The Astorian Coast Weekend Photo Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

Two different Coast Weekend ballots, not one

The Astorian publishes two separate ballots under the Coast Weekend name, and a photographer landing on the wrong one is an easy slip. This page covers the photo contest itself, a public vote where entrants submit a photo and the public picks a favorite, currently in its seventh confirmed edition. A sister program, the Coast Weekend Readers' Choice Awards, instead asks the public to name favorite local businesses, running its own separate entry form toward its own separate results.

Both sit on Second Street, hosted at eopubco.secondstreetapp.com, and both trace back to The Astorian in Astoria, Oregon. Beyond that host and that publisher, the photo contest and the business poll keep entirely separate entries, separate judging, and separate winners.

Seven editions deep, still without a published rulebook

Most programs reviewed on this site have run once or twice by the time they are confirmed. The Coast Weekend Photo Contest has already logged seven, 2018 through 2024, with the most recent window opening December 18 and closing January 13. That kind of run gives a photographer more past seasons to notice than a brand-new contest offers, even though the underlying rules have stayed just as unpublished the whole time.

How many categories run, and how often one person may vote, is not stated; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Seven confirmed editions is proof the contest itself keeps coming back, not proof of any specific rule inside it.

What seven editions does and does not tell a new entrant

A long history says the format has staying power at The Astorian. It says nothing about whether a coming round will cap votes, publish named categories, or run on exactly the same December-to-January calendar as the one just confirmed. Each of those questions still has one answer, whatever eopubco.secondstreetapp.com states once the next round actually opens.

A photographer comparing this contest to a brand-new one elsewhere should weigh the difference correctly. Seven confirmed editions means seven separate rounds of judging have already happened, seven separate sets of entrants have already competed, and seven separate results are already settled. It does not mean the eighth round is bound to look identical, only that The Astorian has kept the format running long enough to reach one.

Astoria's own contest, without added detail

Astoria is the only place The Astorian names for this photo contest, and nothing confirmed here fixes a boundary beyond that. No neighborhood breakdown and no note about which addresses qualify appear anywhere on the current page.

The Second Street account behind this contest also runs other Astorian promotions at different points in the year, sweepstakes, a separate photo gallery, and the readers'-choice ballot among them, none of them tied to this photo contest's own entries or its own results.

Read the coverage the way The Astorian itself states it: Astoria. Confirm on the live ballot each cycle for anything the current page leaves open.

What actually moves a vote after seven confirmed rounds

A photo contest with this much history still comes down to the same basic mechanics each round: a real photo, judged by a real audience, inside a window that eventually closes. Asking people who genuinely want to view the photo, more than once across the December 18 through January 13 stretch, does more for a standing than assuming the contest's age carries any weight of its own.

Activity that looks automated or fabricated puts an entry at risk in any edition, long-running or brand new. A contest seven editions deep may look established, but each individual round is still judged on its own count, with no carryover credit from the six before it. A strong showing in 2022 buys a photographer nothing automatic in the round that opened December 18.

Submitting a photo is the easy part; the count The Astorian eventually publishes is entirely its own to settle. is buying votes legal sets out what a photographer should weigh before spending real money on a future round, and award-vote campaign planning covers what organized outside help for a public photo ballot like this one typically involves, whether the round in question is the contest's first or its eighth.