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09/15/2010 10:50:38 AM · #1 |
I am a complete rookie and am learning as I go on DP. I scored my first 6 for a photo that I thought
fit the challenge but was mediocre at best. I scored a 4 something, almost in last place for a shot of an Amish buggy
//www.dpchallenge.com/image.php?IMAGE_ID=908245 that I screwed up in pp, but that I thought
was a good shot for the challenge with the horse's hooves mimicking the triangle on the back of the buggy.
If I had been able to do this in B&W with the exception of the triangle would that have helped? I would
appreciate knowing why it was such a dud. (Getting it from the sunroof of my car without the people in
the buggy knowing it was the real challenge)
I'd appreciate any thoughts.
Thanks |
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09/15/2010 11:14:58 AM · #2 |
Thumbnail of the entry in question, so others don't have to go looking:
I gave this a 5, but I tend to be a generous voter, so I figured others would slam it and they did. Here are what I see as the problems that brought it down:
-Noisy, or grainy image. Weird pattern is visible in the background foliage. Perhaps an extreme crop?
-objects on the left edge of the frame that don't add anything to the scene.
-Subject slightly off center, but not enough to seem intentionally composed that way.
-Just an overall lack of clarity.
Your 6+ entry in S-curve on the other hand, was reasonably clear and noise free, and it led the eye in exactly the manner the s-curve technique is meant to do. It still could have used some tweaking to give it some visual pop.
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09/15/2010 11:19:32 AM · #3 |
I posted comments on the two photos.
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09/15/2010 11:37:46 AM · #4 |
Hey Me,
I'm going to be blunt.
I gave you a 6 on the buggy... The image is a bit grainy. I don't know if you submitted a pic with low resolution in an effort to protect your work, or if that was intentional. At any rate I found the grainyness distracting.
I voted a 6 on the staircase as well. It is a nice picture, but just doesn't have much wow factor.
You will notice that the average winner gets a score around 7.5. I hope you are not expecting 10's as it just won't happen.
I score in the following fashion...
Pic gets a 5 if it meets the challenge requirements (this is important to me), and doesn't have any obvious flaws.
I score higher based on difficulty, (did you have to wake up at 3:00 am on a particular day to hike 5 miles to take a picture while hanging upside down). I also score higher for wow factor, for a good idea. I've been known to give a 10 just because a picture made me laugh hard (that's usually a simpathy vote... funny pictures usually aren't very technical and don't score that well).
I take off points if an idea is overdone (lets face it, part of the challenge is to be creative), if there are any flaws in the picture or process, if it doesn't meet challenge requirements, etc...
I think most people score in a fashion similar to me.
The point of this site for me is that it causes me to try new things, new techniques, and to be creative. I have a 9-5 job and can't go traveling to take the perfect shot that I would like to. It also is a wake up call... Often times I think that my pictures are really cool... My friends usually agree. In reality though they don't stack up against the big boys (and girls). I have a lot of self improvement to do if I want photography to be anything more than a hobby.
Cheers.
Lou
Message edited by author 2010-09-15 12:58:51. |
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09/15/2010 12:00:42 PM · #5 |
Thanks so much for the feedback, it's the only way I can improve and I only had one comment on the photo which was not representative of the score.
I think it was especially grainy because I cropped so much of it to focus in on the triangle and horse's hooves.
Is there anyway to avoid that? Also, the sky was so washed out, I thought a tighter crop would help.
Steve the weird objects on the side of the road are mailboxes, but I am not allowed to clone them out, so what can I do?
You guys are great ! |
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09/15/2010 12:04:55 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by MeMex2:
...what can I do? |
What can you do??? try, try again just like the rest of us! |
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09/15/2010 12:08:49 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by MeMex2:
Steve the weird objects on the side of the road are mailboxes, but I am not allowed to clone them out, so what can I do? |
Not much, I'm afraid. It might not even be ok to clone them out in advanced, as they are too major an element. There are some things that just have to be gotten right in the camera. My own entry in the just-ended challenge suffered from not getting it right in camera as well. The guy in the foreground was slightly OOF, and since the topic was about the bystander, many people saw that as an obvious flaw. I had one where the person was more in focus, but the copter was further off, and required more crop, having been shot with a shorter focal length. It didn't seem to have as much visual impact to me. So I went with one that I knew had an obvious flaw, hoping it had enough visual impact to overcome the flaw in voting.
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09/15/2010 03:34:26 PM · #8 |
Got it!
It's great to get feedback and to understand what the flaws are or how an image is perceived.
I am really trying to work on increasing the number of comments I leave. I always
intend to go back and give a detailed critique and I usually don't do it.
Thanks again for the input! |
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