 How Do You Rate Travel Pictures? |
How Do You Rate Travel Pictures?Topic Type: Other | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A Discussion that will hopefully shed light on how other travelbloggers rate photos! What deserves a 5/5 for you? What deserves a 1/1? Should photos be rated according to how well they illustrate a country or should it simply be a matter of aesthetics? | 41 Replies: « back 1 2 3 next » |  NNowack Nathan Nowack Post Count: 20 Msg: #21 314 days ago, December 6th 2007 | Why is there a rating system at all? Is it actually there for people to go check out the highest rated photos and then go read the blog? Just because the photos are good, doesn't mean the blog is going to be interesting or informative. I definitely think to make a good blog it's a nice balance between good photos, good writing, accurate information, and some links. But I have found it fun to just browse the Top Rated photos every once in a while. I definitely like the idea, and was very happy when my Fraser Island Australia photos made it to the Top Rated photos. But I agree with most of you, this is my rating technique too. | Rate it a 5 if you say WOW, looks like a photo in a magazine. Rate it a 4 if you say, Nice Photo, I wish I took that. Rate it a 3 if you say, that's pretty cool. And I agree, 2-1's I don't really rate, probably cause they serve another purpose other then a "nice" photo. Now if you're going with quality. Not everyone has a nice camera. So the quality is going to be subject to other factors. However even with a little digital or disposable camera, good photos can still have nice composition, lighting, colors, focus, detail, contrast, etc... It's a travelblog site, not Flickr. So I a definitely go easy when it comes to rating. I guess I should also read more blogs though, as lately I feel I only have time to write them. To finish, maybe Travelblog should put a book together. Lonely Planet does this with a lot of submitted photos. We should pool all our photos together and make a book so people can purchase them and see all the photos from around the world that are funny, interesting, cute, amazing, beautiful, inspiring, and all the other reasons we travel for. Just a thought.  Mell Mel Fla Post Count: 4155 Msg: #22 314 days ago, December 6th 2007 | I rate pictures highly if they capture the mood. | Mell  Crazy Canucks Matt & Isabel Post Count: 8 Msg: #23 314 days ago, December 7th 2007 | Travelblogs are certaintly individual and done for a variety of reasons. However, what drew me to Travelblog over any other travelblog site was the fact that the pictures seemed to dominate the blogs rather than some boring recap of someone handwashing their clothes. Personally I only rate photos that capture the culture of the country, the faces of the people,and surrounding landscapes etc.. | To sum it all up, there is a reason why I'm drawn to Cumberland Sausage, TeamTurner and a select others. They are truly sharing their travels through the lens. All deserve the title of "Best Not to be Employed by National Geographic". NNowack Nathan Nowack Post Count: 20 Msg: #24 314 days ago, December 7th 2007 | Well then you should add yourself to that list, you also have some amazing photos! | Cheers!  Vinovat Sudarynya Jonathan Campion Post Count: 125 Msg: #25 313 days ago, December 7th 2007 | I agree that a "5" should be a photo that you would frame and out on your wall at home. Or a picture which is inspiring, either because the place captivates you, or the photography itself. I often think that the composition of a photo is what turns "4"s into "5"s - Cumberand Sausage and Mingalaba are superb in that respect. | Pictures of people are taken out of context when they are just in a slideshow to be rated, because there are no stories wrapped around them to explain what was going on. Perhaps with TravelBlog evolving so fast bloggers could nominate their own pictures which they would like to be rated, each creating an album or 'portfolio'? This may be an un-subtle hint to rate mine, I'm in a country that I suppose people don't think of reading about too often and feeling a bit underappreciated! J  Susin Susin Thoroughgood Post Count: 36 Msg: #26 312 days ago, December 8th 2007 | For me it's roughly like this: | 1. blurry photo, why is it there? 2. people pics with no countryside or anything to suggest where they are (agreed, it may be a great photo but how does that signify the country? I add those kinds of photos myself but I don't expect them to be rated highly, those pics are for my mum!). 3. Nice scenery or landmark shot (with or without people), but not overly exciting 4. I love the photo, the colours, the image, everything - but for some unknown reason it's just not a five. 5. Makes me go wow and I know instantly it's a five! I would buy it as a postcard if I were in a giftshop - although, I don't always give the really beautiful photos five if I feel they've been overworked digitally. I prefer the rawness of an untouched photo. Like capsfan2000 I love going back over long forgotten photos at the very last page of the unrated pile. Having been away from home for so long, it's one of my links back to Australia. And a big thank you to Ali for updating the rating system, it's so much faster now!!  le_flow Bobbie Nystrom Post Count: 10 Msg: #27 312 days ago, December 8th 2007 | I would like to be able to down-rate some of my own photos. Some of my mediocre shots have been rated as 5's which "pushes" some of the better photos I've taken out of the "Highly rated photos" section. Since there's a limit of 50 photos to the section, a photo that's been rated 5 by one person will have a higher status than a photo that's been rated by 16 different people with a rate of 4,9. | It would thus be nice if one could have a bit more control of ones own highly rated photos. I also think a really great caption can boast a good "4" into a "5".  Jabe John McCabe Post Count: 68 Msg: #28 311 days ago, December 9th 2007 | I agree with Ginger nuts' comment - it undermines the system if people are rating pictures via unrelated criteria such as how other people have rated it. Unfortunately, with so few pictures getting more than a handful of ratings, those strategies are going to have far more of an impact than if there was a statistically significant number of ratings for each picture. | Is there any difference from a site point of view between a photo rated 4 or 5, i.e. are there pages where a photo rated a 4 would not show but one rated a 5 would (other than the blogger's Highly Rated photos page)? Also, would it be possible to introduce a policy so that anyone writing a blog from the salt flats in Bolivia would have to go through a mandatory process of viewing all previous perspective photos from that location so that poses are not repeated?  Stephen Paul o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o Post Count: 67 Msg: #29 311 days ago, December 9th 2007 | "Also, would it be possible to introduce a policy so that anyone writing a blog from the salt flats in Bolivia would have to go through a mandatory process of viewing all previous perspective photos from that location so that poses are not repeated?" | That is hilarious Jabe!! [Edited: 18:06 - Stephen Paul ]  capsfan2002 capsfan Post Count: 64 Msg: #30 311 days ago, December 9th 2007 | To Vinovaut: I know how you feel...my state of North Dakota in the United States doesn't get much attention either but that happens to areas that aren't well traveled. So...I just spent some time in the 850+ unrated photos for the Ukraine and did a little rating of my own. Rated those that caught my eye (3s to 5s). Not sure if any were yours because I wanted to be fair :) I have ancestors from the Ukraine and hope someday to travel there and see where they came from. Keep taking photos! |  Ginger nuts Andy & Josie Post Count: 10 Msg: #31 311 days ago, December 9th 2007 | Owww! - my comment backfired :) I now only see pictures which have more than one rating under "Top Photos" - so quite a few disappeared which were highly rated but only rated by one person. Buhuuuu :'( |  Beth and Craig Elizabeth Christie Post Count: 34 Msg: #32 309 days ago, December 11th 2007 | I almost think it should be a rating system which implies its subjectivity. 1-5 is so quantitative! I think Amazing/Publishable and then Worthy or Interesting perhaps. The rest could just get a rating of "For personal use". I put myself down as somebody who doesn't see the point in rating how bad photos are. as already mentionned, lots of people, including me, use this site as a means of communication with friends and family back home. So there will be a picture of me with reindeer antlers decorating my sad plastic Christmas Tree in my little Chinese Apartment on my next blog, and I don't expect anyone to give it high rating, and I don't need anyone to tell me its not worthy. I just think the purpose is to give our Kudos to that really sweet shot, and letting that blogger know you liked what they did - why do we need statistically significant ratings...is there some large monetary prize I don't know about? | Cheers everyone! Vinovat Sudarynya Jonathan Campion Post Count: 125 Msg: #33 285 days ago, January 4th 2008 | Best photo on TravelBlog? It wouldn't be fair to have a best photographer, because so many are just amazing and all in different ways, but nominating a few favourite pictures would allow anyone to be appreciated. Perhaps there could be a gallery (or galleries, by continent) for photos rated "5" at least 5 times? | J  Luca in Viaggio Luca Rossi Scotti Post Count: 5 Msg: #34 205 days ago, March 24th 2008 | My question is: how do you rate photos? I tried but I cannnot. | Thank you.  TeamTurner Michael & Kelley Turner Post Count: 125 Msg: #35 205 days ago, March 24th 2008 | Luca, Make sure you are logged into your TravelBlog account and remember that you cannot rate your own pictures. Otherwise, there should be a small set of stars to the right of pictures when you click on them. These stars allow you to rate the pictures giving a one through five star rating. | Luca in Viaggio Luca Rossi Scotti Post Count: 5 Msg: #36 202 days ago, March 27th 2008 | No, nothing happens (no stars from one to five) when I click on a photo. Why? |  AnnaAdventuring Anna Louise Post Count: 77 Msg: #37 201 days ago, March 28th 2008 | Don't you have to have something like 100 photos of your own added before you have the option to rate other people's??? It would explain why only the 'hardcore' travelbloggers rate photos - they are the only ones with enough pictures of their own on the site already. I currently can't rate photos either, so i am assuming it has something to do with the fact I have only added a few pictures so far. | AnnaAdventuring Anna Louise Post Count: 77 Msg: #38 190 days ago, April 8th 2008 | Hmmm, I can now rate photographs! A star rating comes up every time I click on a picture. No idea why I can do that now but couldn't before. Maybe it just takes a while after gaining 'blogger' status to get access to everything on the site? | TeamTurner Michael & Kelley Turner Post Count: 125 Msg: #39 190 days ago, April 8th 2008 | Actually Anna it is usually a PC problem. I've been blogging for over two years now and still run into the problem from time to time. I have two PC laptops and a Mac. On the PCs its hit or miss as to whether I can rate or not. On the Mac it always works. Go figure?!? | AnnaAdventuring | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
