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07/28/2004 10:22:46 AM · #1 |
In th chocolate challenge I just got almost my worst score ever for this image.
I agree the composition is not Perfect, but I spent a while setting this shot up, & payed a lot of attention to the lighting. It meets the topic. Is in focus!
Are there a huge bunch of children haters out there, or is the photo realy crap?
I know as a parent it is easy to be overly enthusiastic about shots with your kids in it. But twice I have entered pictures wiht my kids, & they both bombed.
Maybe I should put this in Rant!
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07/28/2004 10:24:31 AM · #2 |
My only blue ribbon was a pic of my two youngest kiddos...I think it all depends on the challenge, the capture, the lighting, and the alignment of the planets. Not necessarily in that order. LOL ;o)
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07/28/2004 10:28:47 AM · #3 |
| It was Mars wasnt it, Probably overpowered by Snickers which was in the second house. |
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07/28/2004 10:33:59 AM · #4 |
Children pics can do well. I've a few do very well. Just like any other subject, it must fit into the challenge.
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07/28/2004 10:42:17 AM · #5 |
Originally posted by Jacko:
Children pics can do well. I've a few do very well. Just like any other subject, it must fit into the challenge. |
Wow - aKiwi - just looked at your breakdown. I gave that shot an 8 - would have like a bit less space behind the head and more in front. Lighting was very welll done.
I am REALLY surprised that it got 32 1's or 2's. It certainly met the challenge - guess it will be a mystery.
This is one of the cases where I wish the 1 and 2 voters would let us all know why the voted their scores.
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07/28/2004 11:54:00 AM · #6 |
There is no accounting for why people vote some perfectly good photos so low.
But sometimes the result of your work is just not worth the effort. That is, despite your hard work and expertise, it does not appeal to others. |
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07/28/2004 12:10:44 PM · #7 |
aKiwi,
I'm gonna be honest. I didn't vote this or any of the other kids-with-dirty-faces pictures from this challenge very high. I personally don't find dirty kids very attractive, although I know this is just me. So this could be the reason behind some lower votes.
I esp. didn't like that picture where the poor baby was covered with chocolate. What were his parents thinking? But hey, that's just me.... |
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07/28/2004 12:16:31 PM · #8 |
My kid is most beautiful ! :-)
Kid photos can be done in artistic way to represent a general view of a young person with good lighting and good studio setup !
  
And can be done in family album type snapshot way :
  
Where photo will get slammed !
Message edited by author 2004-07-28 12:27:59. |
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07/28/2004 12:31:28 PM · #9 |
The difference between a so-so child picture and a great child picture is that a great one has my child in it. I belive that is a universal constant. If you have no kids, kids are less cute.
I did not vote this shot very high because while the child is cute and well lit, chocolate was not the chief subject of the shot.
I have made the same mistake in some challenges, since I see my child so often, and she is, of course, the center of the universe. I read her reaction to a thing as an almost universal reaction. Others see a picture of a kid. Not that that is by default bad, but whether it is kittens or puppies or little cute froggies or suicide teen self-portraits, we all have a subject matter that we have trouble cutting enough slack to be able to judge the image, rather than judging on the basis of our reaction to the subject.
I think the shot was not so much judged as too much child, as not enough chocolate. |
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07/28/2004 12:44:18 PM · #10 |
I didn't make it through the voting on this challenge. I was too grossed out by a lot of the images and there were so many bad ones. The few I voted on wound up not being counted because I didn't get to 20% but I'm pretty sure I didn't vote on this one. It's a nice candid, quite bit above the quality of a careless snap shot. Very nice exposure with good detail and great capture of his expression. The cropping is a bit awkward, which can happen with candids. My guess is what hurt you in this challenge is that the chocolate was mostly suggested by his hot chocolate mustache. You didn't beat folks over the head with the idea so you suffered from 'fails to meet the challenge' voting. Not fair, but likely the case.
It did not deserve the threes, twos, and ones. It is debatable whether it deserves any fours. Some folks have really high standards and the composition has a couple of weak points; the uncomfortable cropping and the fact that he is looking away from the viewer at nothing in particular. I'm not saying I would have given this a four. I'm picky but not that picky. I probably would have given a 5, or a 6 depending on my mood.
Open challenges can be weird, I've found. I think quite a few people who vote in them don't understand that the main purpose of the challenges is the improvement of the craft. These people seem to only vote on whether the idea of the photo meets the challenge, regardless of how well that idea was executed.
I was half-hearted about this challenge but I did spend a day scouting still-life props and then a couple of hours creating the shot. I did abyssmally bad compared to some of the lower quality images that ranked above me. I can only imagine that you suffered the same misfortune. In my case, I think it was a matter of originality. I was in the chocolate dipped strawberry camp. I also had a Chocolate Orange waiting in the stands for a nearly identical photo as this. 
Time was running out and I just wasn't up to hollowing out an orange.We all enjoyed he chocolate orange, anyway, so it wasn't for naught. ;-D
I wasn't invested emotionally in my entry or this challenge so I didn't care about my ranking. I was just rather bemused at my ranking.
I looked at your profile and discovered that you are used to ranking pretty high. A bomb for you is still in the top 100. :-D
Your other kid photo wasn't bad. It suffered a low score from me (4) for a few reasons: the selective desat, which I feel is rarely called for, the boys' skin has a greenish cast, and the cropping is uncomfortable. One boy's boots are cut off partially and the other boy's are perilously close to the edge. It gives a feeling of unbalance to the composition. The set-up has a lot of potential for being a great outdoor portrait. One way to emphasise the largeness of their leaf hats and at the same time eliminate the possibility of the leaves disappearing into the green background would have been to shoot from below with the boys looking down. At this perspective, you would very likely have the sky as a background--much simpler and far more dramatic then the rather boring trees and gravel.
I have kids of my own and I think children make great subject matter. Like anything else, the enjoyment is proportional to the quality of the image.
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07/28/2004 12:48:48 PM · #11 |
| I couldn't bring myself to enter or vote on Chocolate. Too much chocolate for me, I guess. Having said that, your photo is nicely shot and you have a great model. You don't show enough chocolate to say the photo excels at meeting the challenge. Chocolate on a face makes the face cuter, but the face remains the focus, IMHO. Just my two cents... |
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07/28/2004 01:09:27 PM · #12 |
Child, dogs, flower, sunset = bad bad bad
original idea like flying blender or singing spoon = good..
to me... good picture (kid or anythig else) is:
and bad picture (kid is not the point)
I dont hate kid, i just say... there is a difference between point and shot, and artistic... i learn it here, when i see a really nice picture of anything with a WOW factor... it make my other picture look bad !
ciao
Message edited by author 2004-07-28 13:29:01. |
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07/28/2004 01:15:56 PM · #13 |
| I don't know if this was already mentioned or not, but I did not vote very high because it didn't say chocolate to me as much as it said, cute kid with a messy face. I didn't give it a 1 by any means either. I gave it a 5. |
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07/28/2004 01:21:52 PM · #14 |
I gave it a six, which for me means met the challenge topic and has some kind of merit above and beyond. In this case, the kid's expression reminded me of how I feel when I run out of chocolate.
I tend to be a topic stickler and especially with kids and dogs. If the cup had not been cropped and the kid was more off to the side I'd have probably given it a 7 since that would have put more emphasis on the chocolate idea. |
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07/28/2004 03:11:19 PM · #15 |
I did a small experiment on the last challenge. I submitted this shot Which is unquestionably a picture of chocolate, shot in a technically compotent and boring manner. I was wondering if I could eliminate the 1-3 votes even if it caused all the high votes to go away as well. I thought this shot could only be judged between a 4 to a 7. I was wrong. Fairly classic bell curve.
Conclusion. Some people are letting their cats play on the keyboard. It is the only logical conclusion. Since I don't think cats are good judges of photography, I'll pay attention to comments, especially the critical ones, because I'm fairly sure they are not generated by people's pets.
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07/28/2004 04:01:26 PM · #16 |
Originally posted by aKiwi:
In th chocolate challenge I just got almost my worst score ever for this image.
I agree the composition is not Perfect, but I spent a while setting this shot up, & payed a lot of attention to the lighting. It meets the topic. Is in focus!
Are there a huge bunch of children haters out there, or is the photo realy crap?
I know as a parent it is easy to be overly enthusiastic about shots with your kids in it. But twice I have entered pictures wiht my kids, & they both bombed.
Maybe I should put this in Rant! |
I'm going to respond to this before I read the other replies so that you get my honest opinion.
Whilst you're right that lighting is nicely done I found no visual appeal in this photo for me as a viewer whatsoever.
It's a kid.
It's a reasonably sweet kid as kids go.
But it's not a kid I know.
So it needs to be more than what looks like a family album snapshot. By that I mean the image itself has to stand out in an aesthetic way.
This one doesn't to me because the background isn't appealing, the composition is poor and the kid just looks like a mucky kid that needs to clean himself up.
Taking into account my tastes and preferences (which is what we all do as voters) there is nothing in this image that appeals to me visually or creatively.
Note that I'm NOT saying you don't have a nice/ attractive/ sweet etc. kid.
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07/28/2004 04:10:53 PM · #17 |
OK now I've read the rest of the thread I have some more comments.
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
The difference between a so-so child picture and a great child picture is that a great one has my child in it. I belive that is a universal constant. If you have no kids, kids are less cute. |
I don't have kids but I do still find some kid pictures appealing. Pitsaman has highlighted the difference between the kind of shots that have more universal appeal and those that should be relegated to family albums.
Maybe it's true to say that those of us with no children are more harsh on images that fit into that snapshot category (whether taken as such or just appearing as such) than fellow parents who are more used to finding pleasure in snapshots of kids. I don't know.
But I certainly do enjoy images of children and there are many superb ones on this site.
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
I think the shot was not so much judged as too much child, as not enough chocolate. |
Originally posted by G4Ds:
[â€Â¦] it didn't say chocolate to me as much as it said, cute kid with a messy face. |
I think both these comments cover another reason why I don't think this shot did very well.
Incidentally though I commented I didn't vote in this challenge but would not have given your image a 1, 2 or 3. I would likely have given it either a 4 or a 5.
Message edited by author 2004-07-28 16:12:00.
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07/28/2004 04:18:15 PM · #18 |
Peter, I gave your image a 5. While I thought it met the challenge, I agree with what BrennamOB says -- too much kid, not enough chocolate (for THIS challenge). I also agree with those who gave you suggestions on the cropping.
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07/28/2004 04:33:52 PM · #19 |
These are not my kids  but I like the light and face expressions here! |
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07/28/2004 04:49:58 PM · #20 |
My photos of my little guy do rather well, however I frequently get a comment or two that are very anti child like.
The photo though that started this thread although cute, chocolate was suppose to be the main subject of the photo and in this case although the photo is cute, the chocolate doesn't grab your attention it's more of an afterthought, so i'm sure others voted it down just because the chocolate wasn't the main subject.
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07/28/2004 05:13:51 PM · #21 |
I think the most important thing to keep in mind here is that this is supposed to be about true photography, even art (sometimes), not snapshots and random family pictures.
Part of photography is audience. Personally, I don't care about that kid, cause I don't know who he is, or what he's doing with the cup. It has nothing to grab me with.
The child photos that have done well use children as a sutable subject for the shot, where the child is display a certain purpose.
Lee
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07/28/2004 06:41:48 PM · #22 |
The kids is not the problem, just take a look at the fifth place for this challenge....
//www.dpchallenge.com/image.php?IMAGE_ID=92015
Message edited by author 2004-07-28 18:45:01.
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07/29/2004 06:48:24 AM · #23 |
Thanks soooo much to everyone for the helpfull and constructive comments. I guess it is too easy as a parent to want to present your offspring & become blind to obvious mistakes.
As we so often see around us "Love makes us blind" How many relationships have we had or seen in other people where this is obvious.
Of course I love my child, and personally love the photo, however after reading the comments made here I can see I have made the exact errors that I didn't want to make, presented a picture that doesn't fulfill my definition of a good DPC photograph. OK I might hang the photo on the wall, but I certainly can understand that no one who doesn't know my children would be the slightest interested in this photo.
Pitsmann: Love your pictures, and I think your example of snapshot vs Artistic kiddie shots makes the point quite well.
I will definitley attempt another kid shot sometime, but I think I have a better idea of what is necessary to prevent the "Family snapshot syndrome". I do still think some people vote a little hard on kid shots, but on the other hand I have to admit, I have found myself doing the same for the Cat/dog/flower pics. I guess the voting scale that some people use is a little harsher than mine.
Thanks also to Melismatica for the extremely constructive comments made there.
I did have another classic chocolate photo which on hindsight I should have posted.
The next challenge will be better! |
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