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02/22/2006 01:15:26 PM · #51 |
A very good reason for asking that we 'meet the challenge' is that it sharpens our creativity and asks us to move from our photographic 'comfort zones'.
If we are rewarded for staying in our comfort zone and fit our images to challenges by way of a clever title, how has that developed our creativity?
There's no point setting challenges if we don't attempt to meet them and are rewarded for doing so by the voting.
My voting is guided by two thoughts as far as meeting the challenge goes:
A 'Creative Interpretation' or 'Convoluted and Contrived'?
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02/22/2006 02:06:38 PM · #52 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
This is an issue that is never going to be resolved in any meaningful way. But I think it's a shame that, by and large, lateral thinking, truly creative thinking, is not rewarded by this site's voters. I can understand off-the-wall images that actually do meet the challenge, even if only obliquely, not finishing in the top 20 or 30, say; but it makes me weep to see wonderful work buried in the bottom of the pile underneath heaps of technically mediocre, conceptually lackluster images whose sole virtue, really, is that they DO meet the challenge head-on.
R. |
Robt.
I've seen this assertion from you and others in the past. Wouldn't it be a good idea for you ... or someone else ... to select these after every challenge and tell people what you see in them. And if it is done after every challenge maybe people's perceptions of these photographs will change ... and maybe even their voting patterns.
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02/22/2006 02:30:11 PM · #53 |
Originally posted by dassilem:
But as someone said earlier a horse is not the same as a frog no matter what you title the picture.
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tilt your head counterclockwise ;-) |
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02/22/2006 02:31:40 PM · #54 |
Originally posted by meanwile:
Originally posted by dassilem:
But as someone said earlier a horse is not the same as a frog no matter what you title the picture.
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tilt your head counterclockwise ;-) |
that is possibly the best reply I've seen all week :) |
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02/22/2006 02:33:54 PM · #55 |
| Cool reply for sure! lmao! |
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02/22/2006 02:49:19 PM · #56 |
Wow....GREAT REPLY...
I totally stand CORRECTED....even if I am standing with my head tilted sideways!!!
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02/22/2006 02:54:56 PM · #57 |
I would say that meeting the Challenge by serving up a boring-ass photo is the worse thing you can do in my eyes. Technicals mean nothing if you make the viewer snore and I sadly see it all the time here...painful to vote on those images, I should add.
Having said that, I believe that meeting the Challenge is the crux of the bisquit, here. The point of a Challenge has no meaning otherwise. It's a competetive exercise tool that encourages people to get out and shoot....occasionally out of their comfort zones where they will learn new things. If I go out of my way to meet the Challenge, I would hope that people won't be too bothered to do the same.
Some people aren't here to learn but are here to compete and that's when things diverge and get fuzzy. Personally, I would like to get paid on occasion to take pix and responding to a clients needs isn't dissimilar to meeting the Challenge and that's is why I'm here. If I can meet the Challenge and bring something to my efforts artistically....I win.
I tend to vote based on my goals but leave enough latitude to accomodate other mindsets that people bring to DPC.
Message edited by author 2006-02-22 14:58:41.
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02/22/2006 03:05:35 PM · #58 |
good word´s Steve !
Originally posted by pawdrix:
I would say that meeting the Challenge by serving up a boring-ass photo is the worse thing you can do in my eyes. Technicals mean nothing if you make the viewer snore and I sadly see it all the time here...painful to vote on those images, I should add.
Having said that, I believe that meeting the Challenge is the crux of the bisquit, here. The point of a Challenge has no meaning otherwise. It's a competetive exercise tool that encourages people to get out and shoot....occasionally out of their comfort zones where they will learn new things. If I go out of my way to meet the Challenge, I would hope that people won't be too bothered to do the same.
Some people aren't here to learn but are here to compete and that's when things diverge and get fuzzy. Personally, I would like to get paid on occasion to take pix and responding to a clients needs isn't dissimilar to meeting the Challenge and that's is why I'm here. If I can meet the Challenge and bring something to my efforts artistically....I win.
I tend to vote based on my goals but leave enough latitude to accomodate other mindsets that people bring to DPC. |
Message edited by author 2006-02-22 15:06:37. |
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02/22/2006 03:25:13 PM · #59 |
People have the right to submit whatever they want or vote anyway they like but when you do so you're getting little to nothing from this site, IMO. If you are a voter and just vote with a narrow vision that vision is never going to grow or expand and you'll just remain closeminded to most things your entire life. Conversely, if you are a landscape photographer and all you do is submit landscape photos regardless of the type of challenge then you're never going to grow or learn anything different except maybe figure out why your great looking photos aren't scoring as expected.
If you are not doing anything new (and for some that might mean actually working more closely within the rules) then why are you here? There are no prizes for first place.
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02/22/2006 03:34:53 PM · #60 |
Originally posted by meanwile:
Originally posted by dassilem:
But as someone said earlier a horse is not the same as a frog no matter what you title the picture.
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tilt your head counterclockwise ;-) |
This is definitely my response to every DNMC commentor out there.
"Just turn your head" |
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02/22/2006 03:36:39 PM · #61 |
Originally posted by pawdrix:
I would say that meeting the Challenge by serving up a boring-ass photo is the worse thing you can do in my eyes. Technicals mean nothing if you make the viewer snore and I sadly see it all the time here...painful to vote on those images, I should add.
Having said that, I believe that meeting the Challenge is the crux of the bisquit, here. The point of a Challenge has no meaning otherwise. It's a competetive exercise tool that encourages people to get out and shoot....occasionally out of their comfort zones where they will learn new things. If I go out of my way to meet the Challenge, I would hope that people won't be too bothered to do the same.
Some people aren't here to learn but are here to compete and that's when things diverge and get fuzzy. Personally, I would like to get paid on occasion to take pix and responding to a clients needs isn't dissimilar to meeting the Challenge and that's is why I'm here. If I can meet the Challenge and bring something to my efforts artistically....I win.
I tend to vote based on my goals but leave enough latitude to accomodate other mindsets that people bring to DPC. |
I agree with your post except for the "boring-ass photo statement". What's boring to you might excite me!
Adding: My boring photo in duotones has 4.8 after 71 votes. Who cares?
Message edited by author 2006-02-22 15:39:28. |
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02/22/2006 03:56:29 PM · #62 |
| i just voted for the first time and voted on both. i kept a fairly open mind about the topic however. talent and skill are easy to spot but some of the topics are extremely general. when i see someone exercise creativity in their work it counts more to me than someone who takes the same picture twenty other people did. |
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02/22/2006 04:02:06 PM · #63 |
Originally posted by pawdrix:
Adding: My boring photo in duotones has 4.8 after 71 votes. Who cares? |
Yeah well my boring photo is soaring along at a cool 4.5 AND i've got a negative comment for not sticking to the topic! |
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02/22/2006 06:26:52 PM · #64 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
We have photographers divided nto two main camps, with a much smaller outlier group.
Camp 1 takes the challenge literally, as an "assignment"; their position can be summed up as "My assignment is to take a potential cover shot for the magazine "Fashion" or the magazine "Country Life" or whatever. Their personal goal is to find and execute the image that best exemplifies the literal challenge, whatever it may be.
Camp 2 takes the challenge as a guideline, a focusing device if you will; their personal goal is to use the challenge topic to spark their personal vision or creativity to produce an image that is relevant to the topic but presents an alternative view of it.
The outliers appear to pay little or no heed to the challenge, entering sunrises sans people in "fashion" or whatever. There are not many of these.
Voters, of course, clump into groups that match these two main groups, with a few outlier voters who pay no heed whatever to the challenge topic and vote for whichever images most please them.
It's my position, and apparently ZeusZen's, and certainly others', that a great number of wonderful images get buried in the voting because their relevance to the topic is not immediately obvious to the casual voter. But, oddly enough, there are quite a few people who believe that a significant number of the ribbon winners do NOT pay proper respect to the challenge topic.
This is an issue that is never going to be resolved in any meaningful way. But I think it's a shame that, by and large, lateral thinking, truly creative thinking, is not rewarded by this site's voters. I can understand off-the-wall images that actually do meet the challenge, even if only obliquely, not finishing in the top 20 or 30, say; but it makes me weep to see wonderful work buried in the bottom of the pile underneath heaps of technically mediocre, conceptually lackluster images whose sole virtue, really, is that they DO meet the challenge head-on.
R. |
Another way to divide our community into groups, to try to understand their differing approaches to voting, is to separate the accomplished photographers from the beginners.
The beginners are in greater need of the educational benefits of the site. They are all ears, and eyes, to the technicals, trying to learn how to do things that they haven't done before. They are happy to put up a technically well done shot within the topic. Others may find it boring but the beginner has learned how to convert to B & W for a Black and White challenge; or how to compose for an Off-Center Subject challenge. I think the beginners, as a group, tend to place a lot of importance on meeting the topic when voting.
The accomplished photographers are more likely to be here for the competition, hoping to gain some measure of recognition for the skills they have already acquired. They are prone to expect more than mere technical competence. They have seen and done a lot of the things the beginners are trying to master, probably to the point that there is no longer any challenge in simply displaying mastery of the technique. They are more likely to reward creative, outside-the-box, attempts to meet the topic when voting.
So far we have prospered while managing to maintain appeal to both groups.
As always, just my two cents.
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02/22/2006 06:49:38 PM · #65 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
In our dreams; imagine how interesting this place would be if the highest scores went to the images that shock our perceptions the most... :-)
R. |
I haven't dreamt that dream yet. It would seem to me that it is much less of an photographic accomplishment to produce something that shocks perceptions than to produce a technically sound and pleasing image. A photographer can "shock our perceptions" by the choice of subject alone, and absent skill or creativity.
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
I believe if that "vote the topic" line were modified from its authoritarian tone to something more permissive, we'd be better off for it. |
Better off in what way? And what are the consequences? That might be a pretty drastic break from the past. Any official change in how we vote will lessen the value of the established database. I'd hate to see it turned around so that the technically well done shots that meet the topic are buried while shoe-horned eye candy confiscates the top 20.
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02/22/2006 11:43:06 PM · #66 |
Originally posted by Pedro:
Originally posted by meanwile:
Originally posted by dassilem:
But as someone said earlier a horse is not the same as a frog no matter what you title the picture.
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You have just been waiting for the chance to use that, right??
tilt your head counterclockwise ;-) |
that is possibly the best reply I've seen all week :) |
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02/23/2006 01:16:47 AM · #67 |
Originally posted by coolhar:
Another way to divide our community into groups, to try to understand their differing approaches to voting, is to separate the accomplished photographers from the beginners.
The beginners are in greater need of the educational benefits of the site. They are all ears, and eyes, to the technicals, trying to learn how to do things that they haven't done before. They are happy to put up a technically well done shot within the topic. Others may find it boring but the beginner has learned how to convert to B & W for a Black and White challenge; or how to compose for an Off-Center Subject challenge. I think the beginners, as a group, tend to place a lot of importance on meeting the topic when voting.
The accomplished photographers are more likely to be here for the competition, hoping to gain some measure of recognition for the skills they have already acquired. They are prone to expect more than mere technical competence. They have seen and done a lot of the things the beginners are trying to master, probably to the point that there is no longer any challenge in simply displaying mastery of the technique. They are more likely to reward creative, outside-the-box, attempts to meet the topic when voting.
So far we have prospered while managing to maintain appeal to both groups.
As always, just my two cents. |
I don't think this is too much of an issue, frankly. As you point out, we do a decent job catering to these disparate groups you have described. But the issue of "meeting the challenge" doesn't really arise in "technical" challenges such as you have described. It's not difficult to get a handle on "B/W" or "Off-Center Subject", these are physical descriptions, as it were.
My concern is with the more "imprecise" challenges, ones with topics like "Fantasy", "Odd", "Cheater", "Romance", what have you. There are a myriad of ways to approach these topics, and comments to them are riddled with DNMTC statements, which I think is a shame.
When I said "imagine how interesting this place would be if the highest scores went to the images that shock our perceptions the most... :-)" (note the smiley), that was appended to a longer statement and it is a little out of context. Let me try to reiterate:
Many (arguably most) of the voters seem to place the highest value on images that reinforce their own perceptions of the challenge topic. I find that approach to be rather limiting, personally; I place a very high value on well-done images that cause me to re-examine my perceptions of the challenge, to see it through different eyes.
In fact, in one sense that is why I am HERE; to see how differently people approach a given topic. When I say "imagine how interesting it would be..." I am pretty much wistfully imagining a place where people who take a different (but valid) approach to a topic are rewarded for their creativity, their lateral thinking, their willingness to take risks, always assuming they do an excellent job of it.
I hate it when I see truly creative photographs that (in my opiniuon and the shooter's opinion, at least) ARE relevant to the topic at hand get shot down to abysmal scores by the mass of voters who don't seem willing to (or capable of) step outside their preconceptions and see things in a broader perspective.
This is just my own personal point-of-view, but I can't understand why so many people object to it. It's not dangerous, it's not subversive, it just IS. I'm not saying voters should "vote an image UP" just because it is different; I'm saying they shouldn't vote it DOWN because it's different. There's a big difference. We can count on the voters to keep these flights-of-fancy out of the top ranks, I'm 100% sure of that. It just bothers me that no matter how well they are done, they get hammered into the bOTTOM reaches of the scores, when they are simply better than that.
And in my mind the "culprit" is that line in the rules that says we should give topic relevance the "highest consideration". I'd prefer to see that softened by some verbiage encouraging voters to be aware that "relevance" comes in degrees, that it can be cultural, that it's not bad to look at things from a different angle. As I've said before, for me it's an on/off switch, not a challenge-within-the-challenge; I don't give Joe a "high relevance" score and Jen a "low relevance" score — if they both seem to be dealing with the topic, that's good enough for me. I move on and judge the photos themselves on how I perceive their merits. I'll give a bump to those who pull off an extremely creative, spot-on version of relevance, but I won't ding the scores of those who take the safe road with a plain-vanilla approach to relevance.
To sum it up, I don't think we learn much if we come in seeking to have our own preconceptions validated or reinforced, and vote to accomplish this. I think we learn the most, grow the most, when we allow others' perceptions of things to modify our OWN perceptions, so we end up with a broader, more forgiving view of the world than the one we began with.
R.
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02/23/2006 02:07:38 AM · #68 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
[quote=coolhar]
To sum it up, I don't think we learn much if we come in seeking to have our own preconceptions validated or reinforced, and vote to accomplish this. I think we learn the most, grow the most, when we allow others' perceptions of things to modify our OWN perceptions, so we end up with a broader, more forgiving view of the world than the one we began with.
R. |
I don't think we learn much from voting, period. If every photo shot to technical perfection received a perfect score what exactly is learned?
Personally, I think the real problem here is not enough people vote poor photos poorly. Lets be real for a moment. An average to poor photo at this web site is probably average to slightly above average elsewhere. There are a lot of very good photos here and trying to be nice and award so-so photos with 5s instead of 3s and 4s is doing a disservice to the better photos, IMO. Having a limited scale (i.e. 4 through 10) is doing a disservice to the better photos. There is less to differentiate when you do that so when you have someone that can produce a techically flawless photo but took a risk that didn't work out and they get penalize chances are a less than stellar photo may get ahead of them because of this dare I say affirmitive action mentality.
Why should we, the voters not have the freedom to express our opinions and say hey I get "it" however I don't think it's a good take to the challenge and the photo while pleasing just doesn't work? There is something to learn from the fact that a bunch of people (in some cases the majority) didn't think your photo work either. Sometimes the photographer is the one that needs to "get it".
ETA: To clarify, I'm talking about reasonable penalities and not awarding 1s, 2s and 3s to to photos that had a lot of things going for it. You are always going to have some lousy scores when the competition is also voting. Unfortunate but I don't see how that will ever change unless you ban voting on challenges you enter. In any case I don't see how these really low scores affect much when most people give too many high scores to begin with which more than makes up for the low ones.
Message edited by author 2006-02-23 02:18:13. |
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02/23/2006 07:28:44 PM · #69 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
I don't think this is too much of an issue, frankly. As you point out, we do a decent job catering to these disparate groups you have described. But the issue of "meeting the challenge" doesn't really arise in "technical" challenges such as you have described. It's not difficult to get a handle on "B/W" or "Off-Center Subject", these are physical descriptions, as it were.
.....
To sum it up, I don't think we learn much if we come in seeking to have our own preconceptions validated or reinforced, and vote to accomplish this. I think we learn the most, grow the most, when we allow others' perceptions of things to modify our OWN perceptions, so we end up with a broader, more forgiving view of the world than the one we began with.
R. |
Without addressing each of the many valid points you have raised individually, I will just say that, taken as a whole, your post can be read as an attempt to get voters to think as you do. I have no objection to your use of such a well thought out system of voting. I am disturbed by my perception that you are advocating that more of us adopt it, and therby valueing it as better than what each of us is now using.
I would not like to see a "softening" of the rule about relevance. I feel that there are already too many instances when a non-relevant, or very hard stretch of relevance, image is voted pretty high and sometimes ribbons. Many users, especially the beginners, try hard to find a subject that is clearly relevant, perhaps passing up more risky shots to avoid the possibility of DNMC. This effort can also be seen as an exercise in creativity. It should not be penalized, but rather rewarded.
Your last sentence leaves me wondering about open-mindedness. You seem to exclude the possibility that a voter could give sincere, honest consideration to another's perception but come to the conclusion that it is not valid. Must every examination of perceptions result in a "a broader, more forgiving view of the world" ? Are these "flights-of-fancy" never wrong in their attempts to find another interpretation of the topic? If we must always give them credibility, and not even give it in degrees, then aren't we negating the relevance of the topic? And, in effect, making every challenge a free study?
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