i do have some evidence, in that (a) i happened across one photographer
all of whose 15 or so photos ranked at an average of at least 9.5,
despite the fact that few of them deserved anything like that (i found
virtually no other photos with an average that high anywhere else among
all the amazing photos i clicked on) - clearly they had either
themselves or though mates given the photo multiple 10/10s; (b) a
number of times my photos were hit across the board with 1/10 (sad to
admit i was keeping a tally) - maybe someone genuinely hated all of the
photos, but i suspect it was someone trying to sabotage the opposition.
in fact, i was generally very surprised at how low-scoring most of the
photos i rated highly were - of course maybe my judgment is skewed but
i believe there was wide-scale nobbling going on.  the other reason i
think many mediocre shots got through is that people didn't bother to
vote for them, so that the photographers (who, like me, inevitably
rated their own photos highly) got away with an average skewed too
high. re my comment about all the welsh rural photos being rubbish, i
recognise that might be seen as a very harsh comment but it's my view
and i'm sticking by it.

Miserable git.

"If you enter a competition, you should be prepared to accept the
judges decision and put up with it, even if it is a little
strange... "

My whole point is that this wasn't a decision by a panel of judges
(we're still waiting for them to decide on the shorlisted photos), it's
a decision by the voting public.  I would say that, like their current
fortnightly photo comp, the BBC should have reversed it and had the
judges pick the shortlist then let the public vote on that (ok there's
a lot of photos for them to judge but it's not an impossible
challenge).   The way they've done it has sold us short in terms of
quality shortlisted pictures (and I'm not necessarily talking about
mine: I never expected to be shortlisted but equally I'm frustrated
that some of mine are, in my view, better than many of the shortlisted
ones).  When they tour the country they will leave a lot of people
uninspired, which is an opportunity lost.  Since this is the first and
biggest competition of its kind i do think lessons should be learned.
I'm not attempting to endure (guess you mean endear) myself to anyone
Willy:  in terms of 'nobbling', the competition was easily manipulable
and i strongly believe it has been.  In terms of 'rubbish, there are a
lot of banal, aesthetically unappealing shots on the shortlist which
there really shouldn't be given that i believe over 100,000 photos were
entered.  As for Neil's the point about the BBC terms and conditions,
unless you're a professional why would you care what they do with your
photos - you still own the copyright at the end of the day.  And as for
Stax - well done mate, what's your secret? (come on admit it, you
cheated ha ha).  Rant over.

Congratulations Greg/Stax - I see you won the South-West Rural
category.  "The picture captures the mood of the moors and uses an
interesting, mysterious narrative with the disappearing road" - one of
the less pretentious bits of gobbledygook from the judges (compared
with eg "The judges felt that this picture had a very brave narrative,
a real dialogue" - no, it's an old car in a wood)