Draughts (circa 1836)by
blachlymComment by jmsetzler: Greetings from the Critique Club...
Welcome to DPChallenge :) 5.1 is not a terrible score but you didn't manage to make it into the top 50% of the images in this challenge. It's not an easy thing to do around here, but with a little time and patience you will get there soon enough if you stick to it. Since you are new here, I'll share a few ideas that will help you move up in the ranks.
1. Meeting the challenge
That's obviously critical. If you don't obviously meet the challenge topic with your image, you won't usually do very well. Your photo, in this case, meets the challenge with no questions asked. That's a good thing. That being said, meeting the challenge is a relatively small part of doing well on this site. Meeting the challenge doesn't carry as much merit as you will lose if you don't meet it.
2. Visual / emotional impact
Visual and emotional impact are probably the two most important elements of a challenge photo. A high level of this coupled with meeting the challenge produces winning images. Your photo doesn't have much of this in my opinion. In this environment of photographers from multiple backgrounds and skill levels, postcard type photography tends to do well.
3. Technicals
In my personal opinion, if you have high levels of the first two parts of this discussion, the technicals don't matter as much. The comments you received in this challenge seem to complain mainly about the lack of sharpness in the photo, which may be from the slow shutter speed which caused some motion blur. If the visual and/or emotional impact of the image is high enough, the technicals become less of an issue. If the technicals are good as well, it just adds to the overall performance of the image.
Subject choice is always the toughest part of artistic photography. Viewer subjectivity will make or break you every time. Some people will like it and some won't, and deep down as an artist, you always want to impress someone. Don't forget to make yourself happy with the image though. If you are shooting stuff for someone else rather than to satisfy your own interests in the art, you won't get very far in the long run :)
Photographer found comment helpful.