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10/13/2005 04:36:27 PM · #26 |
Originally posted by Millere81979:
I have a newbie question. The challenge titled "What?"
Is this one of those "use your imagination" challenges?? |
I sure hope so. I kind of think it's the DPC admins way of trying to have a challenge that doesn't get any "does not meet challenge" comments.
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10/13/2005 04:47:32 PM · #27 |
Even with the challenge What? I can think of pictures that would communicate What? to me and ones that wouldn't. The ones that meet the challenge the best are the one's I score the highest. Part of meeting the challenge well is the technical aspects of a shot. But that's only part. A very nice picture of a tree or a water droplet probably isn't going to meet the challenge as well as some of the creative things DPC folks will come up with. So even if the tree is beuatiful and technically perfect and a wonderful shot, it won't win if someone more accurately depicts, What?
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10/13/2005 04:48:20 PM · #28 |
hmm I should say I won't score it high, for all I know it will win. :)
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10/13/2005 04:51:14 PM · #29 |
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
It doesn't have to be complex. Here's how I vote...
1 - bad
10 - good
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That means my photos are bad? |
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10/13/2005 04:52:36 PM · #30 |
I vote based on the challenge. If I see a gorgeous photo and it doesnt fit the theme then I give it a 4. The only time I give a 1,2,and 3 is if the photo is completely horrible, or intended to be horrible. Or intended to stir up controversey. I usually never vote lower than 4. I give a 10 to the best photos in the specific challenge. A photo recieves a 7, 8, and 9 if they are levels under the best ones. I average about 1-2 ten's per challenge...I hardly ever give out more than that. I give out about 10 eights, and 4-5 nines. Estimated.
Message edited by author 2005-10-13 16:53:43. |
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10/13/2005 06:06:03 PM · #31 |
At least now everyones knows I've arrived and no, I haven't been scared away, just went to have my meds adjusted.
(Maybe I should rescore that challenge now.)
Thanks for all the input, its been both entertaining and informative, though not necessarily at the same time.
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10/13/2005 06:30:27 PM · #32 |
If the photo does not meet the challenge at all...ie. "a dog drinking water" entered in a "landscape" challenge gets a 1, no matter how good it looks!
If it only meets the challenge by title but the photo makes no sense, ie; "a dead flower on the floor" with the title "sorrow" entered in a "personification" challenge would get a 1 - 3 or 4 range from me.
If it meets the challenge w/o the title "pulling it in" ie; "a tree that looks like a human being without the photographer pasting eyeballs on it" entered in the personification challenge will start with a 5 and could get a 10 if it is a very good technical photo.
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10/14/2005 09:26:45 AM · #33 |
Originally posted by kenskid:
If the photo does not meet the challenge at all...ie. "a dog drinking water" entered in a "landscape" challenge gets a 1, no matter how good it looks!
If it only meets the challenge by title but the photo makes no sense, ie; "a dead flower on the floor" with the title "sorrow" entered in a "personification" challenge would get a 1 - 3 or 4 range from me.
If it meets the challenge w/o the title "pulling it in" ie; "a tree that looks like a human being without the photographer pasting eyeballs on it" entered in the personification challenge will start with a 5 and could get a 10 if it is a very good technical photo. |
Right on. This is the point I was trying to make earlier. |
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10/14/2005 01:53:28 PM · #34 |
Hey Jammur, I'm a newbie too. I signed up and lurked on the site MONTHS before I every got the Kahonas to post a pic in a challenge.
Here's my thoughts - newbie to newbie from what I have read...
1) Enter a photo because you are proud of it and because you like it. It’s not going to fit the challenge description to 50% of the voters anyway. Try to make it fit (like reading the challenge description as posted by the powers that be) but otherwise, don’t sweat it.
2) Ignore the voting. Everyone is very hung up on the voting. Pay attention to the comments instead. They sometimes help you to become a better photographer with ideas for how to improve. There are some who are snobs and some who are kind, and no matter what - every photographer favorite shot in any challenge is their own. SO it should be. Worry less what everyone else thinks. Be proud that you’re taking shots and have the guts to post them where people can tear them to pieces.
3) If you really want to shoot for a ribbon - make sure your picture has water in it of some sort. lol
4) Be yourself. After a day of taking dull shoots of buildings and windows and landscaping - I want to play with my camera and try funky effect stuff. I have a portfolio full of technically perfect pictures of HOUSE PORN (think BetterHomesandGardens type stuff); I want to try different things here so that I don't become burnt out. I've posted in two challenges with TERRIBLE responses. But I'm having fun, so who cares? :)
5) Don’t sweat the results of your own or anyone elses. Give advice where you can, share your tricks, and play nice. Save your unedited pics incase you need to validate, play by the rules and ask for help if you don't get what Basic Editing entails. Vote however you dang well want too, because everyone has a completley different theory for HOW to vote and how it should be done. Remember that 1 is yucky, 10 is WOW and do whatever you feel like inbetween. That seems to be all there is too it. :)
Oh, and smile. There are lots and lots of really incredible photographers here who have never won a ribbon.
Heh. Heh. There, now all the old-timers can refute my newly earned lessons. *grin*
Nice to meet you, hope to see you here often too. :) |
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10/14/2005 02:10:45 PM · #35 |
Originally posted by notesinstones:
...There are lots and lots of really incredible photographers here who have never won a ribbon. |
Yeah like me! I'm a legend in my own mind!!!
:-)
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10/14/2005 02:17:14 PM · #36 |
Originally posted by notesinstones:
every photographer favorite shot in any challenge is their own.
I have a portfolio full of technically perfect pictures of HOUSE PORN
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My own shot is usuallly my favourite right up to the moment that I see all the others and realise how pathetic mine really is.
House porn? Is that like house wine ? It's cheap but plentiful?
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10/14/2005 02:20:24 PM · #37 |
Originally posted by AJAger:
House porn? Is that like house wine ? It's cheap but plentiful? |
LOL!
Sounds like a Challenge Topic. :P |
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10/14/2005 02:35:07 PM · #38 |
Originally posted by kpriest:
Originally posted by AJAger:
House porn? Is that like house wine ? It's cheap but plentiful? |
LOL!
Sounds like a Challenge Topic. :P |
Maybe I could enter that with a self portrait... On second thoughts, please do your best to forget that I even mentioned it. I regret it. I shall try my utmost to block it from my memory.
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10/14/2005 02:47:10 PM · #39 |
On a more practical level, try this; it's what I, and many other people, do.
1. Sit down when you have a free hour and start rolling through all the pictures one by one and "sort" them. Give a 6 to every image that seems "really nice" to you and a 5 to everything else. Don't worry about the challenge them at this stage, just group the images into 2 groups. You will be coming back.
In these two groups, you can assume that all your high-scoring images will come from the 6 group and the 5 group is your also-rans.
2. As you have time available, come back to the 6 group (they will all be nicely sorted on your voting page) and examine them more closely. Use whatever criteria suit you, but be sure that "challenge relevance" is near the top. Sort out and score your 10's, 9's, 8's and 7's from this group. If you have images in this group that seem to you not to have met the challenge, or bearly to have met it, leave them at 6 or drop them to 5 or even 4. Conceivably even lower. A really spectacular sunset entered in a "vegetable" challenge might plummet to a 3 or something on basic principles.
3. Once you've fine-tuned all your 6 group, start again on the 5 group and move those up or down as required. Many of them will end up as 4's, probably. Occasionally you will find an image slotted in the 5's that, on closer examination, is better than you thought it was, especially when you consider relevance to the challenge, and it may move up a slot or two.
4. During all of this, do the best you can to keep your criteria constant for that challenge; don't chanmge your voting criteria mid-challenge unless you go back to reevaluate all the images you've already scored.
Bear in mind that there are about as many different sets of voting criteria as there are members of the site. IMO, and in the opinion of many, while "challenge relevance" is the basic criterion to incorporate, it's a good idea to be forgiving in your judgment of relevance. For example, there was a challenge to depict "Affluence" which asked us to show our idea of "material wealth". By FAR the majority of the images were of money, mansions, and mean machines (cars, yachts, and such). But a significant minority of the images took a different track. One, in paricular, comes to mind; a very decent shot from someone who lives in the dry part of Australia showing flowing water.
Now, on first glance this was an image "shoehorned" into the challenge, and the voters were harsh. However, it's absolutely true that in arid parts of the world the greatest form of material wealth one can have is ready access to water. I, and quite a few others, "got" this connection and scored the image "fairly", but the comments showed that a LOT of voters thought the image was totally irrelevant to the challenge.
I believe that one of the benefits we can gain from this site is to see how differently other people view things than we do. In order to derive this benefit, we need to open our minds a little. When I see an image that seems to me to be off topic, I assume that the photographer believes it's on topic, and I ask myself "How might this be perceived as being on topic?" If I can figure out a connection, that's good enough for me. For me "meets the challenge" is an on/off switch; it either does or it doesn't, in my mind. I don't "grade" challenge relevance, in the sense of saying "both of these images meet the challenge but this one meets it better than that one" because that's basically a cultural issue.
Using the same "affluence" challenge as an example, you can imagine that a very wealthy member might consider steak to be an everyday dinner and only lobster and caviar might seem "affluent" to him, where a young college student from dirt-ranch, subsistence family in the arid west might think beans were an everyday dinner and a simple steak might be top-of-the-line.... An image of a filthy homeless person clutching a bottle of Johnnie Walker would have reeked of "affluence" to me, and I'd have scored it very well if it were a good shot.
In the end, it's all personal. Be consistent, and that's all anyone can ask from you. IMO it's better to try to avoid voting your "preferences" (you prefer landscapes to candids, so you score them higher even if the candid might technically or artistically be a better shot), but a lot of people don't agree with me on that; so at least, if you vote your preferences, vote them consistently.
That's my take on it, in a nutshell; others have their own approaches.
Robt.
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10/14/2005 02:52:31 PM · #40 |
too... many... words...
...nutshell???
jeeeejeeeejeeeeâ„¢ |
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10/14/2005 02:55:20 PM · #41 |
Originally posted by AJAger:
House porn? Is that like house wine ? It's cheap but plentiful? |
LOL! HousePorn =
I take a strangers dining room (think - girlfriend), take out all the furniture (think - undress), put back only the interesting parts (think - dress up in costume), make the lighting more flattering than anything you ever see in reality, hide the stains in the carpet (think -airbrush/PS), and then put out a print that is entirely fantasy that leaves you thinking "I'd eat raw sewage in there." (Think - "eat raw sewage off that").
Yep, its house-porn. :) Some have Southern Living in the bathroom... |
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