i must say, the crops of some of the photos for the contest are rather disappointing...critical portions of the images are eliminated, and, as a result, the composition is adversely impacted

the larger versions are available if one chooses an image to enlarge. why not simply reduce those if space is at a premium, but retain the original composition of the images as they were submitted

But the opposite is also true: Some of the cropped versions are aesthetically pleasing, but enlarging the photo reveals poor composition or extraneous objects that diminish the appeal.

At any rate, you're expected to enlarge all of the photos during the judging process, not simply choose a few to enlarge.

I agree with @drirastucker. A photo's aspect ratio is a key compositional element, and using square crops for the initial presentation doesn't show certain photos in their best light. If I submit a landscape- or portrait-oriented image, I'd rather see it scaled down to fit into a square display area without being cropped. It would be smaller, but at least it would be the full photo.

I would encourage voters to click the first image in each category and use the forward/backward arrows to navigate. That way, voters will see the photos as the photographers intended.

thanks for the feedback. it had not occurred to me that i could or should enlarge all of the photos during the judging process...i suspect i am not alone in that regard...perhaps a suggestion from plants admin would address that misunderstanding on my part.

take care, ira

GwenRon said:
I would encourage voters to click the first image in each category and use the forward/backward arrows to navigate. That way, voters will see the photos as the photographers intended.

I always look at them that way and ignore the thumbnails.

I see both points of view.
It may be either my slow computer or connection, but I click..click...then big white box where a photo should be. I could either wait 10-seconds or more for it to load or click forward to the next and unfortunately, that one I do not get to see. Click...click....click again...another big white box. Rinse and repeat. I hope I am the only one this is happening to. But it happens a lot.

So instead, I scan the thumbnails and star a few ones that look cool. Only then do I click on those fave ones to enlarge. I cannot keep waiting for the big white boxes to load for every few submitted, but for my select few I can be a bit more patient . Have I missed a few awesome ones doing that? Undoubtedly.

Also, I have avoided submitting pics where the "cool" part of the image is not dead center because it gets cropped out. Last year I had to re-crop pictures into a square format, this year I did not bother. It would be nice to have a "moveable" square where we can highlight one area of our image (i.e. drag the square to the bit we think is cool) and that square will be the thumbnail, even though it is not dead-center of our image. Then the entire image opens up when you click on that thumbnail square. Probably complicated programming, though.