Todd MacMillan, digitalimagecafe.com, macmillaninc.com digitalimagecafe.com Todd MacMillan deceived me regarding the nature of his photo contest judging process. He states the judges are members with 20 wins or more, however, favoritism toward a few members is egregious. Internet
Todd MacMillan, owner of the website digitalimagecafe.cafe.com a member-based photo contest, photo critiqueing and photographer's forum site, utilizes a "shadow" judging system in which he has complete control over the so-called democratic and "fair" judging process that is explained on the site.
Supposedly, judges for the photo of the day contests are members with 20 wins or more chosen from member volunteers. Supposedly, names of the members submitting works for contests are kept from the judges until they chose a work as a winner. This way the judging is fair and there can be no favoritism.
The truth, however, I eventually became acutely aware of, is that Mr. MacMillan can and does override judges choices either because he feels certain choices are too far from his cookie cutter/cliche/trite (no wild experimentation permitted) sense of aesthetics, or else he may override a decision because a winning work was submitted by someone he feels has not been a "good" member.
A "good" member does not question MacMillan's way of operating the photo contests. A "good" member does not question why one Heather MacFarland has amassed nearly 800 wins over a period of 4 or 5 years as a member when the vast majority of her work is a "cookie cutter"/cliche style that has been done over and over since the beginning of photography.
A "good" member does not question why a handfull of members have hundreds of wins while most of the remaining members have 50 or less photo of the day contest wins.
Todd MacMillan may lie, but statistics don't. One looks at the win totals within the membership and favoritism toward a few members and toward a specific (trite/cliche/knock-off/safe) aesthetic style is so obvious as to be egregious and sickening.
Members who attempt to raise this issue and other "taboo" issues are "bad" members and once a member is branded "bad" they don't stand a chance of winning a photo contest.
Why? Because Todd MacMillan is a tyrant who hides behind a "smoke and mirrors" way of operating the digitalimagecafe.com. He has a hidden agenda which is to promote his personal (read: stale, clicheISH and uninspired) aesthetic by hand-picking and rewarding a select few members whose aesthetic style resonates with his.
I paid my hard-earned money for a year's membership but I quit in disgust after 9 months of seeing a toxic judging system at work, the manipulation and retaliation against "bad" members (defined above) by Todd MacMillan and learning of members losing their membership because they just wouldn't be "good" (I hope you're real proud Ms. Heather).
Todd MacMillan should be exposed and held accountable for his dastardly behavior and mistreatment of members - his blatant favoritism - what he has done for years and will continue to do on the digitalimagecafe.com until he's shut down.