I can't see anything 'wrong' with the photo and 5.44 does seem a little low. 74% of your votes were either 5 or 6 which indicates that most people think it was just an average photo, and 53% thinking it was below average overall.
The scores for 69th and 71st are more spread out than yours and seem to have divided opinion more.
jerowe I gave your photo a 7.....my only nitpick was their faces seemed a bit too bright.
Judi I gave yours an 8. Great technicals, I wasn't fond of the tilt (I rarely like tilted images).
HawkeyeLonewolf I hate to pick on you but by reading your comments on a few of the photos in that challenge, you said "one of the best -6"......if the photo was one of the best, why only give it a 6??????? Shouldn't it get an 8, 9 or 10 if it's among the best? I don't understand your reasoning.
The thing that I notice the most is that the focal point seems to bounce around. I think the colors are sharp crisp and well balanced, but where the eye is suppose to focus is unknown. The lines seem to lead you around amd around the photo but bever really giving it a truely composed photo where the lines help the eye to focus in to its central position which should be the faces. Here they seem to do the opposite and pull the eye away from the facial expressions. I keep having to force my eyes back to see the main subjuct which is their goofy expressions. I think it is a great photo, but I can see why people couldn't decide if it was six worthy. Don't be too discouraged though, the voting has decreased significantly in recent challenges.
FYI- I didn't vote in this challenge, I'm just giving you my honest harsh opinion since you asked.
I have added a comment to the picture, giving my view as to why it may not have scored as well as you might have thought. Hope it doesn't sound too harsh, but I did concentrate on the negatives as you were asking for the reasons it did not score as well as you thought it could.
I gave the OP a seven as I saw lots of personality. Technically a bit overexposed now that you mention it, but that didn't scream "problem" to me on my first (and only) pass. If anything, I thought the fact that it had two people went against the challenge description a bit.
Of course, I'm not the one you want to ask. I thought half the shots missed the mark, including some high scorers. Babies, people on the job, pregnant women, kids with blank expressions, etc. weren't about personality to me. Lots of babies. How does a baby have a personality? They can't even talk! They do have feelings: happy, sad, content, irritated. This is nature; personality is more about nurture. Kids, on the other hand, have tons of personality -- and no inhibitions about expressing it. I thought kids were great for this challenge. So I was looking for something that not only showed me a person, but went further and told me something about them personally.
Technically it has some flaws, but I thought it was one of the most personality revealing shots in the challenge -- probably because it looks candid. 4.9733. Bottom 20. Really?
I gave it a 5. It was decent enough, and would be a great family shot to hang on the wall, but it just didn't grab me a lot. Perhaps the skin tones were a little to high key for me. I don't consider a 5.4 to be a lousy score at all, it's just not the killer "wow" shot either.
HawkeyeLonewolf I hate to pick on you but by reading your comments on a few of the photos in that challenge, you said "one of the best -6"......if the photo was one of the best, why only give it a 6??????? Shouldn't it get an 8, 9 or 10 if it's among the best? I don't understand your reasoning.
Scores of 8-10 are rare from me.
I believe a 6 I rank as "one of the better" and 7 as "one of the best" -- I put those comments on to pass on the score. Typically I add comments about the photo itself, but in the personality challenge, I was racing against rollover I believe, so I was just able to get the 6s and up commented.
I don't believe that the best photo in the challenge deserves a 10 (unless it's a 10 of a photo).
If the best photo (to me) in the challenge is a 4 or a 5 or a 6, then so be it. It's still earned the higher score I gave.
First off, I'm not whining. I'm by no means questioning if this should be a sub 5.5 image, i'm curious to know why it IS a sub 5.5 image.
I have learned so much, so I'm just looking for some critiques from the group I guess :)
thanks!
Picture's fine from a technical standpoint. The composition is fine, too. The trouble IMO is the subject. You have an affinity for the subject. So it feels warm and personal to you. It carries an emotional payload for you. But for me, it's just a couple of anonomous kids. I look at it and think ... "Nice snap." And it is, but the subject must resonate more broadly for a higher scoring photo. Don't mean to disrespect you, the photo, or the kids. It's just how I see it and think about it.
First off, I'm not whining. I'm by no means questioning if this should be a sub 5.5 image, i'm curious to know why it IS a sub 5.5 image.
I have learned so much, so I'm just looking for some critiques from the group I guess :)
thanks!
Picture's fine from a technical standpoint. The composition is fine, too. The trouble IMO is the subject. You have an affinity for the subject. So it feels warm and personal to you. It carries an emotional payload for you. But for me, it's just a couple of anonomous kids. I look at it and think ... "Nice snap." And it is, but the subject must resonate more broadly for a higher scoring photo. Don't mean to disrespect you, the photo, or the kids. It's just how I see it and think about it.
I gave the OP a seven as I saw lots of personality. Technically a bit overexposed now that you mention it, but that didn't scream "problem" to me on my first (and only) pass. If anything, I thought the fact that it had two people went against the challenge description a bit.
Of course, I'm not the one you want to ask. I thought half the shots missed the mark, including some high scorers. Babies, people on the job, pregnant women, kids with blank expressions, etc. weren't about personality to me. Lots of babies. How does a baby have a personality? They can't even talk! They do have feelings: happy, sad, content, irritated. This is nature; personality is more about nurture. Kids, on the other hand, have tons of personality -- and no inhibitions about expressing it. I thought kids were great for this challenge. So I was looking for something that not only showed me a person, but went further and told me something about them personally.
Technically it has some flaws, but I thought it was one of the most personality revealing shots in the challenge -- probably because it looks candid. 4.9733. Bottom 20. Really?
You could apply the same arguement to this photo that you applied to baby pictures. It's a generic and cliche teenager. Cliche doens't usually fly around here. No offense to the photographer, just didn't speak to me.
HawkeyeLonewolf I hate to pick on you but by reading your comments on a few of the photos in that challenge, you said "one of the best -6"......if the photo was one of the best, why only give it a 6??????? Shouldn't it get an 8, 9 or 10 if it's among the best? I don't understand your reasoning.
Scores of 8-10 are rare from me.
I believe a 6 I rank as "one of the better" and 7 as "one of the best" -- I put those comments on to pass on the score. Typically I add comments about the photo itself, but in the personality challenge, I was racing against rollover I believe, so I was just able to get the 6s and up commented.
I don't believe that the best photo in the challenge deserves a 10 (unless it's a 10 of a photo).
If the best photo (to me) in the challenge is a 4 or a 5 or a 6, then so be it. It's still earned the higher score I gave.
It seemed to me you called about 50% of the pics "one of the best in this round" :-P
It's a staged shot. I was hoping to see genuine emotion or personality from the entries. Also, an image of two kids goofing around or making funny faces didn't strike me as anything terribly deep or as something I haven't seen many times before. In fact, there are 5 similar set-ups in the Top 30.
Technically, artistically or creatively the image didn't rock me in any direction, either.
Hope that helps.
FWIW, in the Top 10, this was the only one that I felt had something special coming through. It's simple but it seems very honest.
HawkeyeLonewolf I hate to pick on you but by reading your comments on a few of the photos in that challenge, you said "one of the best -6"......if the photo was one of the best, why only give it a 6??????? Shouldn't it get an 8, 9 or 10 if it's among the best? I don't understand your reasoning.
Scores of 8-10 are rare from me.
I believe a 6 I rank as "one of the better" and 7 as "one of the best" -- I put those comments on to pass on the score. Typically I add comments about the photo itself, but in the personality challenge, I was racing against rollover I believe, so I was just able to get the 6s and up commented.
I don't believe that the best photo in the challenge deserves a 10 (unless it's a 10 of a photo).
If the best photo (to me) in the challenge is a 4 or a 5 or a 6, then so be it. It's still earned the higher score I gave.
It seemed to me you called about 50% of the pics "one of the best in this round" :-P
I had one 9 (> 1%) score that I labelled the top shot of the round.
I had 19 7s and 8s (17%) that I labelled "one of the best" (a couple said "better" because I upped the score on a second pass and like I said was racing the clock)
I had 32 6s (29%) that I labelled "one of the better" (a couple still said "best" because I again lowered the score on the second pass)
52 out of 111 (47%) therefore were 6 and higher for me. Less than 1/2, albeit close. That is unusual because rarely to that many of the shots warrant a 6 or higher.
But of course all the photos rated the same would be "one of the better/best" because I considered them all equal. So all the 6s would be "better" because they all were on par with one another.
I echo several sentiments here: In looking at the shot, the energy isn't "real" and so, doesn't pop. Just as a litmus test, I compared it to the first place shot, which just bursts with real energy. Also, the shot looks "cluttered" to me - too many things to look at (textures, shapes, etc.), and the most important areas (the faces) are overexposed with a loss of detail, especially when compared to the highly detailed and rich colors of the sweaters. You also have to remember that although it may be a good shot on its own, it is being viewed in the context of other pictures, many of which are far better.
I don't know how other people do their voting, but I try to go through all the shots, and vote on those that compel me to do so. I then review my votes at the end and compare my scores, adjusting them as I compare my selections to each other. (Yes, I know. I have way too much time on my hands...) So although I may have scored a 6 on one, after reviewing and comparing it to other "6" shots, I may either bump it up or down.
However, I don't understand the scoring here either. My submission for glasses has the lowest scores I have ever received (4.7703 at the moment), and yet is the only shot anyone has ever favorited. Go figure.
