Sorry mate, I wasn't being arsey...bad choice of words on my part I think.
It just sounded like the whole feel of this competition, was to just get shots that pleased the judges.
I understand the aim of a competition is to win, and to win, the judges need to like your images, but at what point does creativity become second place?
It was with you saying "I learnt not to be different". I can understand your point that being *too* different can be detrimental, espcially if it's being different for being different's sake.
But if you submit a shot that is totally different to what everyone else thinks of, then surely the judges should be mindful to think "Ooh now I like this take on the theme...I personally wouldn't agree with the relevance myself, but it's clever"
If you see what I mean.
Now I agree with the vague and abstract bit, I've been a member of places before where they ran competitions and the themes were getting more and more silly, ending up like "The struggle between post-modernist britain and the tory party in the 21st century", and what not.
It got to the point of pretentiousness where someone would say "I took this shot, as I feel that it represents the struggle between man, and mother nature, encompassed in a hard texture to represent the stony face of the barren planet".
To which I would simply reply
"Have a word, mate...It's a picture of a rock.
And a s**t one at that. Youre trying to talk a bad shot into a good one
"
hehe