In May 2005, the second geezer down on this web page received top honors on American Photo�s list of the '100 Most Important People in Photography'. He's not a photographer either.

http://company.gettyimages.com/section_display.cfm?section_id=245&isource=corporate_website_officers

Am I right in thinking that he won by submitting something that isn't actually a photo?

Amongst many photoshop processes,  looks like stacked layers of various images with various opacity setting.

It sounds like all of the finalists' submissions were similarly composed images, featuring layers and collage techniques. So at least the winner was chosen from among similarly styled and composed pieces.

But that isn't exactly a photo competition then. Call it a "digital art" contest or something.

It sounds like all of the finalists' submissions were similarly composed images, featuring layers and collage techniques. So at least the winner was chosen from among similarly styled and composed pieces.

But that isn't exactly a photo competition then. Call it a "digital art" contest or something.

Exactly, it's digital art and judged by some crew of artists, with a final vote by online poll. Totally incredible and absurd! The wine and cheese crowd with their little caps and scarfs will be pleased by this as Avant-garde and groundbreaking work. The rest of us will see it as a pile of meaningless dung. Fun, frivolous, experimental and creative, but winning a photo contest. what? 
 

I agree. I wasn't really a fan of the piece. I often find digitally altered photo collages interesting, but not this one.