".

I don't beg for votes either. I know I'm shooting myself in the foot by not doing so, and I realize there's a visibility benefit for FAA if I did and that's good for everybody from a business point of view, but wowzer ... can't do it, lol!!! Never have. I always enter ... but I don't beg for anything. ANYthing.

Hum for the most part as stated this is to benefit FAA and that sums up the "contest".

Does anybody know what the winning image was last year?

I'll probably enter the contest, but not asking for votes! If people see my images and want to vote, fine, if not still fine.

John,

I really doubt there is an actual "contest". I would think that Sean already has the top 3 picked out. Why would he choose or allow, a "member" that might have no sales and only 23 images to win? He'll "allow" the winner to be a buddy of his and/or a top seller. Anne Geddes comes to mind and a few other "Nationally" known artist will win,

Rich

I have to agree with everybody here on the board, but, naïve as I was, I entered many, Now I wish I would not have wasted my time to go through ALL of the entries to vote for the ones I like. I am not asking or begging for votes either, In my opinion, you either like my art, or you don't.

Anne Geddes is the judge isn't she? (or did I read it wrong?)

I've also decided not to enter and not to vote.

Geddes will pick 3 winners out of those who have attained 250 votes. So if those 3 are the only ones, they win.

As JC touched upon, this is to raise views and get people to FAA and hope they stick around to buy something. If one sale is a direct result of this fiasco, It would be deemed a "success". It has nothing to do with talent at least until the voting ends.

The first one to reach 250 points was a photo of what the artist actually does, which is mixed media using license plates. The next two are both members of a Facebook artist's page that has over 15,000 "likes". Each promised prints of their images to "lucky winners" who voted.

There are some outstanding pieces with 0 votes and some real dregs with double digits and it all has to do with politicking to get people in.
I agree with John's suggestions of limiting it to one image per person and culling it to the top 100 instead of whoever gets 250 votes. I also think it needs an administrator just like the other contests to cull the non-photos, tiny thumbnails, etc. I also think it should be categorized. If you want to win with a landscape, enter the landscape commercial contest, for example.

I haven't entered and won't. I did find a stunning image of sunflowers that I voted on but damned if I can find it again.

Louise

Go to the contest, click the my contest tab and the one you voted for will be there, I think.

The contest is a sad joke. All the ones I voted on are arguable very good images. And they still sit there with only one vote. Mine. And finding anything good was a huge chore.

You were correct, JC Here it is:

http://fineartamerica.com/contests/national-tv-photo-contest-3.html?tab=vote&artworkid=12336912

Any contest that asks for votes in order to decide a winner is bogus IMO. The winner should be decided by the contest-runners, nobody else.

I dont mind entering contests, but im always at the bottom of the sea.
and always out voted, makes you feel dispondant.
and there's so many too vote for sometimes.
So not sure at the moment if in or out!!!!

To me, it has almost created a frenzy. I entered and then withdrew my entries when I started getting emails from people begging (the term used in the email) for votes. One was from a group administrator...reminding us of all those group features they had given us of our images... Then there was always a link to the contest in different groups...

I just looked at the leaderboard and was surprised at the ones who have already advanced to the jury round. I voted for that one that Louise pointed out. That was beautiful!

I begin voting again right after I make my next sale. Yes - I have images there - Yes - I have made a few votes. But I haven't been back to look in several days now - not much point - I don't belong to an artist group on facebook or anywhere else - might as well plan on going to Mars on the next flight out.

Not sure why anyone cares about this contest. I never even saw an FAA commercial, and no one I know ever has. Whats the big deal.
Its just marketing

@JC: did i understand you correctly that the person in the current no.1 spot on the leaderboard of this years contest, who has a total of 24 images online, has the #11 best seller of all time on FAA?

Bonfire Photography, I Googled and found the blurb to which I believe you are referring. Pretty disheartening.

Nope

The first artist to get 250 is though. They are not shown in the order they got there.

ah yes, misunderstood that.

For the record, the seller that has the 6 and 7 spot has 5 images.

They were in the top ten when they had 2.

are they recently joined members or did they join lets say more than 2 years ago?

No idea, I don't see that date on my droid.

All I know is the three I entered have not gotten many votes, but they have gotten a lot of views, I know most of those are going to be FAA members, but some have got to be from other people who have been "brought here to vote" but does Google care where those views come from, I mean it has got to help in some way right?!

Terry
tlmair.com

Menega: The two others that got onto the leader board are both members of a group of artists at Outer Banks, NC and both have been here since at least early 2014. Neither work was newly uploaded to FAA but they both are promoting the work on the Outer Banks artists group on Facebook with promises of prints to voters (as did the license plate guy).

God, I wish I had the time to go to California for 5 days. I also wish I had the time to freak out that someone else might get to instead of me. ....

There are plenty of things I'd rather do in California for 5 days then shoot an ad.

i dunno, Louise, i don't think in one case that promises are such a factor. the lady with the gorgeous sunrise has a very successful facebook page of her own with over 11.000 likes with daily sunrise shots (i hope this isn't name and shame, quite the contrary). when you are drawing from such a size fanbase you can certainly get things done.

"The artistic merit of your art does NOT matter even a little if you cannot get your art seen. This statement is true in this contest but more importantly it is true on the art market. You can have the best art ever made in the history of man but if you don't tell people about it or get it seen somehow it will NEVER sell.

Conversely, if you have art with no artistic merit whatsoever you can promote all day long and it will likely never sell. In this contest getting seen, ie getting the 250, will NOT win you the contest if your image sucks. "




But JC this is not a contest to sell art. It is a contest to promote FAA. It is about FAA "showing off" the quality work it has for sale. If your work has no artistic merit t shouldn't even BE in the finalist round.

In fact I'm not sure why it is a contest for 1 image. If the contest is to promote the fine work here on FAA it should be 10-30 of the best images here.

I looked at some of the work of the people that said they weren't going to bother entering or won't beg for votes and they had some GREAT images in their portfolio. Images that would market FAA quite well.

You keep saying "25,000 images". I assume that is based on everyone entering 3 images. If you cut it to 1 image that brings it down to about 8,5000 images. Still a TON to go through, no doubt. But like I said before I sat through over 650 images to pick the image of the year for a local camera club.

Again, making the people who enter the contest beg for votes to narrow down the pool sounds a lot like a company wanting to use one of our images "for credit".

The first thing we should ask (according to all the responses about a company wanting to use our work) is how much is the budget for FAA on this contest? They can pay 10 artist to go through 850 images each and assign it a value between 0-20. The top 10 from each judge can then go to the MAIN "judge" to pick the best (or the 10 best).


Again, this would be assuming FAA cares about what image actually ends up in the commercial. If they are concerned about showing the "cream of the crop" of what is for sale here. I think it is obvious they just want the attention, not the best of the best.

At the end there will be MANY that reach the 250++ goal. And many of them will be excellent.

Of course FAA cares about which image actually ends up in the commercial, Johnl. Of course they are concerned about showing the "cream of the crop" of what is for sale here.
That's why Anne Geddes has the final say.

Terry, I ve got my votes for you :) GOod Luck brother !!!
Great Hugs,

erhan

I'm about halfway to 250... I only put one photo in figuring I had a better chance... If I get that one in I may try a last minute try with another... I might try to tie it to a free print giveaway if they also signup for my mailing list... would help build that up as well... figure it doesn't hurt to try... but I'm not holding my breath :)

FineArtMarketingAmerica.com. FAMA.

I agree that anything over 100 - 150 images is too many to sort through. One image per entrant would help as would no name views by a non-interest vested panel of reviewers if there are images in the multiple hundreds. Some contests lend themselves to sub-categories so could be entered and/or sorted that way at the artist's preference or a panel's decision.

So, can anybody answer my original question? How do I send friends to vote here and not have them have to look for me,page after page?

Otherwise, it's a waste of my friends time and mine...........

Rich

Rich,

Left of the vote button there's a url link you can copy, it'll go directly to your image.

~Michel Soucy

From the home page

http://fineartamerica.com/contests/national-tv-photo-contest-3.html?tab=join&joinartworkid=3608135&page=1

go to My Contest and your images should be there.

Click on each image to get the URL to send out to followers, etc.

Thanks guys! I was looking for a "search" function! Will give this a try,

Rich

I changed my entry to this one: The most commented and 2nd most viewed piece in my portfolio. Also seems to be a favorite here. Pure photo, too - not one of my poainterly or drawing effects.

http://fineartamerica.com/contests/national-tv-photo-contest-3.html?

Wonder if this will get more votes than the others did?

I posted in this thread originally right under the OP then didn't come back until an hour or two ago. Now not only am I voting in the contest, I entered! Already getting some views to my FAA counter! The debate for entering v. not entering always came back to a simple question to myself: Why not?

Since when is a contest that gets the winners on a TV commercial not about selling?

Perhaps if this was simply a contest to pick the best photo on FAA these ideas might have merit. It is not.

The entire contest is designed to promote FAA and the artists that sell here. If you had a panel of judges then you would not have all the members posting links to FAA all over the WWW. These links lead to sales; some direct and some indirect.

Let's consider the direct sales first. Artist A sends out links all over social media. People come to the site to vote for him. Once they are here they think hey, this stuff is good and buy something. Perhaps artist A makes that sale or maybe now that the potential customers have found FAA they do a search for something they have been looking for anyway and artist B has just the right image and makes the sale.

How about indirect sales. Perhaps artist C hears about the contest through one of his friends and comes to vote then figures she will join and try the contest. She has wonderful art and while she doesn't win the contest she stays and becomes a solid seller. I saw this very thing happening after the first contest.

A simple truth is there is no single best photo on FAA. There is the best selling photo. There is the best photo in any particular artist's opinion. There is not a photo on FAA that every one of us would agree is the best. Not one.

When it comes down to it, Sean could have just picked three for the ad himself. He could have talked to his marketing team and had them pick them. He could have had the staff pick them. He could have simply taken the top selling photos.

No matter how the contest was run, someone would complain. Someone would put forth their opinion of how it SHOULD be done. Someone would say it isn't fair.

The entire contest is designed the way it is for a reason. You can pontificate about how YOU would run it. You can opine about how much better it would be if you were in control. The reality is that you could spend all day long on this thread but that will not help you sell. It will not get you 250. OR you can get 250 and get your art seen by the judge. But hey, if it makes you feel better, carry on.

Erhan, Thank you!

Terry
tlmair.com

I know that I have no chance because I do not use Facebook and Twitter. I only want my photos to be seen.

You and me Rudi, hell I need all the help I can get!!!

Terry
tlmair.com