ViewBug is Broken

Well it looks like another photography contest and sharing website has lost all credibility due to its complete lack of professionalism when it comes to judging contests and selecting a winner based on superior skill and technique. 

Recently, ViewBug selected an obviously fake image for a recent architecture photo contest that featured a gimmick that won an infamous Nikon sponsored contest a few years ago. I attempted to call out the judges and get a response from ViewBug about the obviously fake image and was met with not even an apology. The response was, well, Ill just show you the exchange. Link to the fake image below. 

https://www.viewbug.com/photo/61364479

[font=Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]My email- This image won a contest, it's an obvious fake. The airport is too far from this location for aircraft to be flying so low. Also, it is improbable for commercial air traffic to be vectored over this landmark and and at such a perfect angle. [/font]

The con trails are also quite suspect as generally the dynamic forces and temperature differences to create such bollowy trails only occurr at high altitude. 

This damages your credibility if images like this continue to win. 

Sincerely, a soon to be former pro account holder.

The response-Hi Jared,

Thank you for your participation in the ViewBug community!

Per your email, thank you very much for your insightful feedback regarding our site and member's photography. We completely understand your concerns about altered or enhanced photos and the role they play in our contests; even though we do allow this type of photos, we encourage using photos that show a natural essence and beauty of the captured moment.

Your feedback is really important to us and it helps us improve our site. We'll be forwarding your concerns to our team for possible consideration on adding or creating special contests for altered/ enhanced photos. 

Do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or comments as we are always happy and ready to assist you.

Kind regards,
Your friends at ViewBug 

Shots fired I suppose, fake imagery produced in Photoshop is accepted to be judged against hard work and superior skill. So I responded one more time to get my point across- This was not at all the response I was expecting seeing as how this is a
photography contest website and not a graphic design contest website. This
sort of acceptance of fake imagery promotes the idea that one must be good
at photoshop to produce a beautiful image instead of being good at
photography. The time and effort I put into my images, which is
considerable, has been lessened by the acceptance of badly photoshopped
images as contest winners, instead of someone who put in the time and
effort to be there at the right place when the light is right, or to invest
considerable time in studio with a model, or to search endlessly for the
perfect wildlife subject. This individual simply took an average image and
added a plane for extra pop which apparently wowed your judges because it
fooled them into believing that he put in the time and effort to research
flight paths, travel to Venice on a day when the prevailing winds caused
air traffic control to vector arrivals over the eastern part of the city
where he waited in the perfect location for a plane to fly at a perfect
right angle right through the center of his image. He fooled the judges,
and that is what I find totally unacceptable.

None of what I said would be possible given the prevailing winds would
cause arrivals not to be vectored over Venice at such low altitudes, but
the judges were fooled to think that.

And their predictable response- Thank you for your reply.

We apologize for the confusion and inconvenience. Please note that the phorographer has stated on the description of his photo that it was a composite image, how it was created and which software was used for this. 

We understand that when it comes to contests seeing some winners might be frustrating. As you know, it is very hard to please everyone and the judges take the process very seriously. Art is in the eye of the beholder and the judges as well as voters each has a different interpretation of the techniques and creativity behind each photo submitted. 

We see the contests as a great tool to explore our creativity and expertise behind specific themes. We all love your photos and artistic interpretation. We are honored to have you as a member of the community and really appreciate your feedback as we work hard to continue improving your experience.

All the best,
Your friends at ViewBug

That's right folks, they are perfectly OK with fake images, poor photoshop jobs and graphic designs like what you saw on the former Instagram and FB page Earth Porn. If you are spending money on a pro or premium account, drop them. Demand your money back. Boycott them if need be. 

I'll keep my comments brief.

Why do you conclude that editing in Photoshop isn't "hard work"? At least, that's the logical conclusion of your assertion. I don't think that's a fair assessment, given some of the amazing work that is out there.

This iimage is dull re: composition, and the idea has been done to death. That aside, they award composites (good and bad) all the time. I've seen a "nighttime moon" image win that was clearly composited and shot during daylight.

My take-away: some (most?) of the judges have quesetionable taste. I think I've shared that before.

Compositing isn't graphic design. It's digital image creation. Does VB claim that digital imagery isn't allowed? No, they don't. Perfectly valid.

That said, you're learning what I learned a few years ago. I now have a free account, I'm not really active, and there's no point in trying. They're in it for the money. Which should really come as no surprise.

Merging two images shot at different times of day and doing a shit photoshop job are two entirely different things in my opinion. One took time and effort, although I think composits look God awful because folks do it to create surreal images much like an HDR exposure instead of using them to help preserve foregrounds during night shots.

I conclude that "photoshopping" images isn't hard work because the time and pre-planning required to create an image like that in the field isn't there. He took a decent photo and then just dragged and dropped a plane in the middle and blended.

Effort to me as a landscape photographer is putting in the work to pre plan your shoot and properly recreating what you saw in the digital darkroom. It's research, it's scouting, it's getting as much right in the field as you possibly can. What this so called winner did and what the judges did was make a mockery of every single finalist, myself included, and the time and effort we put in to make good images without dragging and dropping a foregin elememt into the frame. 

Needless to say, I won't be renewing my pro account. I will probably shut my account down altogether, no sense in sticking around if hard work isn't appreciated. 

Maybe you should find a film shooter only forum? Not being snarky but photoshop and its competitors are here to stay....

Oh I have nothing against Photoshop. I'm an avid Lightroom user myself. I just use the word "Photoshop" or an iteration as a pejorative term agasint obviously fake images. 

"That plane is obviously photoshopped". 

I got my start in the digital age. 

Well, yeah, but you also seem to be conflating compositing with bad editing, and HDR with bad editing. I attempted to clarify above: the issue isn't compositing or HDR, the issue is bad editing, and fake, lifeless images. Or am I wrong?

The judging at VB is not always about "best" or "most interesting" or "well done". It's about one person's (or a group's) opinion. And there's no accounting for taste.

Anecdote: local exhibit, entitled "Imagine" and the winning image in photography was  a wide angle B&W landscape, cloudy sky, single building (barn?) in the distance, showing an isolated boulder (centered!), entitled (wait for it) Isolation. Extremely literal, albeit well done. But compositionaly simple, static, and not terribly engagin. I don't know what the judges saw in it.

The second and third place images showed far more imagination and creativity (to my eye). None of my my entries placed, but that's okay. I didn't go for safe, I went for outside.

My point? That judging is one person's opinion, and may or may not have gravitas. I had a print take best in show at the previous exhibit, and it shouldn't have. There was other, better work. But I can't fix that.

You might be able to tell that I've pondered a lot about this over the years. 'Tis why I'm working on starting a meetup to discuss image creation as art and craft. No technical stuff. Planning to launch in January.

I'm sorry, but was the contest rules against Photoshopped images?  If not, Photoshopping an image is normal.  

The thing that upsets me the most about this particular contest winner is that he was dishonest. In his image description he states that it is a focus stacked composite with no explanation of the way too perfect plane flying at low altitude where it should not have been. In fact he stated that he waited for the perfect moment. A moment that would never come with the airport on the other side of the city. That and the judges didn't look at it and say "nope, there is too much coincidence here for it to be real". Again, I have nothing against composite images, I understand their necessity. But dishonestly passing off an image as a genuine "one in a million" shot when you just dragged and dropped a major compositional element into an otherwise average image is a far more egregious offence than a bad photoshop job. 

At the very least, you lost fair and square. I and many other finalists feel cheated. The judges awarded the win to someone who at least presented and honest photo in your case.