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06/14/2006 12:56:40 PM · #1 |
I've started a small research project. I started asking myself what common qualities do all images that ribbon contain? Do portraits make for more winning shots? What about the frame debate? How about the rule of thirds?
I've started to profile all of the past ribbon winning images in hopes of finding some trends.
You can find the results here: What Makes A Winning DPC Photo?
First interesting thing I've found - 40% of all winners use frames - who knew?!?
If you'd like to help contribute, post which challenge you'll be profiling so not everyone does the same one. Send me a message with your input and I'll put it in my sheet and updated the totals.
Thoughts?
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06/14/2006 12:59:24 PM · #2 |
very interesting.
You have too much time on your hands lol but thank you for enlightening us! It is most interesting to see what gets voted when you look at the whole picture.
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06/14/2006 01:02:01 PM · #3 |
| I've noticed that trend with the frames/borders as well. so i tried one for my empty room entry. it failed miserabley for me. not the photo per se but the border. noone was a fan. so its not fool proof, you still need talent. lol. :) interesting study |
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06/14/2006 01:04:33 PM · #4 |
so they should be:
color
frameless
no people
standard zoom
and on rule of thirds
?????
by the way, you do have way too much free time. |
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06/14/2006 01:15:10 PM · #5 |
What makes a winning DPC photo?
A lot of friends and family registered at DPC and Instant Messaging?
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06/14/2006 01:16:27 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by NstiG8tr:
What makes a winning DPC photo?
A lot of friends and family registered at DPC and Instant Messaging? |
I clearly have made the wrong friends. :(
Maybe you can share some of yours with me? |
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06/14/2006 01:16:43 PM · #7 |
the majority wins with no people ... and the majority also wins doing portraits
:) |
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06/14/2006 01:17:14 PM · #8 |
You know, every time I see these people who think they have some cookie cutter idea for creating "the perfect photo" I just start getting really frustrated. Photography is about breaking the rules, doing things differently, showing a new way of looking at the world.
There is no cookie cutter method for a winning picture, and I think trying to find one, or making people think there is one, risks stifling creativity.
Message edited by author 2006-06-14 13:18:59. |
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06/14/2006 01:18:17 PM · #9 |
Hopper - Ok, let me explain the "portrait, no people" thing - I meant for just portrait style, not necessarily a portrait of a person. When trying to come up with types of photos, I could only think of landscape, still life, and portrait as types.
If anyone has other suggestions, I'm open (and if I get the time).
Modurn - I understand where you're coming from but at the same time, if your goal is to win (and I'm not saying it's mine), then you need to appeal to the mainstream. It's about marketing and mass appeal. What wins isn't always the best. And what you consider the best is always, always subjective. I wanted to see if there was any trending analysis that could be done with the types of photos that tend to score best. ;)
Message edited by author 2006-06-14 13:20:29. |
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06/14/2006 01:19:44 PM · #10 |
OK, I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
Open up the Challenge Archives which show the ribbon winners.
How many use cyan as a major hue?
Not very many.
Cyan is the death knell of ribboning.
Now look at your challenge entries...I see a lot of cyan in the lower rated shots. Work to make those cyans bluer or greener and your pictures will rate better.
I can't believe I gave that secret up...
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06/14/2006 01:23:58 PM · #11 |
Originally posted by modurn:
You know, every time I see these people who think they have some cookie cutter idea for creating "the perfect photo" I just start getting really frustrated. Photography is about breaking the rules, doing things differently, showing a new way of looking at the world.
There is no cookie cutter method for a winning picture, and I think trying to find one, or making people think there is one, risks stifling creativity. |
Amen to that
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06/14/2006 01:29:50 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by modurn:
You know, every time I see these people who think they have some cookie cutter idea for creating "the perfect photo" I just start getting really frustrated. Photography is about breaking the rules, doing things differently, showing a new way of looking at the world.
There is no cookie cutter method for a winning picture, and I think trying to find one, or making people think there is one, risks stifling creativity. |
There's another point of view on that, though. Take national poetry competitions; those who enter them seriously study the work of the judges, and choose which poems to enter based on the perceived "slant" of the judges. That's not to say they "wrote their poems for the judges", but sometimes you just know that certain poems will be better-received by certain judges, and this will affect your choice of entries.
Looking at it from that perspective, it's fairly clear that those in DPC who have acquired a lot of ribbons have done a pretty good job of anticipating what the voters will like. In other words, [i]they have menatally, or possibly unconsciously, done exactly what mattnow is doing quite systematically.
If your goal when you enter these challenges is to "win ribbons", then it does make sense that you try to take the pulse of the voters and choose your entries based on what you think THEY will like best. I don't see this as "stifling creativity" at all; it's a conscious choice you make, whether to shoot for yourself or for the voters.
R.
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06/14/2006 01:30:44 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by mk:
Originally posted by NstiG8tr:
What makes a winning DPC photo?
A lot of friends and family registered at DPC and Instant Messaging? |
I clearly have made the wrong friends. :(
Maybe you can share some of yours with me? |
LOL Look at my avereage and you'll find I to haven't found the right friends either.
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06/14/2006 01:34:55 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by mattmow:
First interesting thing I've found - 40% of all winners use frames - who knew?!? |
That means, of course, that 60% of ribbon winners do not use frames so your chances of winning a ribbon are one and a half times greater if you don't use a frame than if you do. ;)
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06/14/2006 01:35:25 PM · #15 |
| Shannon wrote an amazingly precise essay on just this topic... See here: Win a Ribbon |
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06/14/2006 01:41:57 PM · #16 |
Originally posted by stdavidson:
Originally posted by mattmow:
First interesting thing I've found - 40% of all winners use frames - who knew?!? |
That means, of course, that 60% of ribbon winners do not use frames so your chances of winning a ribbon are one and a half times greater if you don't use a frame than if you do. ;) |
That's a fine example of using statistics in a misleading way: if 40% of ribbon winners use frames, but only 18% of entries use frames, then you could say that a frame is definitely an asset; based on that, you double your chances of a ribbon by incorporating a frame. On the other hand, if 60% of entries do not use frames and 40% use them, then the statistic is telling us that it makes no difference.
Most of these "stats" actually have little meaning unless we also know the frequency of occurrence of the thing being measured in the total pool of entries. Other anomalies present themselves also: of the 14 challenges Matt has tabulated, 2 of them were SPECIFICALLY topics that required "portraits", so in this particular sampled group, the winning % on shots with people in them is seriously inflated...
Robt.
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06/14/2006 01:50:45 PM · #17 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by stdavidson:
Originally posted by mattmow:
First interesting thing I've found - 40% of all winners use frames - who knew?!? |
That means, of course, that 60% of ribbon winners do not use frames so your chances of winning a ribbon are one and a half times greater if you don't use a frame than if you do. ;) |
That's a fine example of using statistics in a misleading way: if 40% of ribbon winners use frames, but only 18% of entries use frames, then you could say that a frame is definitely an asset; based on that, you double your chances of a ribbon by incorporating a frame. On the other hand, if 60% of entries do not use frames and 40% use them, then the statistic is telling us that it makes no difference. |
Good point! We will have to wait for those statistics to come in before we know for sure. LOL!!!!
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06/14/2006 01:51:47 PM · #18 |
Each month our camera club has a competition with an outside judge. The judges are announced in advance. Guess what I do before picking which images to enter?
Took me a while to learn this with DPC. But, as you can see by my more recent scores, knowing what the judges will prefer makes a huge difference.
Sometimes you argue with yourself over whether you should enter your preferences or what you think the judge/s will like but, ultimately, you are entering a competition to do well, right? Entering something you KNOW the judge/s won't like is really rather pointless unless you are a masochist. |
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06/14/2006 01:53:21 PM · #19 |
Originally posted by stdavidson:
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by stdavidson:
Originally posted by mattmow:
First interesting thing I've found - 40% of all winners use frames - who knew?!? |
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That's a fine example of using statistics in a misleading way: if 40% of ribbon winners use frames, but only 18% of entries use frames, then you could say that a frame is definitely an asset; based on that, you double your chances of a ribbon by incorporating a frame. On the other hand, if 60% of entries do not use frames and 40% use them, then the statistic is telling us that it makes no difference. |
Good point! We will have to wait for those statistics to come in before we know for sure. LOL!!!! |
HA! I should have included a disclaimer saying "these stats in no way should be consider comprehensive and hold no true scientific or statistical authenticity."
I'll get right on profiling *every* entry... :) |
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06/14/2006 02:00:31 PM · #20 |
Originally posted by dahkota:
... but, ultimately, you are entering a competition to do well, right? Entering something you KNOW the judge/s won't like is really rather pointless unless you are a masochist. |
Some people enter to get feedback on their work, regardless of how that ranks the photo within the DPC scoring system. The score is only one form of feedback. |
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06/14/2006 05:39:18 PM · #21 |
Score is the primary source of feedback on this site IMO. You can't count on comments during challenges because people hardly give them and if they do most are a useless 1-3 word comment. Critique club comments are based on one persons view point so that makes them kinda one-sided. Maybe it's a fundamentally and technically good shot and that person just don't like it for some reason. The only other way which is probably the best way around here, next to interpreting your own score, is to post them in the forums and sometimes you don't get much feedback that way either.
Message edited by author 2006-06-14 17:43:20.
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06/14/2006 06:51:25 PM · #22 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
OK, I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
Open up the Challenge Archives which show the ribbon winners.
How many use cyan as a major hue?
Not very many.
Cyan is the death knell of ribboning. |
Eek. 40% of my ribbons use cyan as a major hue. I am an anomaly!
Originally posted by modurn:
Photography is about breaking the rules, doing things differently, showing a new way of looking at the world. |
That is exactly how not to win a ribbon here : )
I use the "dazzle 'em with bright lights/colours" method. Works a treat. Sometimes.
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06/14/2006 06:55:59 PM · #23 |
I think that studys of this type help you understand how other (the majoraty) look at pics in general.
Good to know if you are trying to make money,
Or are looking for exceptance.
Trying to break into certain groups,
Lets face it if your trying to get a job at a fashion mag your not going to bring in your portfolio pics of dogs and cats.
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06/14/2006 06:59:59 PM · #24 |
I think it is actually hard to use the score as a basis for a good photgraph because you could shoot a good photograph and have it score really low if people don't "get it" and the 100 other variables that put one photo into winning over another. I think you need a combination of luck and skill by taking an amazing photo that happens to conect with people at the right time in order to win a ribbon.
I do think that if you want to ribbon you can definitly derive a formula for getting closer and closer to that goal by tweaking your photo's in a manner that are pleasing to the voters. Takes away some of your creative freedom as an artist, but it puts you in the running for a ribbon. |
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06/14/2006 07:01:34 PM · #25 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
OK, I'm going to let you in on a little secret.
Open up the Challenge Archives which show the ribbon winners.
How many use cyan as a major hue?
Not very many.
Cyan is the death knell of ribboning.
Now look at your challenge entries...I see a lot of cyan in the lower rated shots. Work to make those cyans bluer or greener and your pictures will rate better.
I can't believe I gave that secret up... |
Like this?
;-P
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