2012 Photo of the Year Winner is...

 Well deserved for sure, but for whatever reason I was partial to the other shot. Regardless, congrats to Toby!

 It was great to see the 2 best photos make it to the final! Congrats to the winner. I only hope PB can swing a swag bag for the runner up.

 I'm not a big fan of this photo compared to some other ones there were in the line up, but a good shot none the less.

 Hooo man, tight race indeed. The shot of Fairclough was pretty sick, whipping it out and all. This one is pretty epic though, great shot. Congrats on the win. Wish I could take photos like that! haha

 jitenshakun- the 2 best photos? that's quite the stretch.... hahaha, oh man... bring on the negs but it's the truth that the best photos never made it to the final round.

Although this shot is insanely tight, it isn't the best in my personal opinion.

 Congratulations to Toby Cowely!!

 it's just you

 but I was hoping for the second place photo to win

 BTW part of my reasoning for this is because foggy NS shots have been done for years which makes it nothing special, along with whip shots... this year was a disappointment in the least offensive way possible, haha.

 Congrats Toby, good job!

This is my opinion only so neg prop me if you want, but this is all just in the interest of debate, no disrespect or offense meant.

This picture and it's composition is perfect. Very natural and clean/simple with proper lighting for the mood. However, versus the whip photo, this photo has a much more depressing and mellow-dramatic mood to it. The other photo had crowds of people cheering and had many, many elements going on which added to the intensity of the photo. It was bright, colorful, and an extremely hard shot to pull off. You have about 1 second to get the angle, the people, the lighting, the moment right. This photo, the rider could of redone the run. It's not like Fairclough could of redo the run just for the photographer. It was just a plain raw, in the moment, shot which I believe should of won. But in the end, it's hard to really decide just like how the votes turned out, only a 1% difference. Both the photos, including this one are still top shots no matter what and deserve to win. I just believe that although somewhat more "generic" the whip photo won in regards to: Energy, Mood, Intensity, Composition, Color Vibrancy, Detail, and Difficulty. While this photo won in: Composition, Lighting, Scenery/Environment, and Detail.

Just bunch of random shit. Don't read.

 Congrats on POY.. I was hoping this one would win and it did.

 It was far better comp than last year.
I want to congrats all the photographers and riders in the pictures
no one is a looser !

 Congratulations!!!!

 Brace yourselves,WAKI hits again!!!

 @samminett That's what happens when you use this thing called a flash unit

 WAKIdesigns can't ever just say one sentence can he- I don't think I've ever read a whole comment from him (or her). Yawn yawn yawn.

The photo contest this year was awesome- so many good shots- I knew the final would be tight. Props to all the people who made the short list.

 nice work tom, and nice try to everyone else, there was some hard decisions in there!

 boh... Don't like it that much but congrats to the guy who shot this

 no offense to the photographer or rider but there are so many better pictures that deserve photo of the year over this

 The rider is more bright compared to the rest of the picture because the photographer probably used a flash and focused it on the rider.. Congrats on the POY, super sick shot!

 but surley spicy mike the whip shot was done at a race so camera man had a whole set of race runs to get ideal spot and set up sorted. In my opinion all the photos were impressive but i think some of the best went out early on. but congrats to the winner.

 nice one dude, voted all the way through

 Wow, when you look closely it does look a little weird now that you mention it...but doubt it. It is definitely photoshopped. But all photos are shopped. It's also probably because of the flash from the photographer and the light behind the rider that makes for a image that looks pretty weird in some spots. Like the rider's eyes look very weird if you zoom up. But that's from the flash and the rider is looking at it.

 Some of the shadows just don't line up right with backlight/flash.
It would be super easy to make this image in some editing software. All you need is a shot of the rider, shot of background, and you can mask it with some lighting effects.
It could be real, but i doubt it.

 Oh the PS Police is here, I'm getting snacks and bewerage, I expect low flying knives anytime.

 After looking, photographer used 2 high power flash lamps, one left and one right (little farther up). Not fake.

 Well last years POY could have been PSd by a 5 yr old, but calling this a fake... Id call it a bad studio setup

 It's so obviously not fake. I mean really guys this is just getting silly. To say that a digital photo is "photoshopped" is totally redundant anyway. But this has not been composited out of multiple images or "faked" in any way. To say a photo which is clearly taken with flash is fake is just a demonstration of ignorance more than anything else.

 Finally some one who knows what he's talking about +1

 New backround on my computer this second

 When I first saw this one months back I was hoping it would be included in the photo of the year contest, so happy it won! Well done!

 nice one man, voted all the way

 i will be completely honest with you i voted for the other photo but i couldn't agree more and this is for photo of the year not all together sickest riding or going the biggest [although this guy looks pretty pinned] it does have to factor in composition so i would say i fully agree with you but on a different note they were both very worthy photos

 yeah... congrats to Mr.Toby
this is a great photo.. great shot.. great riding technique,, i know i am not in that style/position even if i hit the exact trail ... it's wet & roots

 Not just that but the spelling of every English speaking nation bar the US, who speak their own weird Fisher Price version of English.

 Thanks! Does he even know yet?? I've been trying to contact him!

 Yes & he's pretty excited as you can imagine! I believe that he should be in an internet service area tonight.

 As if they cropped most of the shot out- I know they had to make it from landscape to portrait but it seemed a shame to lose so much of the shot.

 100% AGREED

 he would have had to make 3573 accounts

 owned

 2500 to be more precise, either way too much, hahahahahahahaha

 How did you come up with 2500?

 0,7 percent of the total votes, nerdy? hahahahahahahaha

 lost by .7% so 357309x.007 would be 2500ish.... either that or I suck at math

 I just did 1%

 the math owned me

 50.7% to 49.3% is a difference of 1.4%.
1.4% of 357,309 is a difference of 5002 votes.......and change.

 The winner had 50.7% of the votes, second place got 49.3% of the votes.

50.7 - 49.3 = 1.4

The difference was 1.4 percentage points. If there were 357309 votes, then each percentage point is worth 3573.09 votes. 1.4 X 3573.09 = 5002.3 votes.

So either second place needed to create 5003 accounts, OR get 2502 pinkbikers to change their mind about voting for Toby OR a combination of the two. Note that both these numbers are higher than the math indicated to eliminate a draw.

If my maths in wrong at least it looks convincing

 Your math looks right, except all of you are forgetting something. 357,309 is TOTAL number of cumulative votes in the entire competition. 357,309 people did not vote in the final round. A fraction of that many did, because each person can vote up to 31 times (unless if they miss a round) so the difference is actually much smaller. There is no way calculate the exact difference from the information we have unless PB released the real tally. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

 that's true tadinski, i was just wondering how small was the difference

 Oh, I thought 357,309 is how many voted for the last round. Than you are right, one cannot work out the number of votes.

 I think we all WISH we looked like this when riding through the woods.

 I think most of us do think, that we look like that. :-)

 I think the other one was better

 It's crap compared to some of the other pictures that was entered

 agreed, fantastic photo

 It's up on cypress. I thought it was called old man dh, but I know I'm wrong now and can't find the actual name. It ends up at the first viewpoint, where stupid grouse drops in from.

 not mystery is it?

 Ya could be mystery dh.

 i don't have to, just saying there was a lot better pictures to pick from the other entry's

 the pic yes - but Jens is from Germany still happy für him that he made it to the finals and lost just so close...

 I can assure you I wasn't looking at the camera bud! Would have made riding this trail nigh on impossible if I wasn't looking.

 For me though your opinion is not the best the other ones of everyone else is much better, what makes me not like your opinion apart from it clearly being wrong which it really really is, is the bias. You appear to be coming across as some type of pro, although it is hard to see as the photos in your collection are not enough to tell exactly, for most pro photographers that is a comment you would not make, there is not enough quality in your portfolio to justify winning. yes the rambling etc and jibber jabber might be the makings of an internet photographer, but, this fact of non-pro status makes you lose for me. A high quality photo in your portfolio would be good to see, to confirm or deny the validity of your opinion.

 Lmao brad. Nice photo. Congrats on winning , thanks for sharing it.

 Oh Brad this was a contest of opinions to a great extent, disable possibility to comment under POY and there would surely be a different outcome. And well after Ian's articles everyone here is an expert in composition. So close between choices - possible only when some kind of community is involved. I hate politics, if there was a choice between Settling Lorences pic and a pic from a nonpro kid from Rwanda, guess who would win...

 walton, you might have won COY with this illuminating bit of jib jabbery.

 As much as I'm loath to stand up for FSSPhotography (he's big enough and ugly enough to do that for himself), and he is being a miserable f*cker here, search Google for Alex Boyce and Sport Shooter. A Pinkbike account is no indicator of whether someone knows their shit or not.

 So now this becomes an issue of who has the bigger sensor? my lens so big, must have a shutter buttone on zem, ze body iz so far away, it is ze limited edition white gloss model with five red stripes on zem. Each of my 9 senderz haz two antenaz to 10 flashes each able to operate in command mode, all with latest TTL3s and ze range is up to 5 kilometaz. In my backpack I carry 5 bodies and 23 lens, I don't go anywhere without my Leica M, that saved my life on mission in Iraq, the F 0.956 took the AK47 bullet, almost destroying material for London Times. No shame to shoot on whip contest with a Lomo. Also Bingo Rimer iz my best friend, we shoot zem boobiez in Cali. Thats why I have a full right to ultimately point to you that the first picture sucks balls, this whole contest is mediocre nonsense anyways.

And by the way this piece of art below deserves to hang on the same wall as the last years POY:
th09.deviantart.net/fs51/PRE/f/2009/269/a/0/E_T__go_home_with_mtb_by_johnmaneca.jpg

 It was actually taken on the north shore bud, Vancouver.

 Funny how people who aren't from Van don't realize that less than an hour in any direction has completely different climate, different amounts of rain fall and therefore completely different terrain. Those wet roots bring back scary childhood memories.. lol Wicked riding dude and killer shot to capture it.

 Cheers bud! Appreciate the words.

 Congrats my arse

 About 500 people all had almost the exact same photo of Brendan. I'm a fan of Dog as well, but this image is simply more original, had more work put into it etc.

 original? i've seen tons of pics like that, you can say a lot of things about this picture, but not" original"

 Vs about 500 of the EXACT SAME SHOT of the same person, at the same time... I'd say original comparatively, yes.

 Oh well but he took a plane from Europe to take the shot... There is too much analysing, too much strive for making justice basing on God knows how many arguments incl. photography, demographics, politics, PROness for the sake of choice between two pictures of a bloke on a bike. As you push the issue hard enough for long enough period of time, the shit will finaly come out, and we stop to forget about good initial feelings and what are we actualy doing

 become a canadian lol