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10/27/2011 02:51:51 PM · #26
ubique is just pissed off because he was recently fired from his job as an National Football League photographer.

His myopically vain editor just couldn't wrap his head around the family vacation photos ubique submitted instead of the Miami vs Dallas game.
10/27/2011 02:53:59 PM · #27
Originally posted by LadyTara:

If the challenge description clearly states something which must be in the photograph, I don't get why people try to 'work outside the box' and do something that doesn't fit the details (then moan about it when they rank low!) There are plenty of challenge which offer less specific details and have room for creative thinking, for example a challenge entitled 'hope'; that means different things to different people, so there could be a wide variety of shots, none of which really don't fit the challenge. If the challenge is called 'yellow' for which the description says 'your photograph must be in colour and feature something yellow' and someone submits a black and white image, then that's clearly a DNMC. Or another example, a challenge called 'male' for which the subject must be a human male and someone posts a picture of a pint of beer because they think it 'personifies' men, that's a clear DNMC too. Things like that can't possibly be open to individual interpretation.


But this said orange to me - it really did.



To others it just said brown.
10/27/2011 02:58:19 PM · #28
Why have challenge topics at all then? Just submit your photo of any subject and have at it. Or better yet, just think of an awesome title and submit that, forget about the image. Let's have a literature challenge where you write a poem or a few lyrics about any topic and the voters can decypher what the hell you were trying to convey.

Let's have a challenge-less challenge, where you submit a photo and nobody votes or comments... The viewers can just sit there and reflect while in thier favorite yoga pose.

OF course there are DNMC entries, simply because there are challenge guidelines. The statement "DNMC" is an opinion of the voter, whether the photog was in left field or simply entered the wrong challenge. If the viewer doesn't "get it" then, to him, it is their opinion that it DNMC.

10/27/2011 02:58:54 PM · #29
Originally posted by senor_kasper:

I think it is even more presumptuous, inexcusable and myopically vain to assume that everyone who gives a "DNMC" comment does so without first thinking about it.

The problem is that they think about it at all. That was his point.

Message edited by author 2011-10-27 14:59:05.
10/27/2011 03:02:49 PM · #30
"The Emperor's New Clothes"
10/27/2011 03:02:51 PM · #31
Interesting brown/orange, Paul. I see orange in it, no problem. It doesn't perhaps shout orange, but in the gloaming that gleam of light from the beckoning house, the splash of the last or first light on the tree tops exhibits the ephemeral nature and comfort of orange.

Makes me wonder if there is a tendency to assume an objective scale of topicalness. I think that would be a misleading assumption. Early on I used to get excited about "nailing" the topic. Maybe that is a misdirection.
10/27/2011 03:08:27 PM · #32
Originally posted by sinistral_leo:

OF course there are DNMC entries, simply because there are challenge guidelines. The statement "DNMC" is an opinion of the voter, whether the photog was in left field or simply entered the wrong challenge. If the viewer doesn't "get it" then, to him, it is their opinion that it DNMC.


I love the site but I really don't get why we have challenge guidelines here at all when it's never reinforced. Photos are disqualified for not following the editing/catpure rules (rightly so) but never for clearly not meeting the challenge. If a challenge says you must photograph a flower and you take a photo of a basketball, why should that not be DQd too? Makes the guidelines or specific themes utterly pointless, as someone will always just do whatever the Hell they like. It really grinds my gears when something so smack-in-the-face-obviously doesn't meet the challenge and can rank higher than someone who followed it to the tee, just because the DNMC image is Ok/good/done by a popular member.


10/27/2011 03:11:56 PM · #33
The square heads will have a field day in symmetrical :) can't wait.

Seriously, even if the interpretation of the challenge has been exaggerated immensely, i couldn't vote a picture down for that reason alone, in fact i quite often find those pics like a breathe of fresh air, as long as there's a slight link, that's fine by me.
10/27/2011 03:15:38 PM · #34
Originally posted by posthumous:

Meetings are dull...


...unless you get right to the point ;-)
10/27/2011 03:16:48 PM · #35
This thread is like the Investor Relations company hired to laud the project of a mineral exploration company.

The IR people have no clue about what they are so enthusiastically describing.

The fund managers buzz around the IR people with the biggest tits, and tightest clothes. But in the end, the money goes to the best project.
10/27/2011 03:21:14 PM · #36
one of the really special things about this sight (not just the awesome community) for photographers who are just beginning is having to go take the picture specifically for a challenge. It forces you to sometimes go shoot something you're not familiar with and may not have liked, but figured out you actually do like it.
10/27/2011 03:24:46 PM · #37
Originally posted by bvy:

Originally posted by senor_kasper:

I think it is even more presumptuous, inexcusable and myopically vain to assume that everyone who gives a "DNMC" comment does so without first thinking about it.

The problem is that they think about it at all. That was his point.

I don't think so, because he also said:

"When you see an image that doesn’t fit with your personal view of the challenge, don’t dismiss it. Instead embrace it; it’s probably a rare and precious opportunity to expand your horizons. Then, if still takes you nowhere, give the thing a 3 vote with a clear conscience: you don’t see the connection (though that doesn’t mean there is none). But just don’t say ‘DNMC’. Your opinion about that is subjective, and ultimately irrelevant, as well as almost certainly insulting."

In other words, it is OK if you vote down the picture if you don't see the connection to the topic, but you must have thought about it first, and please do not use the 'D' word.

Give me a break.

10/27/2011 03:25:59 PM · #38
Originally posted by Strikeslip:

I was hired to do some family portraits in a client's back yard. I spent the time ignoring the family, and photographing a butterfly in their garden instead.

When I gave them the prints of the butterfly, they refused to pay.

Absurd and presumptuous. An inexcusable, myopic vanity.


LIKE
10/27/2011 03:34:40 PM · #39
Originally posted by LadyTara:

If the challenge description clearly states something which must be in the photograph, I don't get why people try to 'work outside the box' and do something that doesn't fit the details (then moan about it when they rank low!)

Why? Because I believe part of the challenge is to get one to think creatively, not just engage in an exercise of depicting the obvious. An old example ... you can guess how most photographers would interpret this, despite the specific admonition to keep an open mind ...

Challenge Title: Light
Description: Any definition of the word is acceptable for this challenge. Enjoy!


Light Bulb

I think what many find "offensive" about the abbreviation is that is is shorthand for an authoritative declaration: This DOES NOT MEET THE CHALLENGE

Compare the "feel" of that language with "I don't see the connection to the challenge topic in this otherwise {insert adjective(s)} photo."

I don't care if people don't see the connection, but I don't see where they need to declare that, because they don't see it, it must not exist. I've long ago given up moaning about it though -- I can't force people to open their interpretive horizons, only give them the opportunity to do so.
10/27/2011 03:39:25 PM · #40
I'm remembering back to February, 2005, when I had this to say:

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Surely one of the common denominators of people who frequent a site like this is that they want to create art at some level? And surely one aspect of art, possibly the most imnportant aspect, is to free oneself from conceptual blinders and SEE THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY?

Unfortunately, what I am seeing over and over again (not just with my own images, indeed not even primarily with my own images) is that people seem to be "voting" in DEFENSE of their own point-of-view, rather than sitting back (as I believe they ought to, or what's the point?) and letting OTHER points of view sweep over them, trying to appreciate images as what they are intended to be rather than as what the viewer "wishes" they might be.

Let me reiterate: I'm NOT "whining" that I got a low score. The score's not important, and I didn't expect a high score in any case. But the huge conglomeration of 1's here is telling me something much more disturbing: "If you don't see it our way, you don't belong here."


I think this is touching the same issue as Ubique is addressing. I'm getting more and more to the point where I am believing that the myth of "challenge relevance" is a crutch people are using to defend their own worldview against all the barbarian hordes that threaten to overrun it.

Look, by all means, if you think something doesn't respond to the challenge very well, score it accordingly. But try not to fall into the trap of dismissing as non-responsive whatever is not glaringly obvious. There's a whole lot of really beautiful, thoughtful work getting buried under slag here on DPC.

R.
10/27/2011 03:40:43 PM · #41
Originally posted by GeneralE:


I think what many find "offensive" about the abbreviation is that is is shorthand for an authoritative declaration: This DOES NOT MEET THE CHALLENGE

Compare the "feel" of that language with "I don't see the connection to the challenge topic in this otherwise {insert adjective(s)} photo."

I don't care if people don't see the connection, but I don't see where they need to declare that, because they don't see it, it must not exist. I've long ago given up moaning about it though -- I can't force people to open their interpretive horizons, only give them the opportunity to do so.


Bingo +1
10/27/2011 03:42:54 PM · #42
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Originally posted by LadyTara:

If the challenge description clearly states something which must be in the photograph, I don't get why people try to 'work outside the box' and do something that doesn't fit the details (then moan about it when they rank low!)

Why? Because I believe part of the challenge is to get one to think creatively, not just engage in an exercise of depicting the obvious. An old example ... you can guess how most photographers would interpret this, despite the specific admonition to keep an open mind ...


If you'd cared to read the rest of what I said, I did in fact say that there are plenty of challenges which allow for and encourage creativity and include images that are open to interpretation. What I said was that when the subject has a specific guideline that asks you to photograph something in particular or in a certain way, then someone who chooses to ignore that technically has no right to whine when their image does badly. There are challenges designed for those that like to think outside the box. Some of them are theme-specific and those are the ones I was talking about.

10/27/2011 03:42:59 PM · #43
Oh, what fun!

I'm not saying that an unwillingness to reach beyond your self-imposed horizons is inexcusable and vain; I'm saying that insisting on declaring it is.
10/27/2011 03:44:06 PM · #44
Originally posted by ubique:

I̢۪ve been dropping in and out of DPC for nearly seven years now.

So many glib comments of, ‘DNMC’ or, ‘Sorry, I don’t see the connection’.

So many threads about, ‘Would it still be Candid if the person glanced at me?’ or, ‘Is it still a Still Life if the dead fish is still breathing a little?’

To pronounce someone else̢۪s photograph as DNMC is absurd and presumptuous. An inexcusable, myopic vanity. How can you know what was in the photographer̢۪s mind? It̢۪s impossible.

Vote the image on its merits as you see them by all means, but do not presume to conclude that your inability to see the connection with the challenge theme is automatically an indictment of the photographer. It̢۪s much more likely an indictment of you.

When you see an image that doesn’t fit with your personal view of the challenge, don’t dismiss it. Instead embrace it; it’s probably a rare and precious opportunity to expand your horizons. Then, if still takes you nowhere, give the thing a 3 vote with a clear conscience: you don’t see the connection (though that doesn’t mean there is none). But just don’t say ‘DNMC’. Your opinion about that is subjective, and ultimately irrelevant, as well as almost certainly insulting.


Hahaha. Whatever.
10/27/2011 03:53:31 PM · #45
Originally posted by LadyTara:

If the challenge description clearly states something which must be in the photograph, I don't get why people try to 'work outside the box'


I encourage you try; you may discover a part of you that is sitting in a corner, waiting patiently to contribute to your own craft.

Originally posted by LadyTara:

and do something that doesn't fit the details (then moan about it when they rank low!)


I view challenge topics as a starting point (my longtime, simple, interpretation of zeuszen's earlier post), nothing more and nothing less. Most who work outside the box, to use your words, will not moan about a low ranking. In fact, most moaning comes from within the box.
10/27/2011 03:57:18 PM · #46
Originally posted by LadyTara:

did in fact say that there are plenty of challenges which allow for and encourage creativity...


I know I'm taking this out of context, and I don't agree, but it is funny to think you are implying that the majority of DPC challenges do not encourage, or allow, for creativity.
10/27/2011 03:58:27 PM · #47
Does not meet the Challenge is just the tip of the ice berg...

What about "Out of focus", "Too dark", "too Light", "Unbalanced", "Undersaturated", "Oversaturated", "Composition sucks", "Boring", etc....

If we can't judge based how we preceive the image as meeting or not meeting the challenge, then why should we be free to be so judgemental about things like composition, lighting and focus?

Just give everyone a 5 so no one is offended...

My 2 cents
10/27/2011 04:00:14 PM · #48
Originally posted by ubique:

Oh, what fun!


Are you trying to kick rocks again? When I sweep my foot against the ground I can move plenty of pebbles, but the boulders... they are a SOB! Better to just climb over them and let erosion knock them down to size.

Message edited by author 2011-10-27 17:25:02.
10/27/2011 04:01:02 PM · #49
sorta outa topic, but seeing ubique's voting average has has encouraged me to vote from 7-10 to counter low votes...
hehe

eta and encourage everyone, because working for hours on end and getting a 3 makes you cry a little inside ;)

Message edited by author 2011-10-27 16:02:26.
10/27/2011 04:01:27 PM · #50


Message edited by author 2011-10-27 16:01:35.
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