alef said:
mhendo, think you were rather unlucky in December. Although snadge's photoshop work is impressive, I actually much prefered your snow covered car. There is quite a bit of randomness in how the votes fall.
Well, cheers, although i hope i didn't give the impression that i was sore about coming second. I was actually very happy about it. I just wanted to point out one of the possible ramificationms of the voting/non-voting choice. I certainly don't hold grudges against people who don't vote for me
; hell, i usually don't even remember who does or doesn't.
With aesthetic judgements like this, there is always, as you suggest, going to be an element of randomness or inconsistency. Not only that, but people seem to have different personal criteria about how they weight their votes. Some seem to pay more attention to how close the picture adheres to the theme, with less attention paid to qualities like composition or lighting. Others seem to focus on picture quality first, and theme-appropriateness second.
Personally, my method is to go through first and find all the pictures that i feel express the spirirt of the monthly theme. If a photo seems very off-topic or peripheral to the theme, i usually reject it even if the picture itself is very good. Then, of all the pictures that i feel express the theme well, i go through and pick the ones that are also, in my opinion, good quality pictures, pictures that i would classify as good no matter what the theme.
And, of course, there's always the fact that different people interpret the theme in different ways, and different people also have different ideas about what makes a good photo. There have been quite a number of occasions where, once the winner is announced, i've said to myself, "You've got to be kidding me. How the fuck do people vote for
that picture?" Of course, other people probably think the same thing about my votes.
I'm not sure how i feel about your point regarding not voting for the same people over and over. On the one hand, i like the idea that new people can get a chance at appearing on the leader board. On the other, i wonder whether this doesn't defeat the purpose of the exercise somewhat. After all, if you decide not to vote for a picture just because its owner has won before, doesn't that give other contestants an inaccurate idea of what you think is a good picture? Shouldn't we be voting for our favourite pictures, no matter who the author is, in order to reward a job well done and encourage people to improve?
Robster970 said:
I share it too. Although I've started doing the 6 weekly assigments on the other thread as they force you to generate more new material and think, mainly because it is a narrative. For me the two comps are a nice mix.
Yeah, i think i'm going to start entering the assignments. For me, one aim of entering competitions is to improve my photography, and that's not going to happen if i just submit pictures i took three years ago. I need to get out more and try to shoot for specific assignments.
On the other hand, the competition does sometimes give us an opportunity to show people good pictures from our past that we might not have shown otherwise.
I think the main thing, whatever you do, is to have fun and not take the whole thing too seriously or too personally. I've come second on one occasion, got a few votes on other occasions, and sometimes no-one votes for my pictures at all. And i don't care; i have just as much fun no matter what.