Well, here we are. Almost 300,000 votes have been cast in the 8th annual Pinkbike Photo of the Year Contest presented by
Jenson USA, and we're down to the final two. Who takes home the larger piece of the $10,000 in cash is up to you.
Below are the Round 4 matchups and who won each after the votes were cast. Once you see whether your favorites made it through,
head on over to the voting page and cast your vote in the next round!
The winner will join John Wellburn, Toby Cowley, Sterling Lorence, Christoph Laue, Sean Lee, Steve Shannon and Robb Thompson in the Pinkbike Photo of the Year Hall of Fame.
Match Up 1 - Winner: Richard Baybutt
Match Up 2 - Winner: Sterling Lorence
What's at stake? $10,000 CASH! •
Winner will receive a check for $5000• Runner-up will receive a check for $3000
• Other semi-finalists will each receive $1000
In addition, this year we also have user prizing for voters courtesy of Jenson USA. One lucky Pinkbike reader that votes for the Photo of the Year will win a $1000 Jenson USA gift card.
Thank you
Jenson USA.
How can I enter for a chance to win the $1000 Jenson USA gift card?By simply
voting as we progress to the eventual Photo of the Year winner, you will be entered for a chance to win. One entry per user per round goes into a random draw for the prize.
MENTIONS: @jensonusa
Is rider even on a trail? Doesn’t look good for those opposed to MTB...
DB@EB
I'm joking, of course, but I do find it funny people calling one photo "staged", as if they got the dry ice out, but the other, that's literally a trick that was probably pulled multiple times under an unnatural light source, perfectly acceptable. Hypocritical, no?
With regards that being a designated trail, we have very different access rights in UK to other parts of the world, with shared access on many walking/hiking trails. So I don't think the first photo will be doing any harm to the image of mountain biking among the locals
mental/emotional - 14
In the mountain vista photo, it isn't clear what the story is. All you can tell is the rider is there. You can't see where they are going or where they came from (plus there is a road behind the fog - boo).
For the trick, you can see why the rider is there and they are at their destination. The sun directly above is the icing on the cake.
That and the fact he's made a mountain biking photo out of an area that is adored by roadies rather than mountain bikers.
@Denning76 looks pretty mountainous to me. But I live at 800 ft above sea level and our trails have maybe 150 ft in elevation to work with but they are still fun.
“As with most of life's problems, this one can be solved by a box of pure radiation.”
― Andy Weir, The Martian
Time lapse with a dark filter then a brief instance of full exposure while the rider posed?
Composite of more than one photo?
Fill in flash (but distant hill also has weird lighting where it should be in dark shadow)?
The other landscape based ones I can understand more as the rider is more the focus, and they're riding down a trail.
Many of the trick photos (despite being some great pics) are simply unrelatable to a lot of (if not most) people. Gaffney's was an incredible shot, but one could make the argument that it doesn't capture what mountain biking means to a lot of people. In some sense it's more like a really rad BMX photo. Same goes for Lorence. It's a really amazing shot with some obvious technical achievements capturing a neat trick, but it doesn't have anything to do with what mountain biking means to many folks.
That's just my opinion. But you asked...
Isn't it interesting that Milner's photo also came in close? That's two epic landscape wish-
i-were-there photos at the end of a bunch of brilliants shots in the contest.
As @tjallen said, I cannot relate to aerial tricks set up and practiced and then done under some unnatural (if cool) lighting. That said, I found most of the voting difficult as there were many photos that evoked different emotions and perspectives on mtb. You could see that in some of the voting margins.
I for one simply prefer the Baybutt photo but give the Lorence photo, and your opinion, it's due credit. We'll see how it shakes out. Whichever one of us chooses wisely can tip a pint to the other.
Sends the wrong message, that biking wherever we want is just fine and we really don't care about the environment.
Yes for posing mid air in an alien landscape.
Sends the right message, that building jumps and riding them can be a legitimate art form.
Yes for Sterling Lorence.
But, I would have actually preferred having to pick between Tippy and the Dog for the win. Seems fitting somehow.
And I guess I would have picked the Dog, because Tippy probably molested some crustose lichens and desert varnish to get that "off trail" line of the year.