I find the voting on the waldo challenge is getting pretty ridiculous with people not being able to find waldo's, etc. I think it would have worked better if we could have submitted a line of text under our photo telling the person where waldo was or even better have it available as a link so that it wouldn't ruin the surprise at first. I'm sure its too late to change this, but its getting annoying writing individual notes back and forth to people voting on mine and other people's that i'm voting on. And we are the only ones who care to comment, the others just skim through and dont see a person and move on without even looking. Maybe the idea for this challenge was just a little too complicated. Can anything be done about this, either this time or in future similar challenges?
I vote that we just don't have a similar challenge ;P I didn't submit to this one because it was just too hard. I KNOW it's supposed to be a challenge, but the challenge should be in getting the shot instead of understanding the topic.
Whether or not I could find "the Waldo" didn't really affect my voting. I rather enjoyed the ones where it was difficult to find. I didn't consider having Waldo findable as part of how good the image was.
I didn't submit to this one because it was just too hard. I KNOW it's supposed to be a challenge, but the challenge should be in getting the shot instead of understanding the topic.
I should have done the same. We don´t have a Waldo in Sweden so I just tried to hide a person as much as I could. The photography aspect came second and that´s not the way to go. I didn´t get the meaning of this challenge at all. There are some really good shots in there BUT the person isn´t well hidden in those. Not the way I thought was the meaning. I think the Waldo-Challenge was too hard. You can see it in all those snap-shot-like hide-Waldo photos.
I DON'T REALY CARE ABOUT FINDING WALDO, i JUST LOOK AT THE QUALITY OF THE PICTURE!
Not finding Waldo as criteria for judging is unfair to those people who worked very hard to hide a person in their photo and meet the requirements of the challenge.
I DON'T REALY CARE ABOUT FINDING WALDO, i JUST LOOK AT THE QUALITY OF THE PICTURE!
Not finding Waldo as criteria for judging is unfair to those people who worked very hard to hide a person in their photo and meet the requirements of the challenge.
Waldo is typical American cultural game, and is unfair for people from other cultures anyway,but people did their best ,I guess..
The point was not to hide WALDO, but to hide a person in a otherwise person-less picture. The description was quite clear. You didn't really need to know who Waldo was....
i think it would be interesting to let people post a version of their waldo picture after the contest that shows the location of their "waldo." Maybe circle them in red or something. I for one would like to see where all the hidden one's were. Also, I think the challenge would have been less comfusing if "Waldo" had been left out of it all together and it was just called "hidden person," but that's just me.
O.K. I didn't submit a photo (duh), but I did score and comment all 121 photos. First, I gave a wide leeway for just about anything I could construe as "waldo", in some cases "waldos". In every case where I could not find the person, I left that in my comment and invited the photographer to PM me. I know this is a hassle, but to me, it was the only fair thing to do (I think I left 5 or maybe 6 of those invitaions). I don't mind getting PMs, though I would prefer they were written as politly as the comment I have left.
If ever I don't "get" your photo the way you, the photographer wants me to "get it", please PM me. I always sign, even though the site now provides that information. The reason I sign is to open the door to conversation, should the photographer want it.
Oh yeah, I agree that the point of the challenge was to photograph a scene with a person in it that was somehow hidden. Why have a challenge subject at all, if you aren't going to "play" along?
I did not understand why some pictures clearly did not try to hide a person at all! I agree A picture should not be judged only by the picture quality, some people miss the point!
Here's my thoughts on this... I gave the hightest points to nice looking pics with a well-hidden "waldo" and possibly a Title to the pic that gives a hint.
Below that, if "waldo" was too easy to find, they get a point or two knocked off the score.
Then, if I can't find the waldo, after looking at the pic for 20 to 30 seconds, I cut the score in HALF. My reasoning was, if "waldo" is too obscure, small, or otherwise indistingushable, it doesn't meet the challenge in my opinion, so I really hit hard on the points.
I didn't enter this one because I knew it would be difficult to create a good picture, although I've seen pretty creative stuff. The really hard part is making "waldo" well hidden but at the SAME TIME making him clearly visible (if that makes sense).
I did kind of the opposite of ChrisW123. I gave almost everyone the benefit of the doubt and assumed that there was a person somewhere in their picture. However, if they made asbolutely no attempt to hide the person or there were many people in the photo, I rated it way down. In addition to the actual photographic elements, of course.
Excuse me, but I have to disagree with most of the comments. Here in Brazil, nobody knows Waldo. In my country, the guy is known as Wally. A fast research in the Internet is enough to know of who he is and as the game works. I didn't like the theme of the challenge and I found much more difficult for who is not familiarized with Waldo. I think the photographic quality is very important but without a doubt the theme it is the main. I didn't like most of the pictures, including my own one and that is an obvious demonstration that the challenge didn't have good acceptance. Excuse me for my terrible English.
Desculpem-me, mas tenho que discordar com a maioria dos comentários. Aqui no Brazil, ninguém conhece Waldo. No meu país, o cara é conhecido como Wally . Uma rápida pesquisa na Internet é o bastante para se saber de quem ele é e como funciona a brincadeira. Não gostei do tema do desafio e achei muito mais difícil para quem não está familiarizado com Waldo. Acho que a qualidade fotográfica é muito importante mas sem dúvida o tema é o principal. Não gostei da maioria das fotos, incluindo a minha própria e isso é uma óbvia demonstração de que o desafio não teve boa aceitação. Desculpem-me pelo meu péssimo inglês.
I do not like the way the challenge is submit. it is only instructions and it kill originality. I had an idea with dolls, and i did not submit it because it was asked 'people' ....
It would be better to explain waldo is (for french like me) , and to say 'free interpretation of that'.
All challenges would be explicitely like that : a theme , not instructions.
Look, maybe a lot of people misunderstand things. Where's Waldo was just the name of the challenge. The whole idea was to hide somebody, a person, in your photo. Forget the name Waldo.. just think of the challenge as the "hidden person" challenge.
That was well said Annida, actually that is the way I always saw the challenge. I'd never even heard of Waldo in that way, I always sort it was some kind of travelling circus or something.
