Be Excellent To Each Other

No, the answer is "Go down the shops and buy some red and stop cocking about with CGA"

Well, so far I have nul points. Right, that's it. It'll be £2 per photo for Contest V.

Don't worry, I haven't picked up a single vote in the last three contests

I was wondering about this. I wonder if Mimi wants to go through yet another poll of votes per person?

Or a eurovision style voting system assigning 5 points for your fave, 3 for 2nd and 1 for third. Grim....'s going to love me.

I accidentally voted for someone who wasn't me. Whoops! So add one to my vote count when we're done.

I would love a system like that. There have always been a handful of photos I'm forced to choose between so far.

Hi.

There is a reason why it is set to one vote per person, mathematically speaking.

If people were to be allowed, say two votes each, and there were, for example three entries, A, B and C.

If ten people think of A as their favourite and C as their second favourite, and so vote A & C, and ten people think B as their favourite and C as the second favourite and so vote B & C, then A receives ten votes, B receives ten votes, and C wins with 20 votes, despite nobody actually thinking it is the best picture.

I know that is a rather simplistic example, but I learned at school that it is an unfair way of polling to find a favourite.

The other fair way to do it would be as Dimrill suggests, with a Eurovision style points system. I'd be happy to do this, but we wouldn't be able to have an actual integrated poll, as although you can set polls to have X number selectable options, you cannot set an order of preference as far as I know.

If we did this I'd ask everyone to put their votes in bold so that I could easily see and compile them at the end of the voting.

I am interested to hear people's thoughts on these ideas, or any other options people can think of, and I will put a poll up after the vote for this fortnight's challenge is over (so on Thursday, so as not to cramp the place, though I know we all like a poll.)

Sorry if it takes me a few hours to get back to anyone requesting the password, etc today, I have been travelling to Lancaster and am just getting re-acquainted and settled, and I am a bit overtired, so everything is taking me an age.

I am going to have a coconut beer.

I understand, Mimi; I don't think giving multiple votes equal weight would be the right approach, but Dimrill's suggestion would be excellent if it could be implemented without hassle. Maybe there's a board plugin for it, rather than doing it all manually?

Yes.

As I say, I do not mind doing it manually, but if there was a plug-in then that would be great.

I'll stick a poll on the board in a couple of days either way.

Cheers, Nynfortoo

Some random comments on a few of the ones I liked:

03 - a great subject, and particularly nifty that they bird is eating a nut. Must have been a lot of time to get just the right shot. Was this shot for the contest? The leaves look very autumnal. Compared to the other pics, I think this would be better to have the colours punch up a bit in Photoshop or similar -- it looks a little muted when places next to, e.g., 08 and 09.

05 - I'm a sucker for macro shots in general, and this is a well executed one I think. How is that pad so clean though? It looks like it's never been used!

07 - I'm intrigued as to how this was shot. Great idea.

08 - this is the one I voted for. I think it's lovely but I don't know why. Something to do with the impressively vibrant colours and the contrasting textures of the paper and backdrop I think (can't work out if they are bricks or wooden blocks).

09 - I actually turned away from this one slightly because it's such a slick shot it looks like something you'd see in a professional clipart magazine. It's clearly the frontrunner in the voting, which is interesting, as an ultra-polished pic won the Lines contest too. I guess we are collectively settling on a taste. However, can you take a polished photo of degeneration? It's an interesting question.

11 - great subject: how long did it take, and how much did all those Skittles cost?!

14 - is this a real shot or did you pose the red flower? It's a great pic -- my second favourite, perhaps even the one I should have voted for -- and has had disappointingly small number of votes I think. Even if the red flower is posed it must have been a lot of work to find that patch of flowers; if the red flower was really there that's a great find.

Number eight got my vote, too. It just made me smile, and that was exactly what I needed that day. It looks like painted wood in the background. The simple stick figure was in such contract to the bold background colours, I think it was just lovely.

I do agree that the pool/billiards photo is by far the most professional, and I think a deserved winner (that's not confirmed yet, but with an hour and a half to go, it looks likely.)

I voted for number 14. There are some really nice photographs to choose from and a couple made me smile, but 14 actually made me smile and evocked a nice feeling at the same time, it made me feel good to look at it. - I'm more emotive with my voting that critiquing about technique. Well done to all of the entrants though.

Anyone who has not yet voted, this poll closes in an hour.

I'm off to bed but the poll will close automatically at midnight. Do you care about the vote? Well you should! It is the duty of all excellent people who like looking at pretty pictures to have an opinion, and it's never raining at this polling station. With that in mind, you should care about the democratic process, which is all a long winded way of me asking you to please pop by this thread and vote in the poll to find the best way of voting for the photography challenge. That's right, I am asking you to vote on voting. I will send you a kiss and a biscuit if you do.

Thankyou.

Own up time, who did what? Mine was number 01. No votes, damn all your eyes!

Mine was number twelve. No votes for me!

I am a name not a number.

But 6 was me, huge thanks to the beardy beer club people who would have known this fact but kept quiet.

6 is the ceiling of Shunt, the bar in London set in disused parts of the underground lines at London Bridge, I'll dig out some additional shots. I'm almost wet with pleasure over 2nd considering that (no joke) that shot was taken standing on the edge of a not very stable milk float, 50 feet underground, whilst drunk.

This milk float in fact...

Mine was no. 9. Cheers for all your votes

Are those BETEOers in that pic, Dudley?

As people volunteer which where their pics, I will edit the gallery at Eggwan to make the titles show who each pic was and how many votes it had. This will make my job a bit easier when I come to write it up for the fabled Site.

Congrats feller. It's a very professional pic!

Well done Nynfortoo and Dudley. Nynfortoo, I think that yours was a deserved winner, it is indeed a lovely shot. I had an inkling that it might be yours only because I have seen some of your wonderful photography before and know it is quite wonderful. The picture in your avatar, especially. Dudley, I actually thought that yours was the stick man picture, or that was the picture from a beardy outing in any case, maybe the Cardiff one.

Photo 11 looks like some skittles vodka is in production.... Am I right?

Thanks, Richard & Mimi. I disagree about the professional comment! But perhaps that's just me never being happy with my work.

I appreciate your critique, too, Mimi, but the pocket being present in the corner was intentional. I tried it without, but then you didn't get the diagonal line from the cue, and the whole thing felt a bit static. It does tend to steal your focus, though, so it isn't without its downsides.

Yes, it does draw the eye a bit, it's s shame it is just so dark in that corner, but I guess it is the nature of the table. I was going to as if it was a child's set, the pool balls looked very small, or the cue very large

Also, it does look very professional, but in a very, very nice way.

I want to know who owns all of those dice...

Well done nynfortoo! A great shot.

Also well done to Dudley. Beardy Beer Outings rule!

I'm no2, with 2 votes ooh.

Also, Dudley what the flying fuck has Grim... got on his feet in that shot?

It isn't a child's set, but the balls are smaller than they should be, I think. I don't know, to be honest — it's my brother's table, and I've never played on it. But I didn't have any time to go out looking for primary colours, so I just set up a scene at home and took my time.

Those would be bowling shoes.

'kin clown shoes. He's all in drab browns and khaki colours, your eyes scan down to his feet, which cause an epileptic fit through the COLOURS AND SHININESS.

I still want to know what no.7 is. It's so soothing.

I still want to eat no.11.

Which was yours, Mimi? I don't think you've mentioned yet.

Sorry, I never saw this before. That was mine. The pad, though is not. I had a look about my house but wasn't really able to find anything with primary colours in. I cringe to say that I have a lot of pink stuff, but I do - pink and sage green seem to be in abundance, with white. Anyway, all i could find was the buttons my XBox pad, but my controller is pink, so I asked my brother to pop into my flat next time he was passing and bring one of their XBox controllers with him as I gave my original to the twins, so that is actually the XBox controller of a 13 year old XBox addict. But I have never seen a dirty controller, so I don't know what you do with yours. I know that Dimrill likes to covered his with a projected rainbow, but I prefer not to have the smell of vomit emanating from my game of Viva Pinata...

Oh, Nynfortoo, I clicked to submit, so there's your answer. It is 'borrowed controller in front of old black cardigan'. I like the way the cardigan worked in the background - it sucked in the light more than I thought it would.

Hah, I'm not that bad. But mine do have a fair amount of that grey greasy stuff that collects on anything you handle a lot, accumulated in the cracks on the moulding. It's best not to speculate on what that grey stuff is.

I'd kinda assumed that had been lightly 'shopped as it is so perfectly black. That's come out really well.

Ah, excellent. I thought you'd just singled the controller out using the flash, but the light told a different story. I'd never have guess you'd used a cardigan.

The guys in the front are, as others said, the guy in the bowling shoes is the one and only Grim..., I believe that's squirt next to him.

The other day I turned over my xbox pad for the first time since the whisky incident, to find great whacking clods of the stuff where my fingertips rest. It's horrible.

Incidentally, here's the entrance to shunt.

Is this not the best way into a bar ever?

Grim... is an entrance?!

Damnit, I KNEW someone would get there before I fixed it.

No, there was no flash and no photoshopping, either. I didn't want the controller to look too white so had the light source in front of me, being shielded by the back of the chair that the cardigan was hanging over (with the pad n the seat of teh chair). The only light was the diffused light f the room. I think the cardigan is one of those polyamide (sp?) and microfibre things which keep their colour really well, but also don't seem to reflect any light - still, it worked better than I thought and I was very pleased with it as I didn't want it against a white background because I wanted the lighter colour of the pad to catch the eye.

Someone in a post a page or so ago mentioned the analogue stick in the corner. I left that in rather than shooting from a different angle or zooming/cropping in tighter on the buttons alone because I wanted to put it in context, but didn't think it overwhelming as the grey provided a nice halfway tone between the light pad and very dark background, so I thought it rather neutral to the two and wanted the narrower depth of field to throw the foreground stick out of focus to give it a bit of depth, which it was lacking in the pictures that only showed the buttons. That was my thinking behind it, anyway - whether it worked or not, I do not know.

I did consider entering this photo which I did originally take for the challenge:
but just changed my mind for some reason.

So, where was the picture of the green bird taken?

I love all the effort people describe they went to with light sources and the like, whereas my entire thought into the process was "ooh! red" followed by some exceptionally poor balancing and pressing random buttons on my camera to make it no blur too much when all the blur was the result of a)drunkeness and b) a milk float with dicky suspension rather than anything on the camera in the first place.

Made more difficult by the fact that, obviously, couldn't use flash.

That's the milk float again, dumbass.

I was the skittles guy, yes it took ages to sort them, and yes they were for Skittles vodka, but (whoops) I forgot it couldn't be an old picture, so I'm glad no-one voted.

More Skittlage here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/grim/sets/ ... 263871039/

It tastes great, btw.

Refresh, I fixed it in seconds, long before you posted.

I recognised it, but Grim... refused my offer of a vote for money. Bah.

I knew someone ad made skittles vodka before, but didn't know who it was and didn't know this was the same person who entered the picture.

Does it actually taste fruity and sweet?

Yes - it tasted of skittles. You could drink it like a soft drink, and then you fell over, because (of course), it's just pure vodka.

It's best to take out one of the colours beforehand though, isn't it? Else it goes a funny colour (unless you're making individual Skittle flavoured vodkas). I know that myoptika has made it before, along with many other flavours (including Love Hearts, Tangfastics, Fruit Salads etc).

I have drunk Grim...'s skittle flavoured vodka, and it is indeed delightful.


Mine was number 3, and it is indeed one of the South London Parakeet Massif, outside my house in a plum tree, eating a plum.

I love that we have wild parakeets in London - we have them in all of my local parks in London. I heard that they are spreading to a few other areas of the country now, but I thought it may well have localised the picture a little to the London area

Yes, I think you take out the green one, or it goes brown. But making them individually is best, obv.

Oh, yes, I thought the sorting was for individual coloured vodkas. I doubt I'd try it though, but it looks fun.