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07/02/2007 11:04:28 AM · #26 |
BHuseman,
Thanks for your honesty. I think it's absurd that you go around giving people 1's which seems to be todays flavor for you however I do appreciate the comment along with the 1. That shows me courage and honesty which is exactly what we need in our military. That being said Maybe if you put that time into your own photos that 5+ average of yours may go up a little. Good luck thanks for your service and happy 4th!!!! |
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07/02/2007 11:33:57 AM · #27 |
Originally posted by routerguy666:
Considering you could do anything/everything on a weekend, I fail to see how any shot could be DNMC unless it shows someone printing the Tuesday edition of a newspaper or something... |
another part of the problem, are we speaking weekend in terms of saturday and sunday or weekend in terms of when your week ends? I'm certain there are many people who actually get their "weekend" in the middle of the week. Heck some don't even get two days off in a row so when is their weekend? I'm just playing devil's advocate here, you'd really have to be out there to not met this challenge in my eyes. But there are some people who not only feel they should step out of the box but they also feel it necessary to take said box to their local recycle center and have it made into something totally different that what it started out to be, then grip cause no ones likes their brand of toilet paper. |
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07/02/2007 11:39:28 AM · #28 |
If I see an image that clearly DNMC my scale becomes 1-5 and I rate the phot from there, very rarely do I give below a three but very rarely do I go above an 8 on an image that meets the challenge, I save the real highs and low scores for the images that standout.
I remember a rain challenge image that won the challenge, the photo was spectacular but the rain looked to me like mist not rain so I voted it down, I really liked the image but felt like it did not really meet the challenge, to me misting a dead bug did not convey rain so my top vote would have been a 5. I may or may not have been wrong in my assesment, the other voters loved it! |
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07/02/2007 11:52:09 AM · #29 |
Originally posted by aliqui:
It's pretty rare that I see an entry that DNMC. If I see one I don't understand I spend more time trying to understand the photographer's intent. Many times I won't vote on it in the first round, and I'll come back to it and give it even more time. |
Michelle ( aliqui) said it there as well as it can be said, and this is now my voting style (fairly recently adopted after my settling in time here at DPC). I did not tell a single person that their Waldo image was DNMC, because each was trying to say something about the challenge topic with their image (I commented the complete Waldo challenge).
Would it really hurt to try not only to look at an image but also to see it?
Best,
Rob |
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07/02/2007 01:14:59 PM · #30 |
Voting doesn't represent how I actually feel about a photo. Obviously if I like the photo, its executed well adn fits it gets a high score that I can support.
For the DNMC, if its a wonderful photo but DNMC, I still give it a 1. this doesn't mean I don't like the photo or aprreciate the talent, it just means it was poorly matched for the contest which I think is most important. Without the guidelines of teh challenge, we have nothing but free studies which would get kind of boring all the time.
I personally like the challenges that are very technically specific, like single light source or shallow DOF etc... I don't really like the conceptual challenges as much, like Pure or solo. To me that leaves a lot up to interpretation and voting gets all over teh board.
None of this really matters because I don't vote in challenges I enter and rarely vote in the others... |
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07/02/2007 01:16:28 PM · #31 |
| usually, not always, I vote a 1. Sometimes I give people the benifit of the doubt if I can't figure out what their idea was. |
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07/02/2007 01:28:04 PM · #32 |
This whole DNMC conundrum is one of the most frustrating things about DPC, in my opinion. The way I see it, there are essentially two ways to "meet the challenge": you can take it literally, and submit the most obvious possible interpretation of the topic, or you can use the topic as a springboard to get creative.
In the current DPC mindset, a majority of voters are taking the "assignment" route when they vote on challenges; they say, in effect, "The challenge is to make a cover shot for a publication on the challenge topic", and they judge the entries based on how well they communicate the topic at first glance.
But there's a whole other (and more satisfying, artistically) way of looking at it: if the challenge is viewed as a "topic to get us thinking", then it is possible for us, as voters, to view each and every image asking ourselves not "How obvious is it?" but, instead, "In what creative way has this person approached the topic?"
I deplore the tendency to downgrade any entries that are not smack-you-in-the-face obvious in their approach to the challenge topic. IMO many of the best entries, the most thoughtful entries, in DPC challenges come from the other camp. Many times I actually take the first approach, and usually these images DO score better, but I never am as happy with them as I am with my more thoughtful, creative takes on the challenges.
So when I am voting I bear this in mind. I always assume the shooter has made a connection in his/her mind between the topic and the image, and I enjoy trying to find and appreciate that connection myself. For me, the question of "meeting the challenge" is an on/off switch, not a graduated scale. If I believe you met the challenge, I'll score your image on a purely photographic scale. And I'm inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt. On the rare occasions when it seems obvious to me that an image in no way relates to the challenge, you will not get a good score from me ΓΆ€” but it is rare that I think that way.
As a made-up example of a possible image that many would assume was not meeting the challenge, consider a hypothetical challenge called "Mourning", and an image that showed a crowd of people all dressed in white. For we westerners, black is the color of mourning; but in some Eastern cultures, white is the color of mourning. I think it's sad that this otherwise excellent image might finish poorly because of a western-culture bias-of-the-majority in DPC.
R.
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07/02/2007 01:37:02 PM · #33 |
This happened to me recently in a challenge. I could not figure out how the photo met the challenge. The challenge was "Backsides".
Here is the comment I left the photographer:
Originally posted by swhiddon:
Comment:
I have studied you photograph for several minutes and find myself at odds with it. It's nice, has great lines, color, focus, and tilt making it exciting to look at but do not see how it fits this challenge. I don't want to vote your photograph low because I can't find a way it meets the challenge so I have to skip voting on your photograph. Would of been great in puzzle macro. Good luck in the challenge, it is a nice shot. |
Here is the picture
Clearly he met the challenge but my eyes just could not grasp the picture. I'm glad I didn't vote him down. It would have been bad to lower his score because I could not get my eyes to adjust to the picture. My wife had to show me the stairs in the photo, which she seen right away. I guess my eyes are getting old :P
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07/02/2007 02:17:45 PM · #34 |
Here is my opinion. If my inbox was 'filling up fast' because of my dnmc comments, I would stop and take a hard think about whether or not I really understood the challenge. I believe that I would feel like I was being pretty arrogant to think that there could be that many people wrong, and I was right. I would look to myself, do I actually know what the topic is about? do I have blinders on? have I taken an anally narrow intrepretation of the challenge?
I don't normally see but at most a small handful of shots that I feel are dnmc in a challenge. And even with some of those, if I look long enough and think about it with an open mind, I sometimes see the connection, and sometimes I find it to be a very refreshing and creative intrepretation. I actually enjoy finding these hidden gems, and sometimes are for me, creative and daring and truly inspiring. |
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07/02/2007 02:32:26 PM · #35 |
I agree, if your inbox is filling up, you might want to check either your interpretation or your tone.
I guess my DNMC strictness level depends on the challenge. If the challenge is something intangible e.g., Pure, I won't penalize an entry if they stretch it a bit or rely on their caption to make the connection (as 75% of the Pure entries did). But the photos that conveyed "Pure" to me sans shoehorn definitely got my top votes.
If the challenge theme is more tangible (e.g., Kitchenware), and the photo is of a bee hovering over a flower, yeah, I'll knock off points. If it's an absolutely terrific photo, it may get a 5 or 6, but no higher.
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07/02/2007 02:51:48 PM · #36 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
This whole DNMC conundrum is one of the most frustrating things about DPC... |
O yes.
I cannot, in good conscience,
sit in judgement over a photographer's intent.
Neither can I be expected to follow each and everyone's individual nuance and inclination.
I cannot conjure all cultures, grasp ilks and ironies completely foreign to me.
Nor am I willing to make assumptions to satisfy a demand made in the rule-set to do so.
I can only, in good conscience, act upon what I see, feel and know.
The business of topicality is between a photographer and his conscience.
If he has none, hell, isn't that punishment enough?
Message edited by author 2007-07-02 14:52:19. |
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07/02/2007 03:00:44 PM · #37 |
| I try to keep the most open of minds in this matter and when voting I do work to see the connection between the photograph and the topic at hand. I do not necessarily expect the photographer to spoon feed it to me. (Though the most successful images, in terms of final standings, tend to do so.) I do expect the photographer to meet me partway in providing some clue as to how the photograph in question fits into the theme. Unfortunately, on DPC, the ribbons are not often rewarded to the subtle, but rather to the blatant. |
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07/02/2007 03:08:28 PM · #38 |
Originally posted by citymars:
I agree, if your inbox is filling up, you might want to check either your interpretation or your tone. |
It depends on the challenge as well. I got DNMC from the guy, for my entry in the latest weekend challenge. This challenge is pretty much a free study - what did you do this weekend. Given I've started voting myself, the photos are all over the place. I think I got hit more because my title was more of a photo title than 'what I did and why this photo was here'. So if nothing else I know some people rely on a good title for their votes.
Personally, I don't give an automatic 1 if it's outside the subject. I mean if there's a picture of water submitted the land challenge I may give it a lower score with a DNMC in the comments, but if it's a decent photo it still gets points.
OTOH, if I"m voting in an 'advanced editing' shot, and I see something that could have fixed in 10 seconds by editing levels or hue, well that's another story... :)
- J |
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07/02/2007 06:29:21 PM · #39 |
Originally posted by Weefan:
BHuseman,
Thanks for your honesty. I think it's absurd that you go around giving people 1's which seems to be todays flavor for you however I do appreciate the comment along with the 1. That shows me courage and honesty which is exactly what we need in our military. That being said Maybe if you put that time into your own photos that 5+ average of yours may go up a little. Good luck thanks for your service and happy 4th!!!! |
OUCH! |
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