Lately my interest in DPC has been fading partly because it seems to now stand for Duplicate Photography Challenge. When I first came here I was wowed by the photographs. Like today a lot of it was stock-ish and based on prior shots but they were appealing in that the photographer's own the shot. They put their stamp on it. Today, creativity is all but dead and inspiration has been replaced with duplication. What's worse, people don't seem to know the difference or even care. It just seems like the bar has been dropped rather than raised and voters don't seem to mind.
Ok I'm done. My first rant! Maybe I just need to see some real good photographs again. Anybody have some?
... Today, creativity is all but dead and inspiration has been replaced with duplication. What's worse, people don't seem to know the difference or even care ...
i agree with you totally. as for good photographs try to find someones portfolio (here or anywhere else) which has a big diversity in photo subjects/themes/processing etc. ... it usually helps the down feeling :-)
i know i'm not helpful but at least it try ... the same goes for my photos too :-)
Its tough my inspiration waxes and wanes. I like to go to //www.onexposure.net/ for inspiration. It has a different format for photo sharing where each photo needs to be approved before it is displayed on the site, decided on by screener's and the members. Most of the photos up there are not there for spectacular technicals but artistic merit. I find it a great break from DPC.
Yanko,
The thing is, you have been here a long time and you will start to see a lot of similar stuff, but to the newcomer, they are probably blown away with some of the shots they are seeing.
Also, remember that people don't like to try anything too new or out of the box, as the majority of us are here to win ribbons. Out-of-the-box and Ribbons are not always the best of friends.
Maybe its time to take a few months out of DPC and try your hand at other disciplines & sites where experimentation will be accepted.
Not that I want you to go or anything you lovable old rouge.
Yeah.... I get a bit bored from time to time here, so I usually take a break for awhile, but the best way to get inspired again is to buy a new camera.....which I did today.
I hope they bring the DPL back again as that always sparks things up a bit!!
Not that it applies to you, Richard, but it seems to me that every time I get disgusted with the way things are going here, it's something I can fix with a project, or discipline, that puts me outside of my comfort zone, or for that matter, micro-attack something that is comfortable with trying to put a new twist on it.
That seems to change my perspective every time. I certainly haven't been around as long as you, but I can say that I know what you mean to a certain extent. I don't even hardly see auroras and flower bokehs unless there's some twist to them.
But like Mark says, when I first got here, those were awesome to have as a benchmark.
I was getting disgusted with myself not too terribly long ago, and not that I'm in your league or anything, but I have come long way since getting here, and the curve simply has to fall off as we get closer to our level of ability.
So the excitement has to come from what you're doing now instead of the outside stimuli so much.
It does sometimes seem that everything you can think of has already been done. I like to try to find a different view of something familiar. I was in downtown Fort Worth the other day, and I know everyone snaps the mural in sundance square of the cattle drive. (...and the Angel on Bass performace hall, and the courthouse from the south end of main street) I looked a little past it and got this one of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne keeping an eye over the city:
Of course, I'm probably not the first person to do that shot, either.
Well maybe instead of "themes" for challenges, there should be artistic styles (like Bokeh). Maybe DPC needs to encourage users to use photo techniques that are more "artistic," dare I say the word, and more innovative.
Well maybe instead of "themes" for challenges, there should be artistic styles (like Bokeh). Maybe DPC needs to encourage users to use photo techniques that are more "artistic," dare I say the word, and more innovative.
It just might spice things up around here.
I'd be interested. What would you put on the list?
Well maybe instead of "themes" for challenges, there should be artistic styles (like Bokeh). Maybe DPC needs to encourage users to use photo techniques that are more "artistic," dare I say the word, and more innovative.
It just might spice things up around here.
I'd be interested. What would you put on the list?
Oh geez, I'm not well versed enough in it, but stuff I see in magazines like "Black and White." The really... you know... artistic stuff...
Lately my interest in DPC has been fading partly because it seems to now stand for Duplicate Photography Challenge. When I first came here I was wowed by the photographs. Like today a lot of it was stock-ish and based on prior shots but they were appealing in that the photographer's own the shot. They put their stamp on it. Today, creativity is all but dead and inspiration has been replaced with duplication. What's worse, people don't seem to know the difference or even care. It just seems like the bar has been dropped rather than raised and voters don't seem to mind.
Ok I'm done. My first rant! Maybe I just need to see some real good photographs again. Anybody have some?
A lot of the stuff I used to think was original is just ripped off from somewhere else. There aren't a lot of new ideas around and those that are original, people don't like because they haven't seen them before.
Lately my interest in DPC has been fading partly because it seems to now stand for Duplicate Photography Challenge. When I first came here I was wowed by the photographs. Like today a lot of it was stock-ish and based on prior shots but they were appealing in that the photographer's own the shot. They put their stamp on it. Today, creativity is all but dead and inspiration has been replaced with duplication. What's worse, people don't seem to know the difference or even care. It just seems like the bar has been dropped rather than raised and voters don't seem to mind.
Ok I'm done. My first rant! Maybe I just need to see some real good photographs again. Anybody have some?
I'm answering without reading the rest of the thread, so maybe it's going to be a repeat. But .... I think you're wrong :) Creativity is not dead at DPC. There is a lot of duplication, and a lot of "mediocrity," but there's also a lot of creativity. As you spend more time here, you see the same things over and over, yes, but you also see new stuff, things that just blow you away, where you think, "Wow, that's beautiful! I got to try that!"
I think that the two key ingredients to avoid loosing interest at DPC are: (1) to get away from being so focused on the challenges, but to focus instead on what you want to do; challenges are short term, what you want to do is likely something worth exploring over the long term. (2) to not worry about trying to either "please the masses" or to do things according to the popular accepted perception of what's right or wrong in photography, but to pursue what you see in your mind's eyes, to put into pictures what you want to say with your images.
I think one thing that is both a strength and a drawback of DPChallenge is that it provides access and exposure to so many different people with such varied levels of proficiency. It makes for a wider range of pictures to look at. It also makes it look at times like the pictures here aren't "as good" as pictures at other sites, where you only get "the best" on the front page.
Oh well. These are the musings of someone who's thought very much along the same lines, yet keeps coming back here, because it IS an inspiring and encouraging place, more so than most on the net.
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Added: And then I read the rest of the thread, and think, hmmmm, why did you just write all that stuff? But, contrary to my natural inclination to delete it and replace with "n/m", I'm not going to, this time. :)
