Last Day This Round: 2012 Photo of the Year - Round 3

 Brendogs whip of worlds shot is soo sick

 I give up. I'm not voting round 3. It's too hard. I'm getting stressed out. I quit.

 I actually found this round easier than the last

 even tho i was disappointed in the winner of matchup 7 i hope it beats the winner of matchup 8 in round 3 i really dont like how photoshopped and fake the image feels. hell the biker coulda been added in in photoshop with the amount of time that appears to have been spent on the photo. but thats just my 3 pennies short of a nickel.. cuz obviously some of you like it or it wouldnt have made it this far Toby Cowley all the way!

 The Stevelloyd photo is actually not photoshopped/edited in the least. According to the description, the shot is a single long exposure using three external flashes-two to illuminate the rock arches, and the other to expose the rider. If this really is how the photo was taken, I think it deserves the win because most of these photos don't show half as much planning and precision! Just my opinion though.

 I think Sram will be quite dissapointed if brendogs doesnt go through,great photo yes,but i mean look at all the advertising in that photo,setup much?

 I personally think a lot of photos that did not make it to the finals, were better.

 @ patrickdemo9

even with that said, the photo looks edited/photoshopped.
and with that much setup and thought going into a picture you should be able to get one that doesnt look as edited.

example www.oceanlight.com/spotlight.php?img=27827
similar night photo without so much warmth.

 Jk-mrdck420
This shot you posted a link to was taken in a very similar manner as I took mine, but the difference is that I used orange gels on my lights and used flashes to freeze the photo as where this photo you linked is most likely "painted with a flashlight or some other light sorce". This is why it has a more natural look and mine has a more saturated feel. I have done minimal editing to this photo and I am sure that some of the photos in this contest have done more editing to theirs than I have done to mine. I have extensive experience with flash work and now exactly what I am doing. My raw file had been changed very little to accomplish this look.

 Once again, read my original post and check out the Pocketwizard link to see how I did the photo. "Ok, I will just post this to start so there is no confusion here. This is in no way shopped. This was taken as one exposure at 25 seconds at IOS 2500. There were three flashes used in this shot. The shot was done in two different stages. First stage is to flash the inside of the cave/arch with two flashes with gels on the flash to give it a orange effect. the rider was not in the shot yet. Second was to have the lens covered after the first set of flashes went off and have the rider come onto the arch. as he was about to get to our marked spot to pop the second set of flash, I uncovered the lens and the flash was fired and then covered up as to not get any ghosting effect due to a small head lamp Carston was using to see where she was riding. All this was done with a cable release and was shut off after the rider was out of frame and all lights were off. Here is a link on more info. blog.pocketwizard.com/?p=4257

 Agreed, the shot of Fairclough is amazing, but the shot at Val D'Isere was probably my favorite of the whole contest.....oh well. At least the nighttime arch shot made it, way to go, Steve!

 Fanboys...

 They should have put Berrecloth's and Fairclough's photos against each other.

 I think it captured the moment, if you've ever been to a WC race.

 Brendooooooooooooog!

 It's hard to say. Both capture the moment perfectly in their own ways. Personally I liked the Val D'Isere one more, much more epic.

 I think matchup 7 came about from all the 14 year olds just liking the fact that it was an epic whip, rather than an epic race shot of Gwin, that I think should have been second in the whole contest (next to the shot of Danny). (note that somebody said this before)

 Totally agree, the second I saw it i was trapped. Amazing photo

 I have to say that Toby really shot one hell of a photo. I love that shot ever since I first saw it on a German magazine cover.

 To me this image perfectly captures of the essence of mountain biking. It reminds me of an Irish summer too, overcast and damp!!

 Definitely the winner here in the last round. Congrats Toby!

 Its a brilliant image for sure and I hope it meets Toby Cowley's image in the final. It would make a superb final matchup.

 And that it should because not only is Steve an insane photog but Carston is insane at everything. Here's a vid of him sending a 1080 off a 100ft. cliff... enjoy! vimeo.com/20522441#at=0

 Did he set up some kind of crazy high powered lighting to get that shot?

 ^ I'm no photography expert but lights are used of course but more importantly a LOT of work is done to create what you see. The work that goes into this shot is far and beyond more than a few of the other pictures in this contest... the more incredible shots you see use the same techniques that are displayed in this shot. It ain't easy although I'm sure other shots in this contest took a crap ton of work and imagination. Not trying to take away from them but these kind of shots always deserve high praise. Just an opinion on a contest that's based on best picture, not the best bike action that's being shot, even though that ridge is a bit nerve racking

 Scott, I completely disagree, I think the amount of work (the fact that it is a composite of three different shots and so on) makes it less deserving of being the winner. For me it doesn't capture anything about mountain biking, the rider is incidental, they could have been photoshopped in from a completely different image and the shot would be exactly the same. While it is the photo of the year contest it is also the Pinkbike photo of the year contest. There are a lot of better mountain biking images in there in my opinion.

 You 6 hours or more shooting one photo, and achieve that without even touching photo shop and tell me it doesn't deserve POY.

 Patrick- the only problem with that is that the rider wasn't photoshopped in... and really the same could be said for half the pictures in this contest, haha.

 don't group them all together! not all the photos have big names...support the independents!

 I agree but this is Pinkbike and those are amazing pictures of scenery but there is very little biking in them. For example matchup 7 the one that lost was very good but I could cover biker took up barely any of the picture and is not an amazing picture because of the bike without the bike that picture dosent change all that much and because this is Pinkbike it is all about the bike.

 on the other side - it´s so difficult to shoot such a winner pic like in #7 when you can´t plan your shot. you know they are going to whip the s**t out of it, but you don´t know who will jump, where the rider is going to land...in this case, brendogs pic got it for me right. rider, crowd, dust - you can feel the atmosphere and the enthusiasm. for me, that´s what it is about - to catch this atmosphere right in one photo.
but toby cowleys shot - incredible, too, in a different way. would be tough for me to decide between these two.

 They should have put Berrecloth's and Fairclough's photos against each other.

 gotta agree with you on #5

 Ya I think 5 and 7 should've gone the other way too.

 then again hating the winners of 5 and 7 look like far harder shots to take... so much indecision

 The winner of matchup 5 is really overrated

 The truth is that the hand plant shot of claw shows something from a completely new perspective. It will remain a great and creative shot no matter who the rider is. And I actually don´t feel that bad at all about my photo losing against it.

 Not really a new perspective!
vernondeck.smugmug.com/Other/Published-work/14620065_rvRx6j/1561712348_5MfZbLP#!i=1561712348&k=5MfZbLP

But a nice Shot

 Ahh. That snowboard shot is a really cool as well. You have a pretty good memory about photographs Roger

 Mars for the win !