OcUK Photo Comp - Season Six : Round Two - "Still Life" RESULTS

Fstop11 said:
Yak you just reminded me what I wanted to ask you.
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Yes in hindsight I know it was an odd idea, I just read the feature and felt like playing with the new (to me) idea/setup. Then I wanted to practice the processing technique so I spent some time working on the picture. I've tried photographing fire directly before but its never come out quite right, and I really liked the effect I was able to get using the ink/water technique.

I had been planning to do a classical still life picture, but due to lack of time available (and having trouble coming up with an original idea) I wasn't sure if I'd have time to make one. But since I'd just made up the fire like one from an article about still life photography and I felt that it fitted into the theme that I would just enter that one instead and see what happened.
 
but would we really be better off with a system that allowed everyone to vote for images,
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Certainly not. There is another UK technology forum that the word filter doesnt allow that also runs a photo comp. What happens with voting is that only the top images get any votes at all. All the other photos hardly get any votes at all. This, to me is not a particularly friendly system and it discourages people from entering. With the judging system at least everyone gets a score.
 
xolotl said:
Certainly not. There is another UK technology forum that the word filter doesnt allow that also runs a photo comp. What happens with voting is that only the top images get any votes at all. All the other photos hardly get any votes at all. This, to me is not a particularly friendly system and it discourages people from entering. With the judging system at least everyone gets a score.
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Agreed, I would be on 0 with everybody voting :p
 
Fstop11 said:
Cool thanks. Just wondered why you decided to go that way.

Inverting smoke also gives a fire like appearance with can with some editing produce more satisfying results than actually photographing fire.
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:) Smoke is on my list of things to play with!

I feel bad that the photo wasn't specifically taking for the competition, and that many people think it shouldn't have won (well at least they say its due to their interpretation of the theme and not that its a rubbish photo!!!). But I am very happy that all the work I put into creating the picture and processing it was recognized by a lot of people and especially the judges.
 
Controversy is always fun isn't it ;)

Anyway, here's a quick thought from me as a judge. Please bare in mind that i don't look at any of the entries until i judge them...

What i have found with the current way in which the comp is judged, is that it's too easy to take a really good shot that's nothing to do with the actual theme, and do well. This clearly needs addressing. I have mentioned before about weighting the theme marks as i personally think that this is the main area that you as a participant should be aiming towards.

I also feel that sometimes the full range from 0-10 isn't utilised, and it's often more like 5-10, which is a waste of time as we might as well score with 0-5...

Here's my idea of a solution (taking from what's been discussed):
- Apply a 2x weighting to the theme mark. It's a bit pointless saying 0-20 for theme, as it then becomes much harder to apply a score... Doubling it makes more sense
- Keep the others the same
- If the image is blatantly nothing to do with the theme, it will be removed

The whole judging process needs to be simple, and so i'd rather not change anything in a major way. It's easier to then judge, and far simpler for people to understand what's going on :)
 
That's quite a good idea Matt. Just to elaborate on that:

Judges should utilise the whole range from 0-10. At the moment 4-8 are by far the most common scores.

If any judge scores the image 0 on theme it will be removed from the competition.

I think that's a perfectly acceptable solution.
 
Colin_da_Killer said:
I'm pretty disspointed by my marks tbh.. :(
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And your's was a 'classic' stilllife tbh ! It's a nice shot and I believe poorly scored. There are a lot of images in the comp that I would have scored higher. Nolimit's was a really nice shot too and it scored pretty poorly. I'm still very surprised at that one !
 
xolotl said:
Snip.

If any judge scores the image 0 on theme it will be removed from the competition.

Snip.
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I would like to see that ^ idea changed slightly to say "if any judge scores the image a 0 on theme it will then go to a discussion between judges to the shots validity as part of the theme"

just my 2 pence, everybody else was have a say so i didn't want to feel left out :rolleyes:
 
Hang on, for a well-defined theme such as still life, I should be able to take a very boring, bland picture of an apple on a table and score highly for theme. It wouldn't score well on impact or technical, but being a classical 'still life' picture, I would be expecting top marks on theme for such a picture.

Do others agree?
 
growse said:
Hang on, for a well-defined theme such as still life, I should be able to take a very boring, bland picture of an apple on a table and score highly for theme. It wouldn't score well on impact or technical, but being a classical 'still life' picture, I would be expecting top marks on theme for such a picture.

Do others agree?
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I do.
Another suggestion would be to broaden the 'theme' category to include creativeness, uniqueness and originality etc...
 
growse said:
Hang on, for a well-defined theme such as still life, I should be able to take a very boring, bland picture of an apple on a table and score highly for theme. It wouldn't score well on impact or technical, but being a classical 'still life' picture, I would be expecting top marks on theme for such a picture.

Do others agree?
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Yes, to a large extent at least. This is something that I've been thinking about for quite a while myself, actually.
 
Firstly great to see people showing some interest and getting passionate about the comp, its running and how its marked etc.

Think its clear that the system needs looking at. Sure its been going for 6 seasons, but I'm sure people have complained about the rules, marking scheme before (including myself!).

Right first of all I'm going to speak out about my marking of the winning shot. Hopefully this may open up discussion, but also show how subjective the marking process is.

I marked yak.h'cir's shot 8-5-7 (tech-theme-impact). I could be asked to mark the shot over and over again and still mark it the same. I'm not going to give a critique here as it isnt the place, but for theme this is how I look at and interpretted the shot with theme as the criteria.
I'm thinking what the photographer may have intended and how I look at the image.
For this image I was thinking a concept split in two parts 'still' and 'life' I see a lively dramatic scene has been frozen in time. Motion that is paused. Its got a soul and theres drama and life there but its been suspended. Its not classic still life, you have to get your head round it a little, but its a clever notion. I scored it 5/10.

You could ask everyone in the forum to score that image and I gaurentee everyone will interpret the image in a slightly different way. Now ask everyone to score the shot out of 10 and I bet the spread will be 0 - probably 9.

There are 3 judges. All independant, of different skills, backgrounds, tastes and experiance. You see the problem. Its all down to how 3 people see the images. It will always be subjective. We are human!

Overall if its theme that is causing the controversy then maybe that should be weighted or its that criteria that caps the marking for tech and impact, but next month there may be a debate over tech or impact.

Of my total scores this month I have 36/62 entrants with total scores of between 15-20 out of 30.

Of those 36 entrants I have tech scores of 4-8, theme scores of 3-7 and impact scores of 4-8.
My overall range of tech was 1-8, theme was 2-7, and 2-8. Overall scores ranged from 5-20 with 4 people getting 20.

Why didnt I score anyone more than a 7 for theme?...because I didnt look at any of the shots and feel that anyone really captured how I personally interpretted the theme enough to warrant a 8-10 score.

If you had asked me a few months ago how I think the judging should be done I would have said a public vote where everyone has a say and plays judge. But after thinking about it and I'm with xolotl, many people would get 0. Thats no good for anyone. People just wouldnt bother.

I'd maybe like to see a couple more judges to try to even out the human factor of having differing opinions. Maybe each month the top and bottom contestant from the last round also plays judge for the next round (they can enter the just cant mark thier own work).

I think this discussion should continue, its airing peoples opinions which is a very positive thing.
 
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On a side note Matt!

Has alexisonfire and my shot for contrast been marked by you yet as we never received a score.

Many thanks! And i appreciate the time it takes to do this and i thank you!

Josh
 
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Morgan,

Read the flippin rules

* The Judges will not reveal individual scores, however some judges may provide a critique after the competition has ended.
 
xolotl said:
Morgan,

Read the flippin rules

* The Judges will not reveal individual scores, however some judges may provide a critique after the competition has ended.
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with all due respect i'll post whatever I feel is relevant to the discussion.
In this case I feel that providing my marking for the winning shot helps forum members to appreciate the pro's and con's of the current system.

As it seems that many forum users and competition entrants feel strongly about keeping the competition fair and healthy I think its wise to temporarily relax the school teacher attitude that seems to plague other parts of this forum.

What is the aim of a photography competition? To stimulate and inspire photography enthusiasts to improve creativity, technical ability and build talent. Posting work and positive discussion aids progression. Imo The rules and scoring methods must be in place to ensure that the aim of the competition is met and the competition is kept healthy and fair.
 
With all due respect Morgan, rules are in place for a reason, they are not there to be randomly broken just because you feel like it.

The rules on the photo comp have been relaxed quite a bit this season, and to be fair it's not going that badly is it? The only problem we have is with theme marks. This has always been a small issue, and has been raised many times before. This thread is full of suggestions for sorting this out, and we will implement something. But whatever we do will not be a huge change, as that really isn't needed. The comp has done very well so far over the years, and the way in which it is run hasn't changed a great deal over this time, as really there is no need.

I am interested in expanding the 'theme' marks to include, originality and creativeness though. This coupled with a weighting, and exclusion of unsuitable entries should solve our issues (these unsuitable entries would be marked, but removed from the results unless a general consensus is reached in which they should be reinstated).


[edit] Some quick ideas on theme weightings

- Leave as is with no weighting, but write into the rules that theme includes originality and creativeness
- Apply a specific weighting to theme mark (eg. 1.5x or 2x), though if you then produce a photo that's technically poor, and boring to look at, but meets the theme perfectly then you'll do much better than a technically good and high impact shot that's not so great on the theme
- Apply a weighting to the theme mark that's dependent on the technical/impact score. eg. Theme x ((Technical + Impact)/10). This would mean that if your shot was technically good, and high impact, your theme mark weighting would go up. But if the shot was technically poor and low impact, then it would go down. Which should encourage you to aim for a more all round shot, rather than just something that fits the theme!
 
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