Strange choices, first off over half of the targets in these finals were never shot(First word in the rules is Shoot), I'd venture to say close to that number were never even printed off (got to love photoshop). Also supposedly quality and composition was to be judged. F&S you have some good photographers, I doubt they were judges, cause this is more humorous than anything else.
Sorry to rant but this contest seems to be controversial every year because of the choices, and if you stick with the judging by the guidelines that you set, it wouldn't be that way.

Definitely creative but saw few that were actually shot up. Cool contest though

Well the rules are solid, they just aren't being followed. And as for photoshop, I used it to make one of mine black and white and to add contrast. But the targets in my photos had been printed out and shot. All I'm asking is to stick with the rules and actually put some effort into the judging. A lot of people put effort into taking the photos, they are at least owed an equal effort, specially from a reputable organization like F&S.

The problem is, so many of the finalists don't follow the rules! For example, how is the space astronaut pic "original creation of the participant"??? or "non-commercial work"??? Yet it was picked as a finalist??? Are you kidding me F&S? And the Marine picture was cool, but again the rules say "no team, joint, or corporate entries", yet they picked it for a finalist. If they're not going to follow their own rules for the contest, why even have the rules!!??? I'm so sick of how the winners are picked! There's not even a point of entering the contest if they're not going to be fair about it.

And upon further review...the Marine picture has the targets photo shopped in as well...

well if ever get over the fact that this contest was a rip off to anyone who put any effort into SHOOTING their target, I will have to remember to take the most random picture possible for the next one!

I was excited about this contest, im a new F&S subcriber and i thought this was a great idea. But after seeing the finalist i am very dissapointed, not that my entry wasnt chosen but mainly because most of the finalists are completely ridiculous!!! Most are Photoshoped , and not even photoshoped very well, which i think should not even be considered. And some of the others are just stupid.....a target around a cats neck??? Really?? I have lost respect for F&S

The guy who posted the sunburn one even said it wasn't real!

I am not upset that my entry did not make the cut, but were the judges juveniles? Kittens and stuffed bears made the cut?! When I done my entry I thought of something original that could possibly be on the next cover if I won, something that F&S would be proud of. I don't guess that the judges could read the qualifications of the contest either. I will not participate next year or renew my subscription. Come on F&S, REALLY!!!!!

I don't get it and obviously plenty of people agree. If someone from F&S actually reads this, give us an explanation. I know it's wishful thinking but it is obvious that zero effort was put into judging this. Tell us that you randomly picked 17 out of a hat, that would at least give us an excuse and salvage some of your reputation. But I hope that you did not actually employ photographers/editors to go over all the entries and make these choices because if that is the case, then there is no reason for me to look at/ read what these same people are publishing on your pages.

also, im thinking my mistake was to mention the competitor brand of gun vs the sponsor brand. fatal mistake on my part despite rules suggesting "any type of firearm"

Also I am interested on if they went over the submissions one by one (1-357) or by page(1-6). Because if you do it by page you don't see all of them, I just went through all the pages of the original contest a few times over and couldn't find my one submission, but I know it is #257. I was only able to get to it by finding one that I knew was close and paging over.
Anyway, interested to see the winner. Hopefully it'll be kosher with the rules and F&S make this as right as possible.

The Winner will be notified on or before the 21st. We will not find out until he/she has excepted and everything goes through. But whatever, I'm not holding my breath, personally I hope that it is steelbird, because although his picture is simple it is not in violation of the rules and it has good quality and composition. If not that one they can go ahead and pick the scope picture, I wouldn't mind....

Well maybe F&S is waiting for them to accept* (typo from my earlier post) and submit all of the needed paperwork, which they have 7 days before they are disqualified. Or maybe like I said earlier (wishful thinking) F&S has realized their error and decided to actually present the photos to a panel of judges and pick a new winner. They could do this because nothing in the rules say that the finalists are set in stone, the rules actually don't even mention finalists being presented. We shall see.

I did not get a notification. But seeing that it has been a full week since the grand prize winner should have been notified, I expect to see an update tomorrow. But who knows. And to tell you the truth(don't know if I'm sabotaging myself) I don't think the picture of mine that made the finals should have. I had two others that took more time, were more creative, with better composition and quality. If you actually go to the pictures that I had as "top 10"(second post) you will notice yours is the only one that made these finalists. And no offense to zimmtex, when I first saw his photo in the submissions I thought to myself, being critical, slight photoshop flaws but that'll probably win, even though it doesn't look like it followed the rules, namely actually shooting the target. Obviously to the person picking that didn't matter for any of these.

the most unprofessional execution of a contest ive ever seen. F&S...please get rid of the "replacement" judges, and bring back the professional judges. silly!

I'm trying not to be rude, and I feel I might be sabotaging my own chances. But the truth is I feel like they are reprimanding the intern that they asked to take care of this and actually finding a panel of photographers and editors to judge by the rules. If that's the case F&S, tell us we'll be happy to give you a few weeks to pick new finalists and have another go at it.

From the rules regarding judging:
"Sponsor and Promoter reserve the right not to select any winning submissions based upon the quantity or content of submissions."
I'm starting to think that this may be the case here........I hope I'm wrong, but F&S is not providing any evidence to think otherwise........

I sure hope you're wrong steelbird. Cause as you stated that would be based upon quantity or content of submissions. And there were a lot of good submissions that people put a lot of effort in to that abided by the rules. So like I said earlier I hope they are just going back over the entries and that that is what is taking all this time. Still it would be good for them to let us know either way.

What are you talking about Jason, did they announce the winner that I'm not aware of?

hedrij01-

I don't think you need to be too concerned about that "emotional appeal" - it would appear that F&S is not going to award the rifle anyway. And it seems that those who are supposedly running this thing aren't bothering to read these comments - otherwise, they might have acknowledged everyone's points, concerns, etc by now. A lot of similar comments came up after last year's contest, and it looks like nothing changed. There's a very serious lack of professional courtesy here on the part of F&S, or maybe the parent company, Bonnier, to inform people on what is going on here. If they need extra time, fine. If they cancel it for whatever reason they have, fine. It's their contest, their rules. But it's very discourteous to those of us who put in an effort to create these images to leave us in the dark with no clue as to what's going on.

Great suggestion, tgarrett. I've just sent an email to Bonnier asking what's going on. Can't say I expect any result, but it's a good idea, anyway. In your case, this may have been someone liking your idea, and then someone from above cancelling it. Right hand not knowing what the left was doing, perhaps. But it does sound a bit amateurish, at the least, to read about what happened to your submission. I hope everyone who is concerned about this situation will send emails to Bonnier.

i thought some of the photots were really good. you guys whine too much!!

You're absolutely right Whitney. They had no rhyme or reason to the finalists they picked. It was all over the board and didn't make sense.