It’s time to reveal the results from the Lenspiration 2027 Calendar Photo Candidates survey!

72 different people participated in the survey this year. And to find out which photos they thought were the most popular, I pulled all the information into a spreadsheet to tally up the total number of 1-star, 2-star, 3-star, 4-star, and 5-star ratings that each photo received.

Setting Up the Scoring Method

Based on this data, I could calculate a Score for each photo. If each 1-star rating gave a photo 1 point, each 2-star rating gave a photo 2 points, each 3-star rating gave a photo 3 points, and so on, then it would be easy to create a formula that would give each photo a precise Score that could be easily compared to all the other phots in the survey.

I then used conditional formatting to highlight each Score with a color. The lowest scoring photo would be bold red, the highest scoring photo would be vibrant green, and everything in between would be automatically assigned colors along the gradient between red and green with orange in the middle, like a little heat map of public opinion. It made the ranking system easier to process as I could tell immediately which photos did well, and which ones didn’t.

To make the results even clearer, I built one final formula that converted each photo’s score into a star rating. The lowest‑scoring photo became a 0‑star image, the highest-scoring photo became a 5-star image, and the rest of the photos settled naturally along the scale based on how its score compared to all the others. I called this a True Star rating, a quick way to see how each photo performed relative to the entire group.

So, with my rating system all set up, I could now look over all the photos to see which ones were the most popular . . . and which ones weren’t!

The Most Popular Shots

In the following screenshot, you can see the winner! 327 was the highest Score that any photo received. I guess the way the landscape folds together at this location is the reason why Hyatt Lane in Cades Cove, Tennessee, is one of the most popular spots in all of the United States for landscape photography.

And here’s another bit of intriguing information from the above screenshot! This set shows the four photos I included in the survey from Cades Cove. Three of them are bright green. They have scored very high. Well, there are only 6 bright green photos in the entire survey! This means that, based on popular opinion, half of my very best shots from an entire year of landscape photography came from one, single two-night excursion. I suppose I can safely say that Cades Cove is one of the best places I can recommend for landscape photography!

Based on this survey, it even beat out the best photos from a two-night excursion at Grand Canyon.

The other three highest ranking photos (see below) don’t have that much in common. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of Portland Head Lighthouse. And I’m sure you’ve heard of famous Sedona, Arizona. But have you ever heard of Water Slide Road, in Wolf Summit, West Virginia? One feels like cool spring, another feels like hot summer, the third feels like frigid winter.

But it is true that all three have a very clear subject. They are all superbly composed. And look at the sky in each one! They all received very few 1-star ratings, an extremely high amount of 5-star ratings, and, as I’m finding is the difference between “good” and “amazing” when dealing with public sentiment, a relatively low amount of 4-star ratings.

The Least Popular Shot

And now, for the photo that lost the popularity contest!

I was going to name this blog post “The Photo That Nobody Liked”, but that actually isn’t true. As you can see, this photo scored a relatively high number of 3-star ratings. And five of the 72 survey participants gave it a 5-star rating. Though it received seven 1-star ratings, that’s better than another photo in the survey that set the record with eleven 1-star ratings.

So what is it about this photo that made it less popular than the others? Let’s look at some of the comments to find out:

• “Again, really beautiful, but #26 was my favorite of the two.”
• “The sky is just a little too intensely blue. Also, the picture feels a little bottom-heavy I think?”
• “This is a little less interesting than #’s 25-27. Maybe the foreground is too prominent? Maybe there’s not enough green?”
• “I like the earlier one better cause of the foreground.”
• “Too much plain red dirt.”
• “Maybe too centered?”
• “Too bad there is a contrail on the left side.”

I love getting my photos critiqued! I definitely see how the composition is lacking. And I can see how the naturally unnatural appearance that blue hour sheds on the scene could throw some folks off. It may also be that this photo followed a much higher-rated photo in the survey. And perhaps the wow factor had already been reached and impressions established before this photo even had a chance to make its debut?

Whatever the reason, the survey did exactly what I hoped: it showed me which photos resonated most with my audience, and which ones would likely not be strong calendar candidates.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate. I’ll keep you posted as I move into the next phase—finalizing the selections, settling on a theme, and pulling together all the details for launch on the week of August 16!