No need for sour grapes. I’ve already apologized for not making the rules clearer. It was our first outing with the contest and it will surely be done better next time. But let’s keep some perspective–this is a photo contest on a blog for a leather briefcase and some books–not a presidential election!

And your not so subtle hints that Alexander perhaps did not win fairly are really out of order. I carefully monitored the voting and there was no cheating or anything suspicious going on whatsoever. If you look at the comments here and on Facebook and in the community, and the number of views and likes, Alexander was clearly the favorite and runaway winner. His landslide is not at all surprising.

That the winner was partly determined by whether the finalists could get their “cyber friends” to vote for them was intentional–we hoped the contest would be a way for folks to introduce their friends to AoM for the first time. Although in the end it was a moot point–as you point out the AoM community overwhelming chose Alexander as the winner from the get-go. His win is definitely a reflection of the preference of AoMers.

@Daniel-
Your offer is most magnanimous. But you can still keep you prizes. We have already decided to offer a consolation prize not just to the finalists but to everyone who entered.

For future contests may I make a couple of suggestions?
1. Clearly state the rules from the beginning and don’t change them mid-contest.
2. Only allow one vote per person for the duration of the contest. I would also take it a step further and say that only existing registered members of AOM should be eligible to vote.

Specifically for this contest, I have to say that Alexander’s landslide win seems a bit strange. Now I’m not saying whether he did or did not deserve to win, that’s beside the point. What I am saying is that within an hour of the contest opening, he had enough votes to win the entire competition. Does that that not strike anyone else as being odd? Granted, he may have a huge family and hundreds of friends that were willing to vote for him everyday, who knows, though that seems improbable. This is not an attack on Alexander’s method or character, I think I’m mostly just curious as to how he could get that many votes so quickly and sustain such a huge lead. Was it just the mustache? It is very impressive.

Thanks very much to Brett and Kate for putting on such an enjoyable contest and for finding my photo to be worthy of the final seven.

Double thanks to the community on here that voted and left such reassuring comments. I felt a bit nervous to put myself and my artwork out for public scrutiny. Seeing so many people understanding and appreciating the message in my photo and the others was truly exciting.

See you all in the next contest.

P.S… Daniel Shearhouse, you knocked it out of the park with your men’s adventure magazine-style photo and caption. Also, has anyone told you that you look like Robert Shaw?