Why don't more of this forum's members participate in the DPR challenges?

[travelfoodphoto]

As a challenge entrant occasionally, I find the process enjoyable, and viewing the other photographs a way to learn more about composition. And the fact that the challenges hide the gear and exif info s(until the challenge is over) so the photos stands on their own merits meshes well with my belief that the photographer is the key component, not the equipment.

I would really enjoy seeing more of the best work from photographers here, so if you feel like participating, give it a try. You might really enjoy the process, and perhaps even improve your photography in the process, as I believe I have.

Best,

Den

 

[Superscroll]

I just did my first recently. It's pretty neat to see the other entries and as you say there is a lot to be learned. Took me a while to find it as i don't use 90% of what this site offers and really just use the forums.

 

[travelfoodphoto]

Thanks for your response and glad you're giving the challenges a go. Hope you enjoy the process.

I participate in a few other boards here, like the Sony Cybershot board, which has many excellent photographers, and a significant number of them have been long time challenge entrants, so i just started to wonder why that's not the case here.

Good luck in your first challenge!

Best,

Den

 

[Larry_T]

Greetings. I shoot street with a Z6iii and a Z5ii. I mostly submit in the best photo of the fortnight challenge, and tend to be at the 50th percentile. I am not a huge fan of the challenges in general. The voting is very opaque, and I find people who give a photo a 1 or 2 might be sandbagging to boost their own entries. Most of the high votes go to heavily processed landscape or travel photos, birds or animals. I am usually in agreement with maybe the top 5 entries, but after that it is a crap shoot. I am not sure if gear matters much at all. I will continue to submit, but I don't judge my own photos by how well they do in the challenges. Thank you for posting this thread.

 

[travelfoodphoto]

Hi Larry,

Thanks for your response and thoughts. I look at about the top 10 images or so, and find them to be very good in most cases, and the top 5 to me seem to deserve their ranking. Viewing the camera info of the top images show that the vast majority of the top picks have been taken with good cameras and lenses, but occasionally there are photos in that range that have teen taken by far less expensive gear, which to me means good photographers normally have high quality gear, but not that high quality gear by default produce high quality images.

I don't see top images in the challenges overly processed any more than I see overly processed images on this board or other boards I'm involved in.

What I enjoy most is viewing the top photos and trying to determine what made them the top vote getters and how I can use that input to improve my shooting in similar situations.

I also like the fact that you can't vote for your own image.

Enjoy your photography,

Den

 

[TheSoaringSprite]

I did participate a few years ago, it was fun for a little while, but I just don't feel like most of my images are competitive enough. I also don't really care much about competitions in general. Unless I capture something that I myself deem extraordinary, I abstain from the process. Maybe I just don't value outside approval enough to drive me to compete. Or is it fear of failure?!?

I've had many moments where I really liked an image, and others just didn't see it from my perspective. On the other hand, I've taken images that I wasn't particularly impressed by, but somehow others thought they were great!

I just can't seem to be able to tell what's "good" and what's mediocre, unless it's extremely obvious.. like,... catching some endangered or "extinct" thing doing something incredible.

--
http://www.dreamsourcestudio.com
@TheSoaringSprite

 

[PLShutterbug]

I have so many other priorities now, this would break my brain.

That’s my excuse, and I’m stickin’ with it.

Another thought: several years ago when I viewed the challenges more often, many of them seemed to be trolling for content for the sponsor’s uses. I would see challenges where the beginning of the description was, “we are looking for content for our latest ad campaign …” and the rules would say they got use of the images. I have no idea if that still happens but it did put me off.

 

[Superscroll]

I think in the challenge i did i finished mid pack out of 40 some entries. That was probably as good as i'll ever get and i was pretty thrilled.

I do very much enjoy the weekly photo sharing threads in the equipment forums. Those are fantastic for inspiration, feeding GAS and the general fun of viewing nice photographs.

 

[travelfoodphoto]

I appreciate your response and understand your points of view. I'm a competitive type person so enjoy the competitive nature of the challenges, but learning from what I view of the top photos of most of the challenges has, I think, helped my photography improve.

What any of us like is, of course, quite subjective, but I do think that often any or all of us are somewhat bias toward what we produce in any endeavor, so I find having others judge our "art" is a worthwhile endeavor. Just my view, of course.

Best,

Den

 

[myb17]

Early in the movie, "Back to the Future", Marty expresses his own fear of rejection to his girlfriend, Jennifer:

"What if I send in the tape and they don't like it? I mean, what if they say I'm no good? What if they say, 'Get outta here, kid. You got no future'? I mean, I just don't think I can take that kind of rejection. Jesus, I'm starting to sound like my old man!"

I do not post very often.

Just stuff I think is interesting to me.

Bryan

 

[bhollis]

I am not a huge fan of the challenges in general. The voting is very opaque, and I find people who give a photo a 1 or 2 might be sandbagging to boost their own entries.

There seems to be quite a bit of sandbagging, which is pretty pitiful when you think about it.

 

[travelfoodphoto]

I have so many other priorities now, this would break my brain.

Takes less time to enter a challenge than post photos on a board, I think.

That’s my excuse, and I’m stickin’ with it.

Another thought: several years ago when I viewed the challenges more often, many of them seemed to be trolling for content for the sponsor’s uses. I would see challenges where the beginning of the description was, “we are looking for content for our latest ad campaign …” and the rules would say they got use of the images. I have no idea if that still happens but it did put me off.

Not familiar with that these days at all.

Thanks for your response.

Den

 

[FKS]

Used to participate back in the salad days of DPR. Best I did was a 7th. Too many better photographers out there.

--
https://www.instagram.com/ottosphotos/
http://ottos-photos.blogspot.com/
http://www.ottosphotos.com/Gallery3/index.php

 

[MacroDonata]

As mentioned, there is likely sandbagging in the current voting process.

IMO, such issues could be resolved by giving each member ONE and only one vote in each competition.

While that doesn't eliminate the possiblity of desperate miscreants creating multiple accounts in search of validation, it should generally improve the quality of the outcome.

 

[dacrema]

I have enough trouble staying up with this forum. I occasionally view the photos (and really enjoy them) but don’t really want to post there. I am actually a little intimidated by the skill level in this form let alone that one. I’m really happy if I get a few likes when I post a photo here. But mostly it is because I just hang out here.

 

[TheSoaringSprite]

I think in the challenge i did i finished mid pack out of 40 some entries. That was probably as good as i'll ever get and i was pretty thrilled.

I do very much enjoy the weekly photo sharing threads in the equipment forums. Those are fantastic for inspiration, feeding GAS and the general fun of viewing nice photographs.

I like looking at the entries and learning from them, and I do share occasionally in the monthly picture-sharing threads. I agree, those can be inspiring.

 

[TheSoaringSprite]

I appreciate your response and understand your points of view. I'm a competitive type person so enjoy the competitive nature of the challenges, but learning from what I view of the top photos of most of the challenges has, I think, helped my photography improve.

What any of us like is, of course, quite subjective, but I do think that often any or all of us are somewhat bias toward what we produce in any endeavor, so I find having others judge our "art" is a worthwhile endeavor. Just my view, of course.

Best,

Den

Maybe participating does have some educational value, at least trying to find a pattern of what's liked, or valued, and what is just average. I do look at the submitted images once in a while and appreciate the skill that goes into them. It can produce new, helpful ideas.

 

[Nebido]

I've participated a good dozen times now and can't complain; after all, I've achieved 1st place in the "Rainbow" category, 2nd in "Colorful Landscape in Portrait Mode," and 3rd place in "Panorama," plus several other top-ten placements.

However, I agree with the criticism of the voting system expressed here. It's one of the reasons why I've only been sparsely and sporadically active there so far and why I myself never vote there.

 

[travelfoodphoto]

Congrats on your successes in the challenges. How do you think the voting could be improved? While I believe, as some others have mentioned, that there could be some lowball voting, but unless a group banded together to do that, I really don't think (and i did the math on the affect) that would affect the results overall very much.

Best,

Den

 

[Nebido]

Thank you very much, although I don't want to overstate it.

The picture that won me first place in the “Rainbow” category also appeared in the “Clouds” category, where it came in at number 35.

The topic was appropriate in both cases, although certainly more appropriate. impactful in the case of rainbows, but that shows how different perceptions can be.

I would agree that the images at the top of the list mostly deserve to be there, with few exceptions, even if you might see a different order yourself.

I think you could limit it to a top 3 vote, so you only choose the three pictures you think are the best: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, gold, silver, bronze.

That would also make the voting process shorter and therefore more attractive.

In order to do justice to all the pictures, you basically have to rate them all, which is tedious and confusing given the large number of pictures.

It would just make it more difficult to differentiate between the lower rankings, because in a top 3 vote, several of the pictures will have the same number of points.