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09/13/2005 11:08:39 AM · #1 |
What is up with this?
You know you have a good shot. Everyone you show it to raves about it. It even sells and brings you more business.
But....In a DPC challenge it bombs?
Lets just say for the sake of argument it DOES meet the challenge 100%
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09/13/2005 11:10:41 AM · #2 |
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09/13/2005 11:11:01 AM · #3 |
Other people don't agree with you and your friends and the people that bought the photo.
Or the photo is good but there are lots of better photos. |
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09/13/2005 11:15:51 AM · #4 |
Originally posted by zarniwoop:
Other people don't agree with you and your friends and the people that bought the photo.
Or the photo is good but there are lots of better photos. |
So really what good is their opinion? It cannot be respected since it IS obviously a good print. If you consider a good print to be defined as bringing you recognition, compensation and success.
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09/13/2005 11:17:26 AM · #5 |
I would say that there are 2 factors (if it does meet the challenge as you stipulate) in my bombs.
1. There alot of really good, dedicated photographers who you are being judged against.
2. Some of the voters are letting thier cats wander over their keyboards durring voting. Look at the winners list in the challenge archives, the top vote getter always gets more ones and twos than the folks who finish just out of the ribbons.
There is of course a bit of a learing curve to see what sort of images do well here, and like any publication or client, the consensus voter here seems to like a paticular type of image. |
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09/13/2005 11:19:34 AM · #6 |
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
2. Some of the voters are letting thier cats wander over their keyboards durring voting. |
Lol! never thought about that!
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09/13/2005 11:19:39 AM · #7 |
| I started posting on DPC and entering challenges because I was tired of all my friends and family telling me 'oh what a pretty picture' I know the picture is nice but can it be better? My dads an artist but he's so biased he wont actually critique my work - but DPC will and honestly too! So far each of my challenge entries have done exactly as I expected them to. My monitor is not calibrated correctly so I know others are viewing some of my images much lighter than how they appear on my screen or in my prints. So maybe you just need to make some hardware adjustments?? |
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09/13/2005 11:21:43 AM · #8 |
Good point, however my monitor is calibrated exactly to my print output which is what is selling.
So one of the uncontrollable variables is poorly configured and or crappy equipment.
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09/13/2005 11:22:49 AM · #9 |
Originally posted by barndog:
What is up with this?
You know you have a good shot. Everyone you show it to raves about it. It even sells and brings you more business.
But....In a DPC challenge it bombs?
Lets just say for the sake of argument it DOES meet the challenge 100% |
Don't feel like the Lone Ranger.
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09/13/2005 11:23:09 AM · #10 |
The DPC audience isn't judging whether or not it's a good print. They're judging your photo in relation to 200+ other photos to determine which one is the best in that challenge.
I also think it takes fewer people to consider a print successful than it does to make a dpc photo win. For instance, say you have 300 people...about the amount of people who have been voting on open challenges. How many sales makes a photo successful? 20? 50? 70? It'll take a lot more fans of your photo to win a challenge. |
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09/13/2005 11:24:14 AM · #11 |
Originally posted by barndog:
Originally posted by zarniwoop:
Other people don't agree with you and your friends and the people that bought the photo.
Or the photo is good but there are lots of better photos. |
So really what good is their opinion? It cannot be respected since it IS obviously a good print. If you consider a good print to be defined as bringing you recognition, compensation and success. |
If you consider a good image to be defined as bringing you recognition, compensation and success, then an image that brings you you recognition, compensation and success is good.
If you consider a good image to be defined as bringing you a top third score, then an image that brings you a bottom third score is not a good image.
If you see DPC for what it is - a site where people (with all their vagaries) vote on each others' pictures - then you will see that it is merely one measure of "good" and not necessarily the most important one.
Equally, just because an image sells or draws acclaim, does not make it "good".
Message edited by author 2005-09-13 11:25:30. |
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09/13/2005 11:29:05 AM · #12 |
| What is sad is that some of the pictures that do well don't always look like they were taken. |
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09/13/2005 01:09:34 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by coraanne:
What is sad is that some of the pictures that do well don't always look like they were taken. |
Only stolen pics should win!!!!
But seriously photography is an art form, picture should look the way the photographer wants them to not as if they were just downloaded straight out of the camera (Unless that's what you want). |
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09/13/2005 01:22:11 PM · #14 |
Also some people develop a winning style and become well known for it here. Then people recognize their work, good or bad, for any given challenge and give them high votes regardless. Then there's a certain amount of cliquey-ness but far be it from to say that people discuss their entries with their buddies.
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09/13/2005 01:34:20 PM · #15 |
Uh-oh...going to have to pull out the Cheater, cheater.... ;-) thread. He-he.
Originally posted by orussell:
Also some people develop a winning style and become well known for it here. Then people recognize their work, good or bad, for any given challenge and give them high votes regardless. Then there's a certain amount of cliquey-ness but far be it from to say that people discuss their entries with their buddies. |
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09/13/2005 02:44:35 PM · #16 |
Originally posted by mk:
The DPC audience isn't judging whether or not it's a good print. They're judging your photo in relation to 200+ other photos to determine which one is the best in that challenge.
I also think it takes fewer people to consider a print successful than it does to make a dpc photo win. For instance, say you have 300 people...about the amount of people who have been voting on open challenges. How many sales makes a photo successful? 20? 50? 70? It'll take a lot more fans of your photo to win a challenge. |
These are good points.
To add to this, I'll also say if I showed, say, 100 photographs to friends and family and then that same 100 to avid photographers.. well, I'm willing to place a bet that my friends and family would rave about more of my photos than the photographers would.
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09/13/2005 03:09:24 PM · #17 |
Plus, people buying photos aren't usually photographers. A photographer sees different things when they look at a photo compared to an 'untrained eye' (for lack of a better term).
That and taste is subjective..if I'm out looking for a print to buy I'm talking to you because I like your work - in a challenge you see every shot whether you like it or not.
:-) |
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09/13/2005 03:12:13 PM · #18 |
Play a song you wrote to your friends, they will like your song and think that the fact that you can play the guitar and sing is pretty cool.
Play a song you wrote in front of a group of fellow musicians and recording engineers. They will talk about the weakness in your chord progressions, how you are not making propper use of your head voice in the refrain, how your finger slides on the fret are going to make the recording painfull to listen to. That is if the song is any good at all. If it totally bites they will probably just smile and say "very nice".
Which audience do you want to play in front of?
One other thought. In the real world you want your work to get a reaction, if they love it, great! If they hate if, OK better than nothing. Indifference is the killer. Here one score of 9 and one score of 1 are the same as two 5s. Just how the math works but the curve of the score can tell you as much about how it was recived as the aggegate score
Message edited by author 2005-09-13 15:43:49. |
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09/13/2005 03:29:16 PM · #19 |
barndog - beasically you have to decide, are you going to make good artistic images, or are you going to please the DPC population. Good images alone don't do well here - the DPC look does well here.
A DPC look image can most definatley be a good image also, but a good image without the dpc look has a very hard time scoring well.
Example - go look at my shoes entry. I specifially went out of my comfrort zone (as you can see by my other photos) and did a commercial looking photo - came 4th.
My Branches photo is currently sitting at a 5.6 and has sat everyweher beween a 5.2 and a 5.8 on different days this week. I am prepared to state that of all 400some entries, mine is the most creative using a tree branch. None other like it. It is an art photo. Technically people are happy with it more or less. The only thing i would change would be a little lightening in a certain area, which couldnt be done in basic.
What am i on a 5.6? According to commentors it is too "out there" "strange".
What does that mean - that the voter cannot handle something original, something lacking of the DPC look.
This is why i go for favourites not scores, because i would rather make art that a 6.9.
p.s. my shoe entry had no favourites until after it go 4th. My score was great, but it made me miserable that no one really liked the photo, just the commercial look of the photo.
Message edited by author 2005-09-13 15:31:40. |
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