I think the competitions are just fine the way they are (yes, I am not completely a impartial, but I am still entitled to an opinion).
The photo that receives the most votes wins - this does not mean that the "best" photo wins, whatever your criteria are. Having the most popular photo win is fair, IMHO.
As for which photos make it into the final 10: of course this is subjective. Just keep entering, and remember to have fun!
In my opinion, on a limited-exposure forum, facebook page or the like, this concept is a massive, gigantic failure from the outset. Last year Canon's Expo's photography competition followed this format. While the winner per category was determined by votes collected from the expo, Facebook, their site and where ever else they might have displayed the top10 per category, the issue was that the top10 that actually made it to that stage were determined
exclusively by Facebook likes.
1. Post entries
2. Get all your friends and family and their friends and family, and a few fake accounts on the side, to vote your entries into the top10
3. ???
4. 1/10 chance that your photo ends up winning if those voting end up having to choose one turd over another
Consequently there were many entries that genuinely deserved to be in those top10 that simply never made the cut because the people that submitted the photos were being too modest and never once requested on their Facebook walls (openly, anyway) that people go vote for them. I know this because I Facebook stalked virtually all the entrants to see how things would pan out, because I have far too much time and
am creepy that way.
This year, however, the top10 (ie finalists) will be determined by a closed panel of judges, while the winner per category will be determined by the votes from the various galleries. This time, that means their expo (which last year had 12.5k or 13.5k people visit, and this year is likely to have even more people visit), three Galleries throughout Jo'Burg/Sandton, their Facebook page as well as their Expo gallery.
So while someone may be able to gather as much as a thousand votes via Facebook whoring, those thousand votes will need to weigh in against the thousand votes another Facebook-whoring entrant might have gotten in addition to the unbiased votes received from the various other avenues. This, especially, considering that multiple votes from the same person are not counted, only one per person. So at the end of the day last year's voting criteria certainly ended up choosing the 'most worthy' photo per category, but what determined their place in the top10 was simply broken.
So no, a system that works purely on a I-have-more-friends-than-you basis is flawed and should never be employed, as it is not fair in the least.
I considered not sharing my photos as I thought I had no chance and then I thought what the hell. However, there are some photos that I cannot possibly replicate with a camera phone as I have no ability to adjust shutter speed etc.
If you don't have one already, get ahold of a variable ND filter for your cellphone and get/make some way to mount it in front of your lens so you don't have to hold it in place all the time. Adjust the thing's strength until you slow your shutter to the speed you want. As you probably know, there's no point in trying to have a faster shutter speed if you can't capture enough light during that time. Your phone has a practical limit to how far it's going to take the ISO up, which you can hopefully control. If not, that sucks :/ time to get a cheap compact!
