DPL Overview

The DPChallenge Photography League or DPL for short, is a way for photographers to join together as a team and compete against other teams using their collective vote averages. It allows for something normally very independent (DPChallenge) to become a team effort and creates camaraderie among fellow DPChallenge users. It is a fantastic way to break out of your comfort zone and meet new people on the site and in turn create friendships. It also stimulates the learning factor that the entire site is all about.

With the DPL you now have a group of people that want to see you shoot the very best you can for the team. They will help you learn new things and improve on techniques you already use. So, in the end, you still have to shoot your own photos and make them look the best you can while using all the valuable information provided by your teammates. This brings us out of being in these challenges just for ourselves and adds more of a duty to shoot better every time. The DPL will also give you a reason to shoot for the weekly challenges; you won't want to let your teammates down by failing to enter. The DPL is the perfect addition to DPChallenge and will do nothing but add more substance to the site and to your photography.

History of DPL

Back in early 2006, SDW and DefyTime decided to start up an informal team-based contest built around challenges at DPC, which became known as the World Photography League or WPL for short. There were 4 seasons of this, with (Super)PhotoBowls at the end of seasons 2, 3, and 4:

Season	Dates	Winning Team	Participating Teams
WPL Season 1	March 14th, 2006 - May 16th, 2006	The Magnificent 7	10
WPL Season 2	July 2nd, 2006 - September 26th, 2006	Team Underexposed	20
WPL Season 3	November 5th, 2006 - January 2nd, 2007	Team Outcasts	24
WPL Season 4	January 29th, 2007 - April 10th, 2007	Team The F/Stops Here!	24

In May 2007, the WPL was officially integrated into DPChallenge to become The DPChallenge Photography League - The DPL. The first season was generally a success but the community seemed to have mixed feelings about its effectiveness and its impact on the site and the challenges.

The DPL sat dormant for a number of years and was finally resurrected in 2010. The second season saw minor adjustments to scoring and ranking. Instead of using vote averages for scoring, percentiles were used as a more effective way to score vastly differing challenge topics. A team cap was implemented to avoid another Ribbon Hogs massacre.

Below you'll find a brief overview for all DPL seasons:

Season	Dates	Winning Teams	Participating Teams
DPL Season 1	May 14th, 2007 - Aug 5th, 2007	Out of Focusers, Ribbon Hogs, and the eXposed	72
DPL Season 2	Apr 12th, 2010 - Jul 11th, 2010	IMAGIO, and ViewFinders	48
DPL Season 3	Jun 8th, 2015 - Sep 6th, 2015	Glasseye	24
DPL Season 4	Jun 25th, 2018 - Sep 23rd, 2018	The Hit Squad, Part II	24
DPL Season 5	May 15th, 2023 - Aug 2nd, 2023	The Fauxtographers	12
DPL Season 6	Aug 4th, 2025 - Nov 19th, 2025	The Click Clique	12