I was really surprised that my favorite pictures did not come in higher or closer to first place.. and then I was really surprised that others came in way higher when I just didn't see what it should have been... I guess I haven't grasped the idea of what to look for or what is expected of photographs and I have much to learn yet! I have also to learn what makes a photograph so will keep on trucking and trying and improving!
I was really surprised that my favorite pictures did not come in higher or closer to first place.. and then I was really surprised that others came in way higher when I just didn't see what it should have been... I guess I haven't grasped the idea of what to look for or what is expected of photographs and I have much to learn yet! I have also to learn what makes a photograph so will keep on trucking and trying and improving!
Well, regardless, you should find what YOU like best when voting, and reward those images with your best scores. It would be sort of pointless if you decided to educate yourself as to what's "best" by assuming the ribbon-winners represent that. Here's the thing of it: the way to win a ribbon in DPC is to NOT displease anybody, basically. You don't win by getting more high scores as much as you do by NOT getting low scores. Many of the images I personally think are the very best entries in a given challenge show us a polarized score, with the lovers balanced out by the haters, if you get my drift?
Shoot and enter images YOU like. Score the images that affect you most strongly the highest. That's MY advice, for what it's worth.
I like your attitude! But even though you've received very sound advice from some very wise folks, there is also a lot of "learning to see" to be done. It is mostly, but certainly not exclusively, going to be with regard to non-mainstream style images; what we like to call the PH genre (after Posthumous, who is one of several champions of "otherness" on DPC). In general, the world at large tends to look down on blurry, grainy, abstract, or dark messes, and many of us have learned to appreciate them during our tenure here.
