Eric212Grapher wrote:
The website is called Modelmayhem. The key part of that domain name is the model. The very much part of the requirements to obtaining a profile on this site is to submit images of human models.

Portraits are a tried and true artform. Capturing the beauty of some models makes for an image people are drawn to.

Images of wildlife can be compelling, but probably do not represent the interest of the voters who are here to work with other people. Sure, if a model has a pet gator, I'm interested in capturing that close knit relationship.

I don't think you understood what I wrote. I talked about creativity and then you start talking about wildlife? As I wrote in my post then lots of photographers are creative with their human models. It just never show in the POTD.

Photo77photo wrote:

I don't think you understood what I wrote. I talked about creativity and then you start talking about wildlife? As I wrote in my post then lots of photographers are creative with their human models. It just never show in the POTD.

"Just for fun and to be creative I tried to take a picture of a gator who looks at some 20 dollar bills I pulled up from my wallet while I was in Shark Valley. It got 3 votes and only 2 images was below that."
https://www.modelmayhem.com/contests/po … iew/762463

Being creative with non-models is not necessarily what most of the voters are looking for in these contests. Some may be voting for the prettiest girl. Some may be looking for the best lighting. Some may only vote for natural lighting. Some may vote for only brunettes. One theme does tie all of these together - models.

What you deem creative may differ from what other deem creative. The voters will vote on what they like, regardless of whether you find the artwork creative or not.

Eric212Grapher wrote:

"Just for fun and to be creative I tried to take a picture of a gator who looks at some 20 dollar bills I pulled up from my wallet while I was in Shark Valley. It got 3 votes and only 2 images was below that."
https://www.modelmayhem.com/contests/po … iew/762463

Being creative with non-models is not necessarily what most of the voters are looking for in these contests. Some may be voting for the prettiest girl. Some may be looking for the best lighting. Some may only vote for natural lighting. Some may vote for only brunettes. One theme does tie all of these together - models.

What you deem creative may differ from what other deem creative. The voters will vote on what they like, regardless of whether you find the artwork creative or not.

No, the voters can only vote for the images available. That is obvious. And when there are no creative images available they can't vote for that which is also obvious. That is why I wrote this post in the first place to criticize the lack of creativity in the images that are available in the competition. Specially because there are lots of creative images on many photographers and models own mm site.

Hunter  GWPB wrote:
What people vote for is subjective.  There is nothing you can do about it.  Photos range from excellent to poor.  There is nothing you can about it.  Photos are not prescreened to meet some type of standard in skill or creativity, only too determine adherence to the rules.  There is nothing you can do about it,

However, there is something you can do.  You can submit excellent and creative photos and try to win a following for your style and skill set and set a standard that others want to meet.  Thereby raising the level of the images in contest.  If you win an otherwise meaningless contest, good for you.

What a bunch of nonsense. If all people had your thinking then nothing would be done. Then all of us could sit and look while we said nothing can be done about it. Of course people can vote on whatever they wanna vote for that is obvious, but I just say it would be nice to see some more creative work in the competition since there are lots of it on many MM profiles.

Photo77photo wrote:

No, the voters can only vote for the images available. That is obvious. And when there are no creative images available they can't vote for that which is also obvious. That is why I wrote this post in the first place to criticize the lack of creativity in the images that are available in the competition. Specially because there are lots of creative images on many photographers and models own mm site.

What is it you are suggesting to be done? Force people with creative images to submit to the contest. suspend their accounts if they do not wish to participate in the contest?

Perhaps you'd like to be the review committee of one who solely decides what is or is not creative. The latter being rejected for the contests, and the former be given an extra 50 votes?

Or should we void voters' ballots that do not select only creative images, and merely cast a vote for a beautiful portrait? Do this too many times, and have their ability to vote "incorrectly" totally removed?

Yes, I realize you never stated any of those extreme positions, but what is it that you really think needs to be done to change the POTD/POTD18+ contests?

Eric212Grapher wrote:

What is it you are suggesting to be done? Force people with creative images to submit to the contest. suspend their accounts if they do not wish to participate in the contest?

Perhaps you'd like to be the review committee of one who solely decides what is or is not creative. The latter being rejected for the contests, and the former be given an extra 50 votes?

Or should we void voters' ballots that do not select only creative images, and merely cast a vote for a beautiful portrait? Do this too many times, and have their ability to vote "incorrectly" totally removed?

Yes, I realize you never stated any of those extreme positions, but what is it that you really think needs to be done to change the POTD/POTD18+ contests?

MM has over 1 million members. I have no idea how many of them are photographers. But what I do know is that only very few of them submit their photo to the POTD contest, since the average number is around 20. So I encourages all the creative photographers to submit their photos so it takes the competition to a high level. That´s all then people can take it or leave it.

Photo77photo wrote:
MM has over 1 million members. I have no idea how many of them are photographers. But what I do know is that only very few of them submit their photo to the POTD contest, since the average number is around 20. So I encourages all the creative photographers to submit their photos so it takes the competition to a high level. That´s all then people can take it or leave it.

First of all MM has a fraction of the 1 million members left, and most now are photographers.  The problem with the contests are that they ooze apathy, from the site owners, mods, photo submitters, and finally those that take the time to vote.  It is a losing cause.

Photo77photo wrote:
What a bunch of nonsense. If all people had your thinking then nothing would be done. Then all of us could sit and look while we said nothing can be done about it. Of course people can vote on whatever they wanna vote for that is obvious, but I just say it would be nice to see some more creative work in the competition since there are lots of it on many MM profiles.

My post was a bunch of nonsense?  Please point out what I said that was factually wrong?  The problem is not that I was wrong but that you want other people to do what you want done.

Despite what you think, there is something that can be done and I suggested YOU do what can be done because the only person you have any control over is yourself.  So, if you want to sit around and be apathetic and do nothing that is fine,  Or you can try to start a movement by leading by example.  When the POTD+female became a contest that was based on displaying the female genitalia, people notice what it would take to win the contest.  There was a guy that started a thread on it because he was winning so much.  Therefore, if he could do it, why can't you?

If all the people had your kind of thinking, we would be sitting around doing nothing until someone made us do something they wanted.  Ain't gonna happen.  So, either way we are sitting around.  You want something done, get off your ass and do it!

Personally, I am not interested in investing what I have to invest to enter a meaningless contest and win it.  Nor am i interested in entering a contest that would incorporate your esoteric rules of creativity?  What the hell is creativity when it has to be codified to someone else's standards?

Photo77photo wrote:
No, the voters can only vote for the images available. That is obvious. And when there are no creative images available they can't vote for that which is also obvious. That is why I wrote this post in the first place to criticize the lack of creativity in the images that are available in the competition. Specially because there are lots of creative images on many photographers and models own mm site.

People post what they want to post. People vote for what they like. There is no criteria for the POTD contest other than the images are required to meet the general MM regs for work safe images. Images are judged based on the subjective whims of the viewers. It doesn’t matter how creative the shots are, or how technically proficient the creators lighting and composition are. The voters post and choose what they want. I’m not understanding why this concept is difficult for you. It seems to me,  to be a most peculiar hill to want to die on.

Photo77photo wrote:
PS. I have nothing against portraits, but the creativity in the portraits when it comes to the POTD contest is just missing completely.

You've been on here since 2018, and are a VIP paying member?  You have only posted 6 times in the forums with 5 times being this thread to complain about the lack of creativity in the POTD contest?  I'm really missing something here.

Photo77photo wrote:
I have no idea ..

I have a great idea for you.  Try posting something in the "Critique" section of the forums.

Hunter  GWPB wrote:

My post was a bunch of nonsense?  Please point out what I said that was factually wrong?  The problem is not that I was wrong but that you want other people to do what you want done.

Despite what you think, there is something that can be done and I suggested YOU do what can be done because the only person you have any control over is yourself.  So, if you want to sit around and be apathetic and do nothing that is fine,  Or you can try to start a movement by leading by example.  When the POTD+female became a contest that was based on displaying the female genitalia, people notice what it would take to win the contest.  There was a guy that started a thread on it because he was winning so much.  Therefore, if he could do it, why can't you?

If all the people had your kind of thinking, we would be sitting around doing nothing until someone made us do something they wanted.  Ain't gonna happen.  So, either way we are sitting around.  You want something done, get off your ass and do it!

Personally, I am not interested in investing what I have to invest to enter a meaningless contest and win it.  Nor am i interested in entering a contest that would incorporate your esoteric rules of creativity?  What the hell is creativity when it has to be codified to someone else's standards?

Yeah, and it only took like what, a year or two to get them to change the rules for the 18+ contest

I agree with this. If you want to see more creative images in the contest by all mean, start submitting them yourself. I've seen a few pretty creative shots every now and then and if they're really cool, I vote for them. I thought this recent win in the 18+ female contest was pretty creative: https://www.modelmayhem.com/contests/po … iew/378044

It also kind of depends on what you consider creative. And as some of the other commenters have said, it is a modeling website, so people are going to tend to vote for the images that have models. The more abstract images don't tend to do well, from what I've seen. But if there was a really cool one, who knows. Some of my more creative shots never do well, but I submit them every once in a while anyway. Here's a couple of examples:

https://www.modelmayhem.com/contests/po … iew/759140
That one usually comes in around the middle of the pack.

https://www.modelmayhem.com/contests/po … iew/754869
Placed 6th out of 22, so not terrible.

JagCanonist wrote:
😊
This is very interesting.
If you look at winners, it is very rarely the best picture that wins..
But clearly the girl who shows the most of herself... Checked the technical details and picture ....
The technical level of the winners can be very low,  only the girl is pretty and dares to show everything...
This applies to both categories for girls...
But in guys' pictures, it's very rarely like that.

That does happen every so often, but these days I think most of the winning shots are pretty decent shots. Are they always the most artistic shots? No. But I don't see many blurry, poorly framed, poorly lit, or low resolution images winning in either contest. I do think you're right about people still voting not only based on the artistic value of the image, but on the model, but I think it's more about which model is most attractive in that specific shot rather than which is showing the most.

You could have a very unattractive model (by societal standards) showing more than any of the others and I think they'd be less likely to win than the model who is stunningly beautiful but doesn't show as much skin. And yes, I understand attractiveness is somewhat relative, but most people (especially men) agree on general levels of attractiveness and some of that has to do with the model's hair and makeup, or the pose, or any number of other factors in a specific photo. Just what I've noticed over the years.

Rev Reynolds wrote:
It's a joke. The POTD contest should be called PHOTOS OTHER THAN DISPLAYED OR PROMOTED OUTSIDE THE DOMAIN. It's clearly a vote-begging tournament with the dumbest friends.

That has been true for some. I've actually been messaged by other ModelMayhem members trying to bribe me into voting for their images by offering "naughty" photos of themselves in exchange. That's against the rules and I know of at least one time that the mods shut down an account that was doing that.

But I've also been told by the mods that there is no rule against just simply asking people to vote for your photo. I don't do that personally, because anything that would skew the votes unfairly would be considered cheating in my book, but there are some who do. I have let the model know that one of her shots is in the contest that day a few times, and she can vote for it if she would like.

Photo77photo wrote:
POTD contest is a joke

You've been on this site for five years and you just now figured this out? I pretty much realized this my first week here.

there are over 1 million members in here

Not active there aren't. I'd be willing to bet that active members are less than 1% of that number. Even when this site was at it's peak I doubt there was 50,000 active members.

Here's the reality of things. The POTD winners are usually:

1. Showing a lot of skin
2. In the adult POTD contest spreading legs
3. Emailing everyone they know to come vote for their picture. If they have a big IG following then they get a ton of votes.
4. A combination of 1, 2 or 3.

The end. That's the way all of this works online. I did a great tattoo shoot with a model friend about 10 years ago. She emailed me a few weeks ago and said that Inked magazine is having some big contest where they are giving away a bunch of money for the best tattoo photo. I told her that if there are actual judges maybe we got a shot, but it's the typical BS "contest" to lure people to their website to get a ton of clicks, we don't stand a chance because she doesn't have a million followers on IG or OF. So, out of fun, we submitted our photo. Just like on MM, the winner in our group was an absolutely terrible photo, but the person in it had a big IG following so she won. there you have it. On MM, I don't always see really bad photos win (although I most certainly have in the past) and many of the photos are OK, but they certainly aren't the best unless they follow 1-4 above.

Shot By Adam wrote:
<snip>
Here's the reality of things. The POTD winners are usually:

1. Showing a lot of skin
2. In the adult POTD contest spreading legs
3. Emailing everyone they know to come vote for their picture. If they have a big IG following then they get a ton of votes.
4. A combination of 1, 2 or 3.

It appears you haven't looked recently, as the prohibition against spread shots has been in place for a few months now.

Adventure Photos wrote:
I agree it had become a real joke . Now there are still same photographers most days, but the variety of pics has widened, thank goodness.  Improved, but sad it has to be 'edited'.
       Ken,  we discussed this chaos a few times in messages months ago, and I still see your great work that gets into the 'new' POTD. But can you explain why I'm blocked from communication with you now?  Off friends list?   Enjoy your work , commenting on it, and our previous communication. What happened?     I know of a model here who had been a great friend with lots of communication, comments, messages, texts and phone calls.  But then she became a big negative influence to my current friends list, and has cut off communication for almost a year.    It  is all senseless and I try to find out from those who have shut me off, if she asked you to do so.  For most of 2023, I've hardly posted or done work as surgery has kept me working on health.   I'm just a quiet observer here now.   So what's up?

I think you know exactly why I blocked you again. I told you the last time that if you made anymore creepy comments about a model's anatomy I was going to block you again, and that's what you did. I have no idea who this model is that you're referring to, but I'm guessing you said or did something that creeped her out as well. Don't be a creepy pervert and you won't have this issue.

Shot by Adam wrote:
Photo77photo wrote: POTD contest is a joke
You've been on this site for five years and you just now figured this out? I pretty much realized this my first week here.

there are over 1 million members in here

Not active there aren't. I'd be willing to bet that active members are less than 1% of that number. Even when this site was at it's peak I doubt there was 50,000 active members.

Here's the reality of things. The POTD winners are usually:

1. Showing a lot of skin
2. In the adult POTD contest spreading legs
3. Emailing everyone they know to come vote for their picture. If they have a big IG following then they get a ton of votes.
4. A combination of 1, 2 or 3.

The end. That's the way all of this works online. I did a great tattoo shoot with a model friend about 10 years ago. She emailed me a few weeks ago and said that Inked magazine is having some big contest where they are giving away a bunch of money for the best tattoo photo. I told her that if there are actual judges maybe we got a shot, but it's the typical BS "contest" to lure people to their website to get a ton of clicks, we don't stand a chance because she doesn't have a million followers on IG or OF. So, out of fun, we submitted our photo. Just like on MM, the winner in our group was an absolutely terrible photo, but the person in it had a big IG following so she won. there you have it. On MM, I don't always see really bad photos win (although I most certainly have in the past) and many of the photos are OK, but they certainly aren't the best unless they follow 1-4 above.

They have done away with allowing spread leg shots in the 18+ contest, which I think has been a positive. You see more artistic and well-crafted images in that contest now. It's not just about which model is showing off their crotch the most.

The winners of both the regular POTD and the female 18+ contests are still often weighed by how much skin a model is showing, but much less so than in the past, in my opinion. I have to assume that the majority of the people voting on the contests are heterosexual men, so the attractiveness and amount of skin being shown by female models is going to be a factor in the voting. But, there have also been a number of recent winning shots in the regular contest where the model is showing very little or almost no skin at all.

A few examples:
https://www.modelmayhem.com/contests/po … iew/764884
https://www.modelmayhem.com/contests/po … iew/764484
https://www.modelmayhem.com/contests/po … iew/765139
https://www.modelmayhem.com/contests/po … iew/765111
https://www.modelmayhem.com/contests/po … iew/765051

I also don't think just because someone has a large following on Instagram it means they're getting votes from there. For example, I have a decent size Instagram following (around 42,000), but I never post anything saying I have a photo in the MM contests and I'd like people to vote for it. I also don't put my watermark on the images I enter in the contests so no one knows which are mine.

Are there people who solicit votes? Yes, there are. But as I've been told by the mods, that's allowed, as long as they're not bribing people for the votes. I agree that you're not going to get the same results from contests here on MM than you would from contests judged only by a select few professional judges, but of course that's never been the kind of contests they've had here on MM. The forum contests that have been run by some members in the past have come closer, but they don't appear to be active any longer.