bewildered - DPChallenge Forums

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX Aspherical DF for Canon

05/06/2002 01:24:31 PM · #26

i kind of think that the interpretation of the challenge is part of the raison d'etre of the site. otherwise what's the point? i think it's analogous to school: the instructor says 'write about the soldiers of the revolutionary war'. someone writes about the women of the revolutionary war. they get a C , not an A. otherwise, why not just make it freeform photo challenge? : )

however, i do agree that your pic is looking up at the girl's face,maybe not an exageratted angle, but up nonetheless.

* This message has been edited by the author on 5/6/2002 1:44:00 PM.

Sony 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 E-mount

05/06/2002 01:33:17 PM · #27

What I find so fascinating is that people join a site that is specifically designed to CRITICIZE their photo's then get totally distraught when folks proceed to do so.

I mean, why even participate if you are gonna get anal about it when someone says something about your work you disagree with?

I am not really referring to irae specifically because there have been numerous threads over the last several weeks with people doing the same thing.

I actually like when people get bent and disagree versus everybody just saying "what a nice picture of your kids, goldfish, vacation" .. whatever

But..jeesh...the whole purpose here is that people will critique you...which I have never seen people take very well at anytime in my life anyway so there's no surprise there..:-)

* This message has been edited by the author on 5/6/2002 1:34:37 PM.

Speigner

Canon PowerShot A20

05/06/2002 02:18:06 PM · #28

Originally posted by hokie:
What I find so fascinating is that people join a site that is specifically designed to CRITICIZE their photo's then get totally distraught when folks proceed to do so.
... I actually like when people get bent and disagree versus everybody just saying "what a nice picture of your kids, goldfish, vacation" .. whatever

But..jeesh...the whole purpose here is that people will critique you....:-

Hokie, I agree, we can choose not to suffer the slings and arrows of voters by simply not submitting. And it's kinda humorous to see some of the stupid things that are said.

What I find valuable is that this site seems to represent a fairly broad range of people's tastes, and so therefore the comments give me a guage as to how the general pubplic may receive my photographs. And since I view my participation here as a learning experience, it's all good.

* This message has been edited by the author on 5/6/2002 2:20:33 PM.

jmsetzler

Sony Alpha a6000

05/06/2002 02:19:40 PM · #29

ditto to what speigner said...

05/06/2002 02:32:55 PM · #30

Well, I found this site from DP Review..the hardware site. I just bought my digital and needed to find out where to get some gear like lenses, the cool lensmate extension, etc.. and saw this site mentioned in some thread I was reading.

Because I am the kind of guy that learns better by doing than reading I figured this site would be great to get up to speed because there were weekly challenges..a focus to the helter skelter of just running around and shooting photos.

I don't pay attention to comments unless it is a technical question. Aesthetics? I make the photo for me. When I make a photo I am looking for something myself..to learn a lighting technique, menyu command, a new editing technique.

Like this latest challenge. I was looking to see if I could make an actual magazine quality ad with my digital. I have made ads before with film (mainly industrial trade stuff) and I know the basics to get it done. I just needed to see if I could work out the tech issues with my new digital.

With a digital there are technical issues like hot pixels, an entirely new lense speed, iso's mean nothing I have found. Stuff like that.

I guess what I am saying is I am using this site for my own means and that is often the best you can expect from the internet.

magnetic9999

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX Aspherical DF for Canon

05/06/2002 02:42:44 PM · #31

Originally posted by hokie:
What I find so fascinating is that people join a site that is specifically designed to CRITICIZE their photo's then get totally distraught when folks proceed to do so.

I think some people have joined sites like this in the past, maybe ones where the constituency are less 'casual photographers' and beginners, and gotten really positive remarks there.

then they come here, and a lot of people maybe don't even speak the same language, and the technical skills they've been recognized for previously are not even noticed because people without experience don't know how hard it is do what they did. hence the frustration.

just a theory ... ;)

i3ullseye

Olympus Brio D-150

05/06/2002 05:10:03 PM · #32

Originally posted by magnetic9999:
Originally posted by hokie:
[i]What I find so fascinating is that people join a site that is specifically designed to CRITICIZE their photo's then get totally distraught when folks proceed to do so.

I think some people have joined sites like this in the past, maybe ones where the constituency are less 'casual photographers' and beginners, and gotten really positive remarks there.

then they come here, and a lot of people maybe don't even speak the same language, and the technical skills they've been recognized for previously are not even noticed because people without experience don't know how hard it is do what they did. hence the frustration.

just a theory ... ;)
[/i]

My opinion, my take, my interpretation.....

Ground up:

-Subject-
^
|
|
______ ground....

From the gorund, poiting up, or some close angle. Even a 45 degree angle, as long as it looks as if the camera was laid on the ground and aime upwards at something.

The pic here is more like low perspective, horizontal shot.

----------------------------> Subject....
|
24"
|
|
______________Ground...

To me this did not fit the criteria. How my comments here are as plain as ASCII art can be expected to convey!

:)

Corey

Nikon D300s

05/06/2002 07:30:46 PM · #33

O.K. here is my take on this whole thing, for starters this challenge is to get people to start taking pictures more, and help them develop a theme in them. Secondly if you are trying to win as opposed to just compete you have to fulfill the challenge requirements in alomost everyones eyes. This is not an easy thing to do considering the very diverse goupe of people we have here. Not only people at all levels of photogrophy but people all over the planet. People in different parts of the world see things differently example people in the US read things left to right while people in Arab countires read things right to left, which will make a / look like it is going up to us whereas a looks like it is going up to the people in Saudi Arabia. There are soo many things that are different in each culture that play a part. The real challenge to me has been to find the things that don't change from culture to culture and will apply to everyone and still keep it creative and interesting.

timj351

Sony DSC-F707

05/06/2002 09:14:09 PM · #34

A method that I have discovered that seems to help me is this: If I think that I could guess what the theme is by looking at my picture or if someone else can than I feel like it might be a good picture to submit as long as it has the other things required for me to consider it a worthy entry. To me it is really that simple. I obviously just got that method ingrained in my brain because several of my photos probably didn't convey the theme well enough as well as other problems. This is a 'theme' based challenge and I don't think anyone should feel bad if they vote a photo low if the theme doesn't jump out at them. A person might have a technically perfect and beautiful photo and it might even 'technically' meet the theme requirements but if that theme would never be guessed by anybody that didn't know the rules than can you really feel that it should rank high in the voting? I love the critical comments that I am recieving from my photos because they are really making me think about things that might otherwise take a long time to figure out. Not that I think every negative comment is correct but I think most of them are. I am impressed by how observant everybody is.

Tim

irae

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8

05/06/2002 10:42:28 PM · #35

Hey... If you have something to say about my photo, that's all good. Love to hear it, as long as you've actually looked at the photo and say something defensible. I'm a bit less enthralled with people taking a very narrow view of something like the word 'up' (prep to, toward, or at a higher point of -Webster's), and making their evaluations based largely on that alone. If I take a photo of a blue car, and your comment is "It's yellow.", then I reserve the right to ask you how you arrived at that conclusion and even call it into question. Anyone who can look at the image at the top of this thread and maintain that it was taken horizontally (even after getting hints) is just calling blue yellow. N'est pas? Maybe it wasn't up enough, but nowhere in the challenge was that specified in any way.

05/06/2002 11:07:40 PM · #36

irae...I know EXACTLY what you are talking about and agree with everything in this thread you have said..no argument really.

I have a photo in the challenge now that has..to put it bluntly..subliminal stuff in it. That was my point in this challenge. We all hear about subliminal advertising. Well, it's true. Artists hide crap in their work just like computer guys hide things in their programs.

We are at over 100 votes now and I have not recieved one comment on the image. I can't tell if it's because folks can't see the image or think so little of the photo submission not to look at it long enough to catch it or ...gasp..just aren't that careful when looking at these photo's. I even recieved a "boring" comment. hehe..well...if you looked close enough maybe it would be more interesting :-)

So..irae..I tend to agree that sometimes folks just don't put that much effort into these photos when looking at them. But..that has sorta been my point all along..:-)

irae

Nikon AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6G

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8

05/07/2002 03:44:00 AM · #37

Originally posted by langdon:
Originally posted by irae:
[i]See, though, this is just the kind of lameness I'm talking about. How does it fail to "seem like it was taken from the ground up"?

...

langdon - 5/5/2002
from ground up isn't really represented here.
-really? In what way? At least you almost really said something here.

"In what way?" In the most obvious way: in looking at this picture, a) I don't feel like I'm really ON the ground, and b) I don't feel like I'm looking up at anything.[/i]

I'm trying to respect your feelings, but the challenge was not to make you "feel like" the image was taken from the ground up. If the facts conflict with your feelings, are they not facts?

[i}The shot you took is looking DIRECTLY at the scooter and 2 girls with little-to-no UPWARD angle.[/i]
No. It's really not looking directly at the scooter and two girls. It's looking up at them. Stand eye-to-eye with somebody. How far up their nose can you see? If you wanted more than a little upward angle, would it have been hard to say so? You're the guy who gets to write the challenges.

If the red lights in the background are 3 stories from the ground, then you didn't convey that with your panning of the scooter: they could've been lights from a store window.

Funny. I've never mentioned the lights in the bg being up high, so they must have seemed that way to you since you bring it up.

What it comes down to is that if 16/37 comments on your photo said that it didn't fit the challenge, the bottom line is that it probably more-so didn't than did.

That's a slippery slope. If all your friends told you to jump out the window...

And the lameness you're talking about is no more lame than someone not being able to take constructive criticism.

I'm sorry if you felt attacked. Personally, I see a big difference between saying, "You're lame." and "Your comments are lame." Didn't mean for you to take it personally. Could you tell me which part of your criticism was constructive so I can better appreciate it?

shortredneck

Olympus C-3000Z

05/07/2002 05:39:46 AM · #38

Hokie, I found it! I had several Marketing courses in college and fell in love with the idea of subliminal advertising. I knew where to look for the images and your title kind of gives it away. Great job on an already classy advertisement!

Originally posted by hokie:
[i]irae...I know EXACTLY what you are talking about and agree with everything in this thread you have said..no argument really.

I have a photo in the challenge now that has..to put it bluntly..subliminal stuff in it. That was my point in this challenge. We all hear about subliminal advertising. Well, it's true. Artists hide crap in their work just like computer guys hide things in their programs.

We are at over 100 votes now and I have not recieved one comment on the image. I can't tell if it's because folks can't see the image or think so little of the photo submission not to look at it long enough to catch it or ...gasp..just aren't that careful when looking at these photo's. I even recieved a "boring" comment. hehe..well...if you looked close enough maybe it would be more interesting :-)[i]

* This message has been edited by the author on 5/7/2002 5:41:13 AM.

* This message has been edited by the author on 5/7/2002 5:42:09 AM.

tlalonde

Nikon D850

05/07/2002 05:45:48 AM · #39

I saw it too Hokie, nice job.

05/07/2002 07:13:49 AM · #40

I tried to give hints in the photo because I wanted folks to see it. I was getting dissappointed that some didn't, as if I had really failed.

Plus, I was trying not to give away my photo but we seem to forget about the photos of the last challenge..(unless you have some MAJOR debate) and I wanted talk about advertising stuff while the iron is hot.

You should have seen the stuff we used to hide in the University Brochures that went out to the kids ;-) Virginia Tech would send all their graphic work to us in the communication department(because we were cheap).

Nothing to get thrown in jail over but some strange stuff. We had a banner that read The University of Virginia sucks hidden in a sky shot, pictures of cows dancing hidden in the brickwork of the Administration building..harmless stuff that wouldn't cost us our school access :-)

I think we were all hung up on listening to beatles records backwards too ;-)

* This message has been edited by the author on 5/7/2002 7:15:21 AM.

shortredneck

Olympus C-3000Z

05/07/2002 07:48:09 AM · #41

That's wild. I remember looking through magazines back in the 70's to see if there were any subliminal items in any of the print ads. The only ones I ever saw were in the liquor ads. Usually they involved naked women or something that could possibly be naked women.

Reuben

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

05/07/2002 08:17:00 AM · #42

I think the main area of confusion here is that you, irae, took the challenge to be a purely technical restriction, and most other people did not.

From what I've read on this thread, you feel that the challenge was just to take a photo angled upward from the ground, which you did.

Most other people, however, thought the challenge was to convey looking up from the ground. Within this interpretation of the challenge, they are certainly justified to say they don't *feel* you met the challenge. Their interpretation was that the photo should make you feel as though you're looking from the ground up.

So the real question is, why are people so stuck in their own interpretations of the challenge? Why can't people look at a photo and put just a little effort into seeing a different interpretation, rather than just blindly trying to force the photo into their own interpration?

I think it has to do with the fact that most comments come from other photographers participating in the same challenge. They've spent a week trying to get a good photo for their interpretation of the challenge, and they've gotten themselves stuck in a rut. They'd rather not admit that their interpretation was narrow, especially considering they've been working within it for a week.

* This message has been edited by the author on 5/7/2002 8:18:12 AM.

05/07/2002 08:31:50 AM · #43

Originally posted by Reuben:
I think it has to do with the fact that most comments come from other photographers participating in the same challenge. They've spent a week trying to get a good photo for their interpretation of the challenge, and they've gotten themselves stuck in a rut. They'd rather not admit that their interpretation was narrow, especially considering they've been working within it for a week.

I don't argue that many photographers ...heck..most PEOPLE in general have their view of what they like or don't like. Hasn't there been debate in the social arena forever about allowable prejudices versus taboo (like racism).

We all have our preferences. The real artists out there will force themselves to see the power that exists in an image even if it doen't fit their view of what is great color or composition or technical skil. Participate in the artists vision. Draw him out through debate.

I want to thank irae for having enough guts to come here..put his photo up and force debate to grow around it. I learned from it. I looked at his image more critically and grew from the effort.

irae