It's time to vote for the winners of the 2008 photo contest

Wow, that was fun. I did not think when I started the other day that I would be able to manage to vote in every category, but I just finished..... Amazing wonderful images. This becomes a calendar? Lovely if so.......

Hi Kylaluaz
Yes, it will become a calendar.
Here is a link to the calendar from last years contest
http://www.zazzle.com/daves_garden_2008_calendar-158569453518060810

Thanks. I trust there will be an announcement when the 09 calendar is ready?

Thanks for the link, Garden Guy. What an awesome calendar; the photography is breathtaking just like so many of this year's photos too. .

Kin, thanks for the link, I just saw it finally...I couldn't see it last year, don't know why...but I knew all the pics, of course! It's gorgeous !
Can't wait to see the new one!
Adina

GardenGuyKin, your photos look great on the calendar as do the others. I love the way you are able to drag your computer mouse over the photos on the calendar (by month)and than you are able to move around the closeups on the right. A real diversion after I have been up all night working to identify a tree for the PlantFiles! :o)

Your Welcome!
Glad you could finally view it, Adina. I'm also anxious to see this years winners in the calendar.
Htop, I too like the close up view option. I also know the feeling of identifying!!
I lost my external hard drive this summer and just got it fixed last week. Been going through 100's of photos and adding them slowly but surely into the PlantFiles.

Oh, I wanted to look at the photos in last year's calendar at that link, but could not find where to go inside to see anything but the cover, can anyone give me a hint? Thanks!!!!!

Kylaluaz if you click or drag on the months under the caladar they will pop up http://www.zazzle.com/daves_garden_2008_calendar-158569453518060810

Thanks. For some reason my computer does not show the months. It's okay, I can forgo this pleasure. ;-)

Is there a way to go in and find all the pics that you entered so you can mark them so you won't enter the same ones next yr.? Thanks BEV

uh oh. I saved the orginal entry thread so I would know but it's been replaced with the voting thread so I'm guess I'll save them in a folder in my puter.

I don't remember all that I entred. Guess I am just out of luck huh?

Unless you want to go back through all the catagorys LOL. I'm still not finished voting. Stuck on wildlife and birds. It's sooooooo hard.

Whew! Finally done! Only took me a week. :)

I have to say, I've never had to eliminate so many great shots! Agonizing to get some of the categories down to 3!

Thanks, Dave, for all the work you and your folks do on this each year. It's so much fun to see all the photos, even if my eyes are crossing by the time I'm done.

Deb

I finally finished also. It was very hard to eliminate all of the beautiful pictures; it got to the point where I just had to keep the best ones that "talked" to me. LOL

So, I've been looking at the pics so long they started talking.

April

I created my list of the ones I have already entered into the contests each year. What I did was go back to the first year I started entering photos. Going to my Member Page, I clicked on "Extras" located on the second line at the top.

After that, I scrolled down to "Dave's attic" and clicked on " Dave's Garden Photo Contests".

Next, I clicked on a year and listed all of the categories. Then, I clicked on the first category for that year, such as "Domestic Pets and Animals".

Then, I clicked on "Click here to view all entries in this category." After that, I went up to the top of the page and selected "Edit" and pulled down to "Find". I typed in my DG nickname in the space at the bottom left of the page (using Fire Fox), found my first entry and wrote down what it was in this category on my list.

Then, (using Fire Fox), I clicked on "next" at the bottom left of the page. You could go back up to the menu bar at the top of the page, select "Edit" and pull down to "Find Again". (Using Internet Explorer, go to the menu bar at the top of the browser, click on "Edit" and pull down to "Find on this page". A screen appears where you type in your DG nickname. Then, click on "next" to find your first entry and then "next" to find your second entry, etc.) My next entry was found for me. I wrote down this entry for this category. I did this for each category for each year that had already been voted upon.

I also checked out the winners and listed any of my photos that won a place or honorable mention. If you did not keep a record of what you entered for this year, you are able to go back and find tour entries after the winners are announced. I hope this procedure helps anyone find their entries if they need to do so.

Gosh, I just wrote down what I entered on a piece of paper and put it in the desk drawer. High tech here!

htop, Thankyou. I will try this because it only tells me that I am finished and just shows me the three that I picked in each catagory. I will try this today and let you know if it works for me. Thank goodness I only have this yr to go through. BEV

gonna enter this puppy next year!
Just finished in the container section!!! wow! I have to get me some of those!
Martha

The voting was so much easier this year than in years past. Not the chosing which ones to vote for...oh no....just the process. I too need to enter this next year!

roybird, I had not been efficient enough to kept a copy of my entries in the past contests so I had to figure out a way to find them that was quick and easy so I would not mistakenly enter a photo this year that I had already entered last year. I wished I had written them down each year.

dragonfly62, you will not be able to find them in this year's contest until the winners are announced because the entries do not have our DG names accompanying the photos during the voting period.

Sheila_FW, you have some great photos to enter next year. I will try to remember to contact you to remind you when next year's contest begins.

htop, Was going to say it did not work for me when I saw your post. Thanks Bev

htop you're soooooooo good. LOL I'm soooooooo nontechie. But what I am doing is write them down as I'm viewing so I can store them in a separate puter folder.

dahlianut, I am sooooooo happy that this has been of help to you. ;o) P am sort of a techie ... right now I am transferring all of my data (mainly plant photos and plant information documents from 2 of our computers to my new computer that my husband built for me via our cordless computer network. My old computer is about to crash and burn. Just to get it running ... I have to hit the start button and when Windows does not start up, I have to shut it down. Then, I have to repeat starting and downing the machine about 17 times before Windows finally loads. I leave it on for days because it is so hard to start and fearing that it may never start back up.

Drat! Those bulbous photographers are good. I might not make my top 20 :(

LOL. I thought I had entered a couple of good shots. Then as I was looking through categories I had "narrowed down" to about 30 choices, I realized they were all better than the ones I had entered. I wouldn't have made my cut either, Dahlianut! :)

I'm not a photographer at all,but it is really tough to judge the photos.Most are beautiful pictures and some of them require quite an artist's eye and imagination.There's a lot more to it than just a pretty picture.Kudos to those who entered!!!

Sometimes it comes down to the opportunity of the situation when the pics were snapped. Those shots can't be matched.

Having been away for 5 days and w/o a computer for most of that time, I'm just catching up. Because my Internet isn't particularly fast it's slow going - especially if the pictures reorder themselves after I eliminate one. Once I get them down to 30 or fewer in each catalogue, I'm saving all the pics to my hard drive. Then I can look at them with my photo software which is MUCH faster. Renaming them will put them in my preferred order and once I've finally decided on 3, I'll go back and finish my vote.

There are only a very few of my own submissions left in my voting. Hard to subject them to the same criteria I use for all the others, but I try.

Ann

Welcome home ViolaAnn. Hold that thought on the reorder/back to the top thing when you eliminate one. I think Dave will start a thread next year before the contest for feedback (like this year) and it's also slowing me down and maybe others and may be fixable. I'm going to watch for the contest thread in the DG forum next year and I'll send a ping when it starts.

Viola Ann. I hate to disappoint but the voteing is over. The winners will be announced on the 17th. So sorry if you didn't get them all in. BEV

Voting ends on the 16th. Its all good. I've been in the voting matrix all day. dragonfly62 are you funnin?

I do appologize I guess I went to sleep. I got mine done so early something threw me off. Must go to bed and regroup. Sorry please forgive. No I don't fun like that. I wouldn't do that to anyone. I will be alright tomorrow. HUGS BEV

That's better. You had me worried for awhile. Would have been a lot of wasted time. Glad there is still time. I WILL try to watch for the discussion next year and raise that point. Meanwhile, I guess I should have another good look before I hit the sack. Still a bit jet-lagged. And this week is busy with a few other things and rehearsals all weekend; so I need to finish up the voting.

Ann

No worries dragonfly62. At least your didn't get stuck in the voting matrix like I do ^_^. Sleep well ViolaAnn. ok I'm going back in. I WILL decide the bugs before I sleep... miles to go before I sleep.... It's very Robert Frostish isn't it?

Good morning,

Well, the really hard work begins now. I'm down to between 5 and 18 choices in every category. Time to start making some really tough choices. In the pets area, I feel like a really cold-hearted person every time I eliminate a photo of someone's beloved furry friend and I still have to get rid of 10 more.

The other thing I need to mention to Dave next year is the size of the photos as they show. I found the thumbnails didn't show enough detail; so I downloaded each pic. Many of them are too large to view in their entirety (I have a 19" monitor) w/o scrolling; so it's difficult to get a feel for the composition of the entire photo. That's another real advantage of viewing them with my photo software - I can see the whole picture at once all the time.

Ann

Ann, I never did the thumbnail option, took too long. Did you try the first option where you scroll through each full sized one?

Ann--it probably has to do with how you've set the resolution on your monitor. I was able to view most of the pictures full size without having to scroll (and if I did have to scroll, it wasn't very far and I could see most of the pic without it). And I have a much smaller screen than you do.

Calif_Sue - I tried both ways, but decided that scrolling through each full-sized one worked best.

I suppose I could try resetting the resolution, but I'm sure it would have repercussions on other things I do on the computer; so I think I'll leave it alone.

Anyway, all the finalists are saved to my hard drive and I can quickly view them. Just have to get them down to three. I still wish we could vote for our top FIVE.

This message was edited Nov 12, 2008 8:18 PM