CLOSED: POLL: The Photomode Tournament: Season 06 2.0 - Round One

[Nato_777]

First round of Season 06 of The Photomode 2.0 Tournament.
Make sure you understand the theme requirements of your match.
You can see each dashboard update by clicking in the: 2.0
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2.0

Please, ensure you read and understand all requirements for this competition. Failure to follow
the rules may result in disqualification. If you have questions, query me by Conversation.
This Thread will answer many possible questions you may have.

• Be reminded that this is a multiple choice poll. Please vote in each match;
• Please be sure to review each entry in the Poll Options section below before casting votes;
• Do not vote on your own entry;
• Do not try to sway the poll;
• Do not post or identify your entry elsewhere until poll closes;
• Only the 8 most voted will get through to the next round
• In the event of a tie, qualifying vote count will be the deciding factor;
• In the event of a second tie, host vote will count as two votes;
• Please, view each entry in it's full size before voting;
• It is considered polite to vote for your opponents entry, in the event one votes and the other doesn't that vote will not count;
• If there is any problem, please, report to me via a Conversation.

Please remember this is a multiple choice poll and to vote in every match.

Take a Viper out to a dirt track and rattle that snake!

match 01 Entry #1


match 01 Entry #2

Take your best eco-friendly looking photo of an electric car.

match 02 Entry #1


match 02 Entry #2

Take a photo of two cars 'trading paint'.

match 03 Entry #1


match 03 Entry #2

Get in your rally car and make a path through the dust!

match 04 Entry #1


match 04 Entry #2

Take your best shot of a silver Mercedes in action.

match 05 Entry #1


match 05 Entry #2

Capture your car leaving the ground.

match 06 Entry #1


match 06 Entry #2

Take your sexiest ride to a phototravel location and make us drool with envy.
And as the title reference is a track from Prince's Gold Experience album, make sure your ride is dressed up in gold.

match 07 Entry #1


match 07 Entry #2

Take a photo of a Ferrari or a Lamborghini in an Italian location.
ShaolinMasta shoot a Ferrari and zambuca shoot a Lamborghini.

match 08 Entry #1


match 08 Entry #2

12-11-13 GMT

 

[Nato_777]

Alright the poll is live - fantastic efforts everyone and best of luck to all.

Please remember to vote in each match and yes you can vote for the match titles and separators but no they can't win.

 

[Fyshokid]

Awesome poll! Especially match 6

 

[geatle]

score is 0-4 bye bye tournament for me. good luck rambo793

can i have to know what is wrong with my picture? please this will be help me to become better.

 

[zzz_pt]

SMfan, Mazda and Zambuca's are my favorites from this AWESOME poll!

Great work everyone.

ps: Great shot Giulielta73

 

[zzz_pt]

.

 

[Giulietta73]

Thanks Ricardo - and likewise, superb shot. I nearly went with the Gullwing myself.

Great looking poll, makes voting extremely hard!!!!

 

[Aphelion]

The two shots from match 6 are STUNNING! I cant decide on which to vote for!!!

score is 0-4 bye bye tournament for me. good luck rambo793

can i have to know what is wrong with my picture? please this will be help me to become better.

and gaetle, it might be something to do with the fact that F1 cars are open wheelers, and therefore cant realy 'trade paint'. they are making body contact, so you within the rules, but like i said, its difficult for an F1 car to actually trade paint! Good job though, i still voted for you!

 

[rambo793]

I just woke up, made me a cuppa tea and thought I'd check if the polls were up. Big mistake, as I've spat out more tea than I've drunk. What. A . Poll. Though that Lancia shot has bowled me over.

Hey, it's alright geatle buddy, don't give up yet. I've been there too.

All the best everyone.

 

[Aphelion]

I just woke up, made me a cuppa tea and thought I'd check if the polls were up. Big mistake, as I've spat out more tea than I've drunk. What. A . Poll. Though that Lancia shot has bowled me over.

Hey, it's alright geatle buddy, don't give up yet. I've been there too.

All the best everyone.

I did realy like your 458, in fact, it took a coin flip to decide which one to choose! aparantly heads is rigged!

 

[rambo793]

I did realy like your 458, in fact, it took a coin flip to decide which one to choose! aparantly heads is rigged!

458? What 458?

 

[AerodyManiac]

Struggled with match 8 for a while before I could decide which one to vote on...
Excellent works from all of the competitors. 👍

 

[Aphelion]

458? What 458?

Oh wow sorry, i assumed yours was the 458, because you said the lancia bowled you over! my bad!

 

[SMfan]

Huge thanks for all the votes and comments, everyone. I appreciate it.👍

Since I'm still feeling emotional about my score (totally surpised + happy to be winning + sad for GPR), and I have some opinions about other people's work, here's a breakdown of every match in the first round from my point of view. Well, half the matches for now.
Photomode Tournament - Round 1 Review - Pt. 1

match 01 - RATTLESNAKE - CCShaft7 vs ZEROX

Well this was a harrrd decision. While I liked both shots, I should also say that neither one was flawless to me. Though in Shaft's case the "flaw" is more of a preference, really - I kinda think that the blur looks weird. The problem in ZEROX's shot is the jaggies that are visible here and there.
So, in the end it came down to the overall feel of the pics, and I picked ZEROX's, mostly because of its toning and atmospere, even if was slightly worse technically speaking.

match 02 - ECO-CENTRIC - GTracer98 vs AidenNewman888
GTracer's shot might be a tad too red, though I can get why he went for such extreme toning - the location the pic was taken at is largely just grey and dull. Overall a solid picture. And I voted for it.
Aiden's pic is good as well, but the composition just feels off. Both that the car takes up almost the entire shot and that the (presumably) point of focus is not in the center (which coulda balanced out the first fact).

match 03 - TRADING PAINT - geatle vs rambo793

This one is particularly interesting to explain, because geatle asked about what was wrong with his pic.
And it's kinda hard to pin-point the exact one thing, actually.
First, there's a bit of jaggies there. Second, the grain is really overdone, IMO. And finally, with the amound of detail those open-wheel F1 cars have it looks like there is no clear point of emphasis or structure in the shot so it falls apart for me.
As for rambo's work - the toning and blurring look a bit too extreme for my liking, but the overall result is still good.

match 04 - HIT THE DIRT! - ShadowPeter vs mazda787

ShadowPeter - reeealy not sure what's wrong with the shot. Maybe it's the toning, I don't know. Or maybe it's that you were going up against mazda. But seriosly, it looks okay, just not as good as.
mazda787 - that is just a great shot. Can't pick a wrong thing about it.👍



P.S. I hope I wasn't too critical in this one. Was trying to give an honest opinion on every shot and the reasoning for my votes.
Part 2 is coming either today after a short break or tomorrow.

 

[Aphelion]

@SMfan im supprised about your section of you comp too! im not saying that i thought the italia was better, im just saying i thought they were MUCH closer than 4/1! i mean, as i said, i ended up tossing a coin for who wins, and you won!
They are both INSANELY good shots! Everyone is!

 

[GPR]

Wow, I got smashed. Not too surprised though, after seeing SMfans excellent entry as soon as the poll went up I knew mine wasn't as good. Well done mate. 👍

Had a few battles there I thought were really close which made voting a bit tough. Congrats to all.

@SMfan I look forward to your commentary on the second half of the entries.

 

[Eric Demory]

Hey, it's alright geatle buddy, don't give up yet. I've been there too.

Everyone has. Even the professionals.

 

[SMfan]

Photomode Tournament - Round 1 Review - Pt. 2

match 05 - SILVER ARROW - Nato_777 vs Crooooooow

In contrary to what some guys said, this was the hardest choice to make for me - both are quality shots with little to no disadvantages. My voice was mostly dictated, like in the first match, by the overall feel each picture gave me, and though I'm not particularly a fan of the composotion in Crooooooow's shot, it still looked slightly better to me. But, again, both pics are great and I can absolutely understand why people voted for Nato.

match 06 - LEARNING TO FLY - SMfan vs GPR

Okay, this one is certainly interesting.
I'll start off with mine, I guess, and from rather far away.
You know how if you keep repeating one word it starts to lose any meaning to you? Well that happened to me with my photos. After countless... minutes () of editing, re-editing and comparing pics, I have stopped being able to recognize whether I like one of them or not. So, after sending my final choice to Nathan I had almost no expectations about the first round. In fact, I was expecting a loss more than anything.

Now, George's shot, on the other hand, I could evaluate, and I loved it from the second I saw it. Well, loved and feared would be more correct, as I was seriosly afraid to lose... badly. And I'm not just saying it to be nice and polite. I truly think that GPR's picture looks awesome, and the only possible criticism I can come up with is that, maybe, the car isn't in a "traditional flight", though that didn't bother me personally.
What did bother me, and still does, was the vote difference between us, but I'll talk about that later.

match 07 - ENDORPHINE MACHINE - zzz_pt vs Giulietta73

Not a lot to say about this pair:

zzz_pt - Nice composition with vivid colors and again my favorite feel of the two. Got my vote.
Giulietta73 - Nothing particularly bad about the shot, but nothing eye-cathcing either, sorry.

match 08 - HORSES VS BULLS - ShaolinMasta vs zambuca

Probably the most skilled match out of all, at least in terms of expectations.
And, I gotta say, it gave us two awesome pictures.
But, I didn't hesitate for too long before making the decision and here's why:

Sorry, SM, but I don't like blue haze (not sure if the term would be correct) covering the darkest areas of the image. And that's it.
zambuca's shot with its subtle toning doesn't have this problem, so I voted for it.
Once, again, both pics are great, but one looks better to me.

Closing thoughts:

While I am shocked by some of the results (mostly mine), I also have a theory on why certain things happened.
The "choose one of the two" system is good in its simplicity, but it cannot show how much each person preferred a certain shot over another. So this makes these two situations possible:

1 - 80% of the people think that one pic is only just better that the other and vote for it, giving it 80% of the votes.
2 - 50% of the people think that one pic is miles better than the other and vote for it, whilst the other half thinks the exact opposite, and we have a tie.

What does it all mean? The guys who lost, even by a lot, shouldn't feel too bad, because the difference in votes doesn't represent the difference in quality or the preference ration. And the ones who won, welp, you still won, ain't that good 'nuff for ya?

 

[zambuca]

...but it cannot show how much each person preferred a certain shot over another.

This is very true SMfan. I have often thought about that.

Thanks for the great reviews 👍

 

[Nato_777]

Poll has closed.

Thanks everyone for a fantastic 1st round.

Congratulations to; ZEROX, GTracer98, rambo793, mazda787, SMfan, zzz_pt, zambuca and myself! 👍

2nd Round thread will be up shortly.

Oh and thanks Alex for the great reviews.

 

[ShaolinMasta]

Congrats, guys !
Looking forward to next round poll !

 

[zambuca]

Congrats, guys !
Looking forward to next round poll !

Thanks for a tough match Shaolin!

 

[GPR]

Yep congrats to all the winners. Shame I can't join you. Best of luck in round 2. 👍

@SMfan, cheers for the reviews. I agree with you about vote gap discrepencies. I'm sure there were quite a few that were considered close like ours. I guess yours had that little something more that tipped the scales in your favor more often.

 

[Eric Demory]

Congratulations to everyone in the heated battle, especially you Nathan! Making it to the first round is good enough for a first participation.

 

[SMfan]

Glad y'all liked my lil' review.👍
Congrats to everyone who made it through and thanks for a great tournament so far, everyone!

 

[Eric Demory]

Glad y'all liked my lil' review.👍
Congrats to everyone who made it through and thanks for a great tournament so far, everyone!

Thanks for the review on my entry. You obviously have a lot of time on your hands to give a good length opinion for yours zappy truly.

 

[SMfan]

Thanks for the review on my entry. You obviously have a lot of time on your hands to give a good length opinion for yours zappy truly.

@Crooooooow, I probably woulda said more about your shot had I not liked it. Much harder to praise, without repeating the same exact thing about most of the shots, y'know.

As for the time, both reviews were largely written beween 1 and 3 AM ( I just realized the sybolism - 1-3 AM. No, but really it was in that time frame). Being a student with an ustable schedule does scary things to your sleeping times.