Originally posted by dansamy I think perhaps small prizes for a random voter of the week would work. Small things like lens cleaners or rocket blowers.
The overall photography contest could also be set up in a tiered manner with open entry week one, which is open to all comers & is photographer's choice, ie their best work. You could have top 5 voters choice & top 5 judges choice move on to week which begins themed weeks.
You gave me an interesting idea.. which, understandably, would be difficult to coordinate but could prove interesting -- How about a NCAA BB style tournament.. aka.. a bracket style tourney? Have an open-to-everyone 1-2 week photog compo.. top 64 or 32 advance to the bracketed tourney. The judging would strictly be PF mods and representatives (if you could get Pentax, B&H, and/or Adorama to participate) in a closed environment (uploaded photos would not be visible to anyone else).
Then, on the bracketed side, would have it arranged where there would be Nature vs Nature photo, Sports vs Sports, or Macro vs Macro genre photos competing against each other. The voting on the bracketed side would be completely up to the rest of us (Non Mods/Reps). Do-or-die style matchups where each week a news series of face offs occurs until the Champion is awarded their shiny, new K-3.
Could possibly do an Olympic style one.. I was once in a Music Competition that was themed like the Olympics with various genres grouped into different 'events' -- talk about big fun!!