Since this has happened to me and I have noticed several people confused!!
if you rate too many photos/images and blogs in a given day (24-hour period, I think, not midnight to midnight), you will be told you've reached your photo rating limit for your level.
This does not mean that you can't rate more photos (or blogs) until you level up, though that will increase your daily limit. It means that you've reached your limit for the day/24-hour period, and until some point in the day when CT decides you can rate again, you're not doing any rating. (It's happened to me twice now, in fact... it took about 12 hours the first time for me to be able to rate again which makes sense. Could still comment.)