Regular followers of this blog will recall that I asked for their assistance in choosing pictures to enter into the MS Ryndam’s photo contest for this cruise (H*E*L*P — Advice Needed). Passengers were allowed one entry in each of four categories. Those categories and the associated entries you helped me to select were:
Landscapes:
Guesthouse — The Bicycle
Objects:
Door Framed in Blue
People:
The Cell Phone Break
and Animals:
“Sure Hope Nobody’s Watchin’ This”
Results? Pretty good. You’ll recall that my first inclination for the people category was to enter this little gem, but you all overwhelmingly talked me out of it:
The Smoke Break
You were right and I was wrong. Your choice took first place. Thanks, readers.
Also in first was my entry for the Animals category.
Two out of four categories. I’ll take that as a win any day, thanks to you all.
Decisions — Murder in Paradise
The Globe — Murder in Luxury
R. Doug Wicker — Author 
Congratulations, twice, Doug. I must say, however, that in the people category your first instinct was right, and the readers who chose the photo you entered instead, and the prize judges, were both wrong. The photo you chose is about people, the image your readers and the judges preferred is about shape and composition and color — and about depersonalization. It tells us nothing about even one person, never mind mind several, while the photo of the smoke break tells a volume. Not that there is anything new in prize juries preferring the glossy and striking over the meaningful and deep; it’s a symptom of metropolitan alienation. Of course, this is unfair to the judges, who weren’t offered the opportunity to choose the smoke break photo… Who knows, they might have done the right thing. (Not betting the house on it though!)
Thanks, André.
I went with my readers’ choice for a very simple reason . . . two reasons, actually. First, the judges were the passengers themselves, who voted on the entries, rather than professional photographers. Second, I did ask for assistance in choosing, and it would be rather unseemly to then override my readers’ collective judgments to submit the B&W study. If I had been displaying before a jury of professional judges, I’d have gone with my first instincts and not even asked the question.
As it turns out, my readers chose correctly based upon the judging pool, and I’m grateful that I listened.
You put it like that, it turns out to be smart to have asked the question, and to have listened! Congratulations again.