What an incredible journey this giveaway has been. I started it under the auspices of creating a friendly competition to bring out some "fearless" photography from the incredible community here with the ultimate prize being a coveted and storied lens that has traveled the world and endured countless combat missions by my side. In addition to that, merely my way of giving back to this community that has proven fundamental to my development as a photographer. For those that have not seen the introduction, I will quote myself here because I feel that the history behind this lens was so critical to the spirit of this endeavor:
Originally posted by Heie There is no lens in my "armory" that has seen so much and taken so much abuse and yet still looked up to me with its big, beautiful eye asking for more, and delivering on that promise.
It has come running with me. It has been rock climbing with me. It has shivered under countless showers. It has been entirely submerged under the talcum-like contents of an Afghan sandbag. It has deployed to Afghanistan for an entire twelve months. It has taken part in combat operations in Afghanistan. It has seen and captured the tears of Afghan schoolboys being handed humanitarian aid in the form of backpacks, school supplies, and Beanie Babies. It has honed its aperture to the emotional crumbling of warriors during a memorial for their fallen brethren. It has shot true despite tears making the viewfinder blind to what lay through the other side. It has witnessed the withering light that is the hope of some of Afghanistan's own weathered and tired veterans of wars lasting lifetimes. It has survived the Kepler and Rakiura Tracks of New Zealand, as well as her fiords' waterfalls from being forced to go directly under them.
Now that the giveaway has reached its final stage with the recent publication of the final entry to the competition on the Pentax Forums homepage, I must say - something completely unexpected occurred.
I learned something. I don't mean that in a patronizing manner in that learning is beneath me - let's not be ridiculous. It's just the specificity behind that something. There are a few things that are more "logistical" and "objective" to the processes that are inherent to a competition in this style that I absolutely have learned from, and I will touch upon those in a minute. But what I am referring to is so much deeper than a mere improvement in efficiency...
When I typed up and subsequently re-qualified the terms of the competition, answering any and all questions that arose as best as I could, I was under the impression that I was unwaveringly obvious as to what my intent was.
Originally posted by Heie I created an impromptu marketing campaign for Pentax dubbed It's good to be FEARLESS. Resurrecting and building off that mantra that I have come to consider so fundamentally organic to my photography and Pentax's role in it, I invite you to earn my storied DA* 16-50.
To compound on top of that, is my personality and reputation here amongst the PF forumsphere. Earned through not just by what I put down in words, but more importantly, my photography itself. Summarized in the first sentence of my signature, it is an inherent quality that I have honed in on as being fundamental to my DNA. A reputation of willingness to put myself in pretty compromising situations to get a capture - "whether it's fearlessness or recklessness, you can count on Heie to at least go after the shot!" I take immense pride in that, I really do. And I thank you all for helping me develop as a photographer, namely in the last year through my combat photography (which I am still working to be republished).
So when it came to my intent of the competition and what I (and I assume the audience) expected to see as competitive entries - "Too easy," as my military brethren would say.
And herein lies the single greatest lesson to have come out of this competition for me: despite my preconceived notions as to the definition of "fearlessness," and no matter how well I may have believed I communicated that obvious [sic] definition, it still does not overrule others' personal feelings, limitations, interpretations, etc of fearlessness.
The two most memorable entries for me personally that I would never have imagined as being "fearless" prior to this competition were "
My Version of Fearless" by
jennverr and "
Rising Above" by
builttospill. If you have not visited them, I encourage you to do so, and I am confident you will find their "different" definitions of fearlessness as uniquely profound as I do.
As a result of this competition, yes at face value I am "losing" a very expensive and coveted piece of equipment. Conversely, in return I have obtained something far more valuable, staying with me long after the SDM fails (hehe just kidding about the SDM!
).
Perspective. It's ironic, isn't it, that the less tangible something is, the more its "worth"...
Regarding the aforementioned "logistics" that I took away from this competition, I will share them with you all here not only as a testament to the execution of this competition, but so that others may find valuable advice should they find themselves in a similar position hosting a giveaway of sorts.
- Expediency: No matter how well received a project is -- as there is no question this giveaway generated a plethora of excitement, buzz, and high aspirations -- it will dwindle. A fire, no matter how big, has to be fed, quickly and continuously, otherwise you will be dealing with embers. I recognize that toward the end of the project's publications the zeal that were experienced in the first few publications was long gone.
- Quality over Quantity: Another way to degenerate enthusiasm for a project is to contribute to it with less than stellar work. It's akin to what we all are aware of as photographers - if you post an album of 5-10 superb shots on Facebook, it will generate far more interest than the same album but of 150 photos that are in need of editing and purging. Frankly there were some entries that did not belong on the PF homepage. Not only would the standard have been higher for what became public, but the pace of the project from first to last entry would have been far faster. In retrospect, I should have culled all the entries and posted what I felt were the best 10 and then let the same public voting process occur. I made the decision not to do so despite wanting to because I did not publish anything regarding the best x-number of entries would be published, and thus I felt that would have been unfair to the participants to change the rules after the fact.
- You can't make everyone happy: Despite the crux of this project where something of significant monetary and emotional value is being given away with absolutely no strings attached, the old adage once again proves true. There are still those whom were not satisfied with my execution of this giveaway, which was not only perplexing, but a frustration that I took personally. A couple even went so far as to send quite vitriolic pm's to me, or worse, messages posted publicly either in this thread or on the PF Facebook page.
- This actually required effort on my part! I now have a much greater respect for Adam and all other behind-the-scenes workers that feverishly work to provide a steady stream of information and posts appearing on the front page. I personally had to edit, format, spell check, etc every single entry as it was posted to the front page. When Adam first told me how to do it and gave me access to do it, I was excited! That quickly evaporated after editing the 3rd entry - for those that do not have any experience with operating websites/blogs/etc, it is the exact opposite of easy and quick.
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In the end, this has been an unbelievably proud chapter in my photographic "career," and I thank you all for accompanying me throughout it. It is with that, and with no further adieu, I am absolutely enthralled and humbled to announce that the very first entry received and thus posted to the Pentax Forums Homepage (as I posted them in order of receipt), has earned the ability to claim ownership of my storied DA* 16-50 f/2.8.
Congratulations, Fearless in Inner City Kingston by skism!
Note that after analyzing all the votes received per entry and then purging all 0.5 votes as an attempt to negate the effect of sandbagging should there be any on the best entries, there was no change in the results and ranking. In the interest of full transparency, here are the results from the top ten posts:
I understand there may be some discontent with the end result of this competition - this was done in an entirely democratic manner, and as such, I implore each of you to ensure that the "will of the people" is respected.
I thank you all for your participation, patience, enthusiasm, and support during the execution of this proud project.
Very Respectfully,
Heie