I voted right away but now but there are different pictures in a couple of the categories and it won't let me change my vote.

Same thing happened to me!
My voted on spider became a blue bird on a branch. And my vote disappeared (along with the spider).
It came back again a few minutes later. And the bird must have flown away .

No idea why the switcheroo happened originally, but glad it was fixed.

Mine did not switch back. Two of the photos are still different and one of the ones that I voted for is gone but it won't let me vote again so I only have two votes and it says I have 3.

Which 2 are different?
I can see what they are here on my end.

The original daylily was a pastel pink with white and now it is a multiclolored one. The original vines one was a passion flower and now it is a clematis. The spider one you talked about didn't show up although I would have loved it to.

Now I have the spider and the bluebird has flown on my page also.

I have those 2 you mentioned as replacements (multicolor daylily and clematis).

The system was floating between two different photos because there was a tie between those two photos. The system automatically breaks the tie (randomly) but the voting page was not using the algorithm and thus was randomly going back and forth between the two. I fixed the voting page so that issue is resolved. As for your own votes, I will look into correcting that right now, and will post here when I have an update.

I have cleared away the votes that were cast to the non-winning tied entry so you have that vote returned to you.

Thank you, Dave! I was excited to get my lost vote back!

IMHO #9 in the top 21 should be disqualified because the photographers name was visible on the photo.

Margaret,

I also didn't vote on it because of that. I did star the photo when the preliminary voting was going on, but it didn't win my vote because it stated the photographer's name. Maybe I shouldn't have let that cloud my judgement, but I thought it was against the rules to do that.

Johannian, considering there are prizes to be won it should be a fair contest, and that means no names on the images, so you were correct in not voting for that image. I did not have any images entered in this contest, I just judged, and there sure were a lot of beautiful entries this year.

It's not so much the photographer's name that kept me from voting but the word "photography" following the name, telling me this was likely a professional photographer. I felt the amateurs should have a fair chance. I did enjoy his photographs, they were very nice. Kudos for his photographs.

Agreed with all the above, but the official rules actually don't state that you can't do that. I think for contests in the future, though, that we should add this as a rule (no text overlays on the image).

dave said: Agreed with all the above, but the official rules actually don't state that you can't do that. I think for contests in the future, though, that we should add this as a rule (no text overlays on the image).

The rules say that entries must be "without significant digital alteration". I wonder if a digital overlay counts as such? The rules need to be clarified.

Connie - I had the very same reaction to "photography" that you did. So, it may have cost the photographer votes to have that overlay on his/her photos.

And he's not a 'professional' photographer, just retired and enjoys taking photos at a couple of local arboretums and botanical gardens. But I agree, it does tend to influence me.

beckygardener said: Connie - I had the very same reaction to "photography" that you did. So, it may have cost the photographer votes to have that overlay on his/her photos.

I didn't/won't vote for any with overlays - names of flowers, names of photographer, or even captions. It cost at least one photographer one of my votes.