Thank you, everyone, who furnished your impressions on the 37 photos listed in the Lenspiration 2026 Calendar photo survey!
Now that all the results are in, would you like to see which photos in the survey ranked the highest . . . and which ones ranked the lowest?! Get ready for some intriguing insights gathered from public opinion!
Two things before getting started. First, I decided that listing all 37 photos from the survey would be too many to include in this follow-up blog post, so I picked only the ones that had the most interesting comments or represented the majority of photos best. This brought the total count to 18.
Secondly, I need to explain to you my system of rating the photos!
When the results came in, I imported the information from the survey into a spreadsheet that showed me how many 1-star ratings, 2-star ratings, 3-star ratings etc. each photo received from the voters.
Using that information, I could give each photo a SCORE (see below). 85 people took the survey, so that means if every single voter gave a photo a 1-star rating, then the lowest score possible for any given photo would be 85. If every single voter gave a photo a 5-star rating, then that means the highest rating possible for any given photo would be 425.
Now that every single photo had a score, I could give a star rating to each one in light of the whole batch. If the highest scoring photo in the whole batch was given a rating of 5.0, and the lowest scoring photo in the whole batch was given a 0.0, then all the rest of the photos would land at a rating somewhere in between, making it easier to see which photos scored higher or lower compared to all the others in the whole batch. I called this number a TRUE STAR rating (see above), and that’s what I’ll use to show you which photos are the very best and which photos are the very worst from the survey!
1st, 2nd, and 3rd Place
Ready for the very highest scoring photo of all?!
1st place goes to candidate #4, a photo taken from Stonewall Resort State Park in my beautiful home state of West Virginia!
From the 85 voters, this photo received a whopping 49 5-star ratings. And zero 1-stars. Because it had the highest score of all, it received a true star rating of 5.0. Everyone loved the color, the simple stillness, and the reflection of the clouds on the water. Anita summarized the feeling of the photo well when she commented, “This has a magical feel and makes me want to know what is on those mountains!”
2nd place goes to photo #1, with a true star rating of 4.8.
I think people really like colorful skies! And believe it or not, this photo was also taken in West Virginia. Do you recognize the bridge? It’s the one on the WV quarter. New River Gorge National Park is a perfect spot for us to stop for a stretch break or a picnic on our travels down to destinations south of us. I remember on this particular stop we had just finished a supper of hotdogs fried over a small propane stove when I said I’d run down to the overlook to snap a few photos before we hit the road again. I didn’t even bring my wide angle lens with me, thinking I wouldn’t be there for long. However, after doing my “snapping” I realized with where the sun and clouds where, the color would be fantastic in just a few more minutes. So I stuck around a little longer, did the best with the mid-range lens that I had, and came away with something I’ll most likely be using in a Lenspiration calendar in the future!
3rd place turned out to be photo #18, with an incredible true star rating of 4.4.
38 voters gave it a 5-star rating, and only one voter gave it a 1-star rating. It was taken in Indiana during a fantastic Lenspiration photography workshop. Color does it again! Heather encapsulated what stood out to most viewers about this photo when she commented, “Love the subject of the tree and the reflection.” It’s a perfectly intentional composition.
3 Honorable Mentions
Very, very close behind 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place are three photos that all scored very close to each other.
This snowy scene in Connecticut, photo #36, garnered a true star rating of 4.3.
Sarah states in a comment, “If those are seriously your only two winter possibilities for the calendar (#36 and #37), this one appears whiter due to the sky taking more of the picture, but it frankly looks like November or maybe December. Definitely not enough [snow] for January or February.”
Great observation, Sarah! And thankfully, the 37 photos from this survey are not the only ones I have to choose from for the Lenspiration 2026 Calendar. They are just my favorite calendar-worthy photos from the previous year. I’ll be choosing from a stockpile of additional photos from many previous years as well.
And this photo, #16, also scored high at 4.1. Several voters mentioned the branches at the top being distracting, so if I had thought to position myself a little lower, it probably would have pushed this one up to an even higher rating.
This was another high-rated photo was #10. It’s true star was 4.0.
Some comments on it that I thought were insightful were, “Clouds aren’t shapely, but other than that, LOVE it.” and “Interesting but not as unique [as] some others.”
With such high ratings, these top 6 photos will likely find their way into a calendar one of these days!
Mid-Rated Photos
Between the best and the worst are the majority of the photos in the survey. They still received mostly 5-stars and 4-stars from voters, but there are a few negative elements here and there that garnered more and more 3-stars and 2-stars from voters.
A good example would be #5.
As you can see, this photo was taken at the same time as the 1st place photo. I intentionally framed this shot to include the boardwalk to give the photo a little more interest. I wanted to fill the foreground with something. Perhaps provide a more substantial subject. But this shot landed with a true star rating of not 5.0, but 3.3. Why?
What Amy said rang true with me, now that I look at it in retrospect. “It’s pretty good . . . not a fan of so much bridge, but it’s pretty good.” And Sarah says, “Spectacular view, but the curve of the path draws my eye out of the picture.” I think there’s just a little too much emphasis on the boardwalk. I wish I could have been able to position the camera higher.
And there was a similar issue with #26, with a 3.0 true star.
“Slightly too much foreground, but otherwise a great shot.”
“I just thought that too much of the foreground was blurred; if it wasn’t for that, I would rate this photo four stars.”
“I would like this photo better if the ground wasn’t all dirt.”
Photo #29 dipped just below the 3.0 true star mark, landing at 2.9.
The only two church building photos in the survey both tied at a true star of 2.8.
“Come back when the sky has some personality.”
“Just needs a touch of correction to straighten the walls, and this would be amazing!”
Several of the photos I put in the survey were very similar to each other. I wanted to use popular opinion to find out which was the best of the batch. Candidate #28, as you can see below, is almost identical to #29 (above), except that it was taken from a lower angle.
That lower angle provided more emphasis on the shape of the rocks. “You could look at those rocks for a whole month.”
But overall, the lower angle wasn’t as popular, leaving this photo with a true star rating of 2.4.
I’ll skip a lot of the 2 and 1 true star photos so we can get down to the six worst in the survey!
The Bottom 6
If a photo had a true score of less than 1.0, it didn’t mean that the voters thought it wasn’t a good photo. It’s just that it was among the least favorite among the voters. Perhaps a photo simply wouldn’t work very well for a calendar. On average, the following 6 photos received more 1-sars than 5-stars, and had a much higher concentration of 2-star and 3-star ratings than their higher scoring counterparts
6th from last was was #27.
This is another similar shot to #28 and #29 above, just taken at a slightly different spot and at a different time of day. But evidently, this was the least favorite of the three, scoring a true star of only 0.9.
Photo #25 scored at 0.5.
“I like it. Just doesn’t give calendar vibes.”
Photo #8 came in 4th from last, at 0.4.
“Definitely a calendar-worthy photo, but is it interesting enough?”
And then the following two photos tied at 0.2.
“I think if a person is in a calendar photo like this, they should be almost more like an element of the landscape and not as recognizable.”
I love this photo! It’s one of my favorite from 2024. The incredible textures, the muted color scheme, the bold color of the solitary larch trees bathed in a valley of sunlight, the deep shadows, and the feelings of solitude, mystery, and wilderness. It all merges together into a low key composition that feels both energetic and lonely at the same time.
But it’s not really a calendar shot. 🙂
“Where’s the moose?”
“There doesn’t seem to be a clear, inviting subject here.”
And now are you ready for last place?!
Candidate #2 had a true star rating of 0.0. Meaning, it had the lowest score of all 37 photos in the survey.
It only received four 5-stars. But it didn’t receive many 1-stars either. The majority of ratings were 2- and 3-stars. It’s not a bad photo. But I do get the drift that it wouldn’t exactly be the best for a calendar. Why?
“This is a good picture, but it isn’t as attractive as so many of your other pictures.”
“I wish this picture was taken from slightly lower and had more sky.”
“The composition is great, just not very much color.”
Though for some, “When I look at this picture I think peace and it feels me with a sense of calm.”
And that brings us full circle! Isn’t it amazing that this last photo and the 2nd place photo were taken at the same location, only a matter of minutes apart? Same sunset. Same overlook. Just looking different directions down the gorge.
Well, it sure has been fun reviewing everyone’s comments and ratings on the survey photos! I still love them all, and it is very possible that I could end up using any one of them for the 2026 calendar! But at least I know how others would rank them from best to worst, now. Stay tuned! I’ll let you know which 12 I choose for the Lenspiration 2026 Calendar in just a few weeks!
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