OcUK Photo Comp - Season Six : Round Two - "Still Life" RESULTS
- Thread starter xolotl
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growse said:
Sounds fine to me, I think the theme should be the driving force in these.
Hmm,
I think Growse's idea has merit, but in my eyes its not so much a question of weighting the criteria as it is of maybe examining the way the marks are awarded.
Yak scored 18 for theme this round (which is above average), whilst in all honestly I think it should have been much lower. Obviously interpretation of a theme is subjective, but I do feel that the theme score for that particular photo should have been close to zero!
If the marking for each of the 3 areas fully utilises the range of scores available then I dont really see the need for weighting.
- And yak, please don't take that comment personally, its just my opinion on the judging method, I loved your shot, but felt it didn;t really address the theme at all.
I think Growse's idea has merit, but in my eyes its not so much a question of weighting the criteria as it is of maybe examining the way the marks are awarded.
Yak scored 18 for theme this round (which is above average), whilst in all honestly I think it should have been much lower. Obviously interpretation of a theme is subjective, but I do feel that the theme score for that particular photo should have been close to zero!
If the marking for each of the 3 areas fully utilises the range of scores available then I dont really see the need for weighting.
- And yak, please don't take that comment personally, its just my opinion on the judging method, I loved your shot, but felt it didn;t really address the theme at all.
That's an interesting idea. Perhaps marking theme far more stringently would create the desired effect.
An idea I suggest to Scuzi on MSN was this
"At the moment each judge has the possibility of awarding a maximum of ten points in each category. This means that, when added together the maximum score is 90. Perhaps allow theme to be marked out of 20 but keep tech and impact to 10. This would increase the maximum available score to 120 and mean that theme was more crucial to victory."
I'm not a fan of Growse's idea. The interpretation of the theme does not relate to technically how good the photo is. Thus, the theme score should not effect the tech score. However, theme is important when deciding which photo should win. Its for this reason I favour either a bias towards theme (eg. more marks available) or more stringent marking of the theme category (eg. if the photo has no relevance give out 0 marks)
If anyone has any other ideas feel free to mention them.
I'd go as far as to say that theme is either a 10 or a zero. If it's a zero then no marks should be awarded for tech or impact.xolotl said:
I know there are going to be arguments about things being subjective but if the relevance to the theme needs to be explained it's a bit tenuous. In the even of a split decision in the judging room the majority wins.
Had a quick (5 min) play with excell and came up with:
if all scores (Theme / Impact and tech) were based on 100% - ie if you are near perfect on the theme you would get 90%ish an way off would be 10-20%.
a little play with excell gave me:
=SUM((Impact + Tech)*Theme)/200
so if you got 100 for each catagory you're overall score would be 100, if you only got 50 on the theme it has a large impact on the overall score.
obviously the weighting could be adjusted with a slightly different formula and i have just done it on last years results and it throws up some interesting results!
if all scores (Theme / Impact and tech) were based on 100% - ie if you are near perfect on the theme you would get 90%ish an way off would be 10-20%.
a little play with excell gave me:
=SUM((Impact + Tech)*Theme)/200
so if you got 100 for each catagory you're overall score would be 100, if you only got 50 on the theme it has a large impact on the overall score.
obviously the weighting could be adjusted with a slightly different formula and i have just done it on last years results and it throws up some interesting results!
I think Growse's idea is a very interesting one. Although the previous rounds scores haven't come under as much question before the point has been raised a few times that you can have an excellent picture totally off topic and still win a round.
Whilst I'm here, thanks to Xol, Morgan & Matt for your time and grats to Yak for the winning shot
Whilst I'm here, thanks to Xol, Morgan & Matt for your time and grats to Yak for the winning shot
dod said:
Interesting idea - basically disqualifying any images deemed not to match the theme. It might get a little messy though... after all you do need to leave room for originality and innovation within a theme.
In honesty, I think that the problem isn't with the scoring criteria though, its with the way the judges have applied them (sorry guys
). I think that perhaps the 3 judges should take some time together to discuss more precisely how they are going to interpret the scoring system, and then let us know.Wow, some real feeling stirred up here.
I do tend to agree that something's gone a bit wonky with regards to the theme marks this round. There are a few good examples of where a classic still life has been marked way below where it should have been and something else that isn't a still life marked much higher (in Theme). I don't want to name entries as I don't feel it's appropriate (after all theme to a certain extent is subjective) but have a look and make your own minds up
I do tend to agree that something's gone a bit wonky with regards to the theme marks this round. There are a few good examples of where a classic still life has been marked way below where it should have been and something else that isn't a still life marked much higher (in Theme). I don't want to name entries as I don't feel it's appropriate (after all theme to a certain extent is subjective) but have a look and make your own minds up
dod said:
Actually dod the more I think about this the more I like it.
What would people's opinions be on basically disqualifying images that didn't address the theme?
Allow people to submit a short paragraph with their entries to describe what they were trying to achieve with thier shot (ie show how it addresses the theme), in order to allow for different interpretations of the theme.
And then replace the Theme score with a score for imagination/originality/innovation?
Morgan and Matt I've emailed you with a suggestion. Could you please have a read and let me know about my suggestion asap.
Also, look at this screenshot of me trying to save mks2005's image. For some reason it comes up as a bmp. Any ideas why this is happening.
Also, look at this screenshot of me trying to save mks2005's image. For some reason it comes up as a bmp. Any ideas why this is happening.
cmt said:
thinking about this and taking dod's comments into the equation, if all three are marked out of 10 and replace the formula above with
Score=((Impact + Tech)*Theme)/2
a lot simpler to understand and implement and the theme has a big impact on the overall score.
The trouble with that is that some entries might get disqualified because the photographer has interpreted the theme differently from the judges. This would be especially evident in specific themes where there is no set definition as such. Still life is fairly straightforward as it is defined but the current theme for example is open to interpretation. Someone may interpret it as meaning the season of spring, others might interpret it as a metal spring. Who's to say who is right or wrong with such broad themes?King4aDay said:
I can see that method causing a lot of problems.
I think the suggestion made by xolotol is the best overall solution.
Good pointdod said:Both of which would be valid. However if someone put in an image of a building which happened to be taken in spring it wouldn't.
I know the suggestion was a bit extreme
I agree that your idea is probably the best but I can see it causing problems. However, I wonder if the judges would be happy to trial the idea for a round or two? If it didn't cause any problems then we could implement it permanently as it's technically the fairest way to judge the competition.
xolotl said:
I prefer the idea of more marks available but either way of marking theme, it is always open to the judge's interpretation. People take slants on theme's to help them stand out from the crowd but if a theme has a 'wooly' feel to it (which to my mind still life always had (despite it's dictionary definition)) then scores will vary wildly depending on the judge's own view on the image. As the judges don't give out individual scores it would be interesting to know if 1 judge gave 9 for yak's image and the others 4 & 5 respectively or they all averaged 6.
Scuzi said:
Hence having the opportunity to introduce your choice of shot when you submit it.
And the current theme is 'Spring Time', which I don't think can really be misinterpreted, unless someone did a 'pun' photo of a broken watch with a spring sticking out or something, which again they could point out and shouldn't face disqualification. Where as, for example, a photo of a postbox would be disqualified without a decent explanation.
Secondly, xolotl's current suggesiton may actually make the problem worse rather than fix it, because at the moment much of the 'wonkiness' in the theme results seems to be judges not marking things properly - ie yaks photo getting an above average score when it arguably should score very low. Doubling the points available to the Theme criteria would only make this worse.
EDIT: the same argument applies to growse's idea and the formula that cmt has come with.
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