And I'd be willing to bet that Spot would much prefer to win knowing that it was his excellent photography,

Spot didn't take the photo, he's in it. ;-) Another photographer is in it. IMO, at least one of the photos in the contest is faked, the others are not unique in any way.
Yes, I agree the best photo should win, but I probably look at this from a different perspective than some.
Wingsuits flying with the Space Shuttle Discovery is a fairly unique photo that not many folks could capture. IMO, part of the value of any image is based on the difficulty in obtaining the image, coupled with the artistic composition of the shot.
Whether skydiving is boring, for example, shouldn't be a consideration in looking at the image.
I personally feel the image is exceptionally well composed, and the photographic staff at USA Today made their opinion very clear in the print version of this image (there is no story that accompanies the image in the print or online version, but the staff does comment on various photos in the print version) They picked this image as their winner. And the staff doesn't know Spot.

Either way, I very much appreciate the tremendous show of support from the community. This was a moment in time not likely ever available to me, and I'm grateful to Scotty Burns (also a Vegas user) for having the talent to set up this shot (took several practice jumps) and the ability to capture it as he did.

Spot, you got my vote!

oh...and I also picked the skydiving photo as my favorite. ;)

Is it just me, or does the eagle look a bit 'photoshopped'? I somehow managed to get a 'shot-of-a-lifetime' of a bald eagle hunting for his breakfast here in Sacramento and that one just looks a bit cartoonish.
Probably just me.

Andrew

I think cbrillow is being naive if he's looking for fairness. You can bet that the other contestants are all marshalling votes for themselves - that's just the way things are in affairs such as this. Life's not fair but that's life and you have to live it or make the most of it regardless of all else.

Incidentally, VidMus might not have been aware of this competition were it not for Spot's thread. If that's so, why did he bother to vote when he would not otherwise have been uninvolved, especially when that vote is against a friend? Seems unnecessary to me.

Richard

> Is it just me, or does the eagle look a bit 'photoshopped'? I somehow managed to get a 'shot-of-a-lifetime' of a bald eagle hunting for his breakfast here in Sacramento and that one just looks a bit cartoonish.

Yea, that eagle and fish look like they came right out of Poser using DAZ Eagle 2. There isn't any wind effect anywhere. Not a feather out of place, not even on the leading edge of the wing. Not a single feather bending backwards against the wind around the tips. I don't know. It's very suspect.

~jr

Glad you said that JR. As soon as I saw it I did a double take. That must have been taken with some awesome lens / camera to get no MB.

Bob.

Hey, Doug........

I think you're in the lead...at least that's what the scoring bar looked like after I cast my vote...for you.

Good Luck!
James in Virginia

Wingsuits flying with the Space Shuttle Discovery is a fairly unique photo that not many folks could capture.
yeah...it probably doesnt happen every day (it's friggin brilliant)


Whether skydiving is boring, for example, shouldn't be a consideration in looking at the image.
yeah...skydiving is pretty boring (that is an oxymoron)

There are a lot of people that are envious of you Spot (especially the insecure ones), I wouldn't even bother responding to them if I were you.

A not-so-secret admirer,
Randy

Another vote(3086) from me , Spot.

With a lots of respect , u deserve it. good luck!

Thnx for your supporting Vegas.

Regardless of Spot being in the photo, I voted for Skydive. The timing involved to get that particular shot is pretty impressive. You essentially get one shot at it.

Actually, I am quite amazed that NASA would allow any planes in the vicinity of the shuttle during a launch, but you are still a good distance away.

The other pictures were quite good in their own right. Except for the eagle, that is. It just looks fake, nothing realistic about it at all.

Now, if you could get a picture of skydivers looking down on them with the shuttle coming up from underneath them.....

Al

I'm not the only one who is thinking that the eagle photo is not a real photo, am I?

Seeing the eagle shot before reading all these comments, I thought exactly the same thing. There's something odd about the photo. If it's not faked, then it's been worked over. It looks almost posterized.

Suppose the original post in this thread asked us to vote for a picture but did not say which one it is.

Even after inquiring the OP and the reply was 'Guess which one' though not logical but to make a point, which one would you all have voted for.

Which one would you have voted for not knowing which one the OP wanted you to vote for? I wonder if you all would have then voted for 'Skydive'?

I have seen these type of threads numerous times and what I do is go and look and vote for what I think is best. Sometimes it is the one that the OP is wanting everyone to vote for and sometimes it is not.

What I did is looked at all of the pictures and made a note of the ones I liked best. Then I looked at the ones I liked best several times and narrowed it down to the one I voted for.

I will not vote for a picture just because a certain someone is in it!

As to if others are also encouraging their friends to vote for their pictures, maybe so and maybe not. We cannot assume that is the case. We do know that IS the case here.

Finally, looking at the pictures and ignoring the captions. What does the picture itself say to you and how well does it say it? Judging only the picture(s) and not being influenced by what the caption or even the information here says what then would your vote had been?

The picture 'Overlook' pretty much says it all by itself. And that is one of the reasons why I voted for it. In the 'Skydive' picture you see something going up and we know from the description that it is the space shuttle. But can we see that from the picture itself? I can't.

Judge the pictures by the picture. Not according to who is in it and not according to the description.

Danny Fye
www.vidmus.com/scolvs

I don't know why they allow people to vote once a day if they have voted already, but so be it. Voted again.

John

Is that right John? - if so, I'm afraid this whole thing is a meaningless exercise.

Good luck to you Spot in all you do, but I'm sure you don't need dodgy accolades!!

Is that right John? - if so, I'm afraid this whole thing is a meaningless exercise.

Good luck to you Spot in all you do, but I'm sure you don't need dodgy accolades!!
===============
Apparently, but it is the same for all of the photos in the contest so in that respect they are all on equal footing.

Keep in mind that Spot is one of the skydivers and not the photographer. How could he be both?. He is understandably proud of the jump and the photo is excellent anyway what with the shuttle launch at the same time.
The fact that USA today made up stupid contest rules is not a reflection on Spot, the photographer, nor any of the photos. It is a reflection on USA today. If that is the way USA Today wants to run the contest, supporting the skydive photo means playing by USA Today's rules for equity amongst the choices. No one is forcing anyone to do this. My votes are to say, "You did an impressive job on that skydive Spot, and it was captured in a dramatic and memorable way by the photographer. Let's support the accomplishment".
I didn't start the thread to shame anyone who doesn't want to participate. I started it because I personally figured a lot of people here didn't know about it and that some people might want to support his accomplishment. I thought what he did was kind of cool.
I have the exact same respect for anyone who wants to participate as anyone who does not. And if you don't want to participate, I certainly don't assume that you don't appreciate the work he has done for us on the Vegas forums. Quite the opposite.

Everyone is entitled to see it as they see fit. So please don't anyone get the wrong idea about this thread.

John

It's definitely hard to grasp the scope of the shuttle shot from the tiny on-line photo that you see on the USA Today website. It's by far the largest landscape of any of the images with the smallest subjects in relation to the large landscape.
IMO, part of what makes a great photograph great is the difficulty required in order to take it. Anyone can photograph a tree, mountain, balloon (I think we all probably agree the eagle shot looks like a 3D rendering, it may be real, but definitely tampered with) and in this case, it took a lot of work, rehearsal jumps, planning (greaseboard and lots of walking around to envision the angles) because the shuttle was a fixed object moving so fast, only 6 frames total were possible, We're moving at approximately 100 mph (horizontal) and the shuttle is moving at approximately 3000mph vertical(no, that's not a typo). Timing was crucial. There is a reason that no one has ever before in history caught this sort of photograph, and it's highly unlikely anyone ever again will. There have been a total of 123 Shuttle launches since 1981, 15 of those have been night launches. A total lock-down of all flight operations in a 50 mile radius took place during many of the post 1990 launches, and there are only 8-10 more shuttle launches scheduled in the future. Of course that may change.
In short, the level of difficulty involved in this particular shot is astronomical, and I think we'd all agree that no one that any of us work with, could likely take this shot. Even the greatest three photographers in the freefall world (Norman Kent, Tom Sanders, Joe Jennings) haven't been able to capture this photo. A pro-amateur did, with the help of three friends who worked their butts off to be in the right place at the right nano-second.
Aside from the fact that I'm one of the people in the shot, I feel this image deserves to win on a number of levels.

I appreciate the critiques, I appreciate the support, but would also like to ask that the photograph be judged on more than simply it's presentation when using the web to judge it.
Seeing it on a 52" print is simply magnificent. Seeing it compressed to crap in a Flash presentation....just doesn't do it justice. Either way, if you can appreciate the artistic and technical aspects of the shot, great. The photography team at USA Today certainly did, if you can find Friday's edition of the newspaper, it's in there as a staff pick in addition to the online contest. If you don't care for the artistic or technical aspects, that's understandable too.
Mostly, I hope it wins for Scotty's benefit. I've already gotten as much out of the jump as I'm gonna get, but I'd like to see him acquire a better camera so he can step up a notch.
Thanks for the tremendous show of support, guys, It means a lot.

Hey John, I never doubted your intentions starting this thread, and I'm glad I got to see those pics, but it now seems this particular contest is not worth much.

I'd rather hear about a contest judged by a small panel of quality qualified people than these "pop-polls".

As you say, this has nothing to do with Spot's contribution to our community - that is already legend.

- and it is a great pic ....

Currently the Skydive photo is in second place behind Overlook. It has surpassed the Eagle photo.

John

The eagle is fake. The claws in the fish are so cartoonish it's laughable that they actually allowed it in the contest.

I voted for the skydive shot, not the prettiest photo but the best shot.

Got my vote!

Update:

The much deserved "Skydive" photo is currently leading at 34% steadily leaving the "Eagle" photo in the dust at 31%.

Still time to vote:

Voting ends this Tuesday Sept 16.

John

Great photo!