Photos are magic.
They let us travel effortlessly through time and space.
They let us see through the eyes of others.
And we can all easily create and share them with one another.
Photography is thus perhaps the greatest of all the arts.
Yet, in this era when photos are everywhere, they are often not even really noticed, let alone appreciated, for how truly magical they can be.
America’s Favorite Photos is all about rekindling America’s appreciation of photography.
Our mission and entire purpose is to encourage, support, and promote photography as an art form we can all create, share, and celebrate together.
Join us on the journey!
When you take enough photos, eventually, even by accident, one will turn out to be pretty great.
You probably have at least one of those.
Select your favorite and enter it in the America’s Favorite Photos competition.
The overall top favorite photos will be showcased and celebrated in a Featured Gallery.
And the overall winner wins $10,000 and the title of America’s Favorite Photo 2024!
The winner is selected by public voting.
Everyone can participate as a Voter, discover and vote for all of their new favorite photos, and help select America’s Favorite Photos.
And everyone is also welcome to enter a photo.
What kind of photo?
It can be any photo (as long as it is your photo!)
2023 was one big 44-day competition.
To help make things more fun and accessible, 2024 instead consists of 12 monthly qualifying competitions of just 14 days each (plus the overall annual 2024 Competition of just 4 days total).
Everyone is welcome to enter one or more of these monthly qualifying competitions.
Each month of 2024 will have its own Featured Gallery of the Top 10 Finalists of that month - and the Top 5 Finalists from each month will advance to the overall annual 2024 Competition held at the end of 2024 (after the conclusion of the December 2024 monthly competition).
The overall annual 2024 Competition is then just 4 days long, consisting of a two day Semifinal Round of 5 Groups of 12 photos each (one photo from each month), and then a two day Final Round with the top 2 photos from each of the 5 Semifinal Groups.
Those 10 Finalists will be showcased and celebrated in the overall annual 2024 Featured Gallery - and the Top Photo will win the title of America's Favorite Photo of 2024 and the overall prize of $10,000.
Short version: in 2023 it took a total of 44 days of competing to win $10,000 - but in 2024, it will take only 18 days!
Plus, there are now 12 different opportunities to be able to qualify for the overall annual 2024 Competition (and 12 monthly Featured Galleries as well).
March 14 Everyone is welcome to start entering photos for the April Competition
April 1 Entry approvals begin
April 10 Competition Pages and Vote Links for approved photos become available (via your account Dashboard)
April 16 Entries deadline
April 16 Entry approvals finish
April 17 Public voting begins. The first day of every Round is a Double Vote Day (all votes count double)
April 17-18 Round One
April 19-20 Round Two
April 21-22 Round Three
April 23-24 Round Four
April 25-26 Quarterfinal Round
April 27-28 Semifinal Round
April 29-30 Final Round
April 17 Everyone is welcome to start entering photos for the May Competition
May 1 Entry approvals begin
May 8 Competition Pages and Vote Links for approved photos become available (via your account Dashboard)
May 14 Entries deadline
May 14 Entry approvals finish
May 15 Public voting begins
(Dates are subject to change)
The overall goal of the competition is to give every entered photo an opportunity to be discovered and appreciated - and to make it easy for everyone to discover and appreciate those photos!
The winner is decided by public voting - and everyone is welcome to vote.
To start things off, photos are randomly assigned to Groups.
Voters can vote for free for their favorite photo in each and every Group each and every day.
A huge thank you to everyone who helps discover and select America’s Favorite Photos!
Each monthly qualifying competition consists of 7 two day Rounds of voting, with the first day of each Round being a Double Vote Day (where all votes count as double!)
All Rounds start at 5am Eastern / 2am Pacific.
All Rounds end at 10pm Eastern / 7pm Pacific.
All photos are initially randomly assigned to Groups of around 10 photos each.
In the early Rounds of voting, generally the Top 5 photos from each Group advance to the next Round (meaning a photo just needs to be slightly above average to advance).
The number of photos that will advance to the next Round is shown at the top of each Group Page.
Each photo that advances to the next Round is then randomly assigned to a new Group of around 10 other photos that have also advanced to the next Round.
Since each advancing photo is competing against a different Group of advancing photos in each Round, vote totals are reset between Rounds to keep everything fair for all photos.
Also, while votes in a Round determine a photo's rank in its Group for that Round, it is only the rank in its Group that matters as to whether it advances to the next Round or not - so the rank of each photo in its Group is always shown - but vote totals themselves are never shown.
This helps improve the overall experience for both competitors and voters.
If a voter could see that a photo has significantly more or less votes than another photo, that might completely discourage them from voting (thinking that their vote wouldn't make any difference) - and voters should never be discouraged from voting for their favorite photos - as the whole point of all this is for them to do so!
Groups not only make it easier for voters (as they can wander through different Groups and vote for their favorite photo in each Group instead of having to only pick just their one overall favorite photo from among all the photos in the whole competition) - but it also makes things much easier for competitors (as they are effectively only competing with the other 9 photos in their Group to be able to advance to the next Round).
For example, even if there were a total of a million photos in one of the monthly qualifying competitions, your photo would only need to get more votes than 54 other photos in your Groups to be able to advance from that monthly qualifier competition to the overall annual 2024 Competition.
And, to continue the example, your photo would then only need to get more votes than 17 other photos in your Groups (8 other photos in your Semifinal Group, and 9 other photos in the Final Group) to win the title of America's Favorite Photo 2024 and the overall prize of $10,000.
Of course, each Round gets more competitive (as you are competing against other photos that have also advanced from the previous Round) - but you don't have to worry about beating everyone in the entire competition - rather just the other photos in your Group.
With that said, some Groups will be tougher than others, and if your photo does not advance to the next Round of voting, it could simply be that you were in a tough Group - and you are then welcome to try again the following month.
It is always 100% free to enter, compete, and win - and everyone is welcome to enter a photo each and every month.
Thank you for participating in America's Favorite Photos as a competitor and/or as a voter!
