New photo.net user

Well, not really. I have been following the site for several years.

In fact I bought my first serious equipment based on reviews from

this site. I have posted my first humble offerings to the site and

now my question is how do I get them looked at or get feedback?

There are so many great images being uploaded every minute, how can

mine hope to be seen? Am I doing something wrong? Thanks for your

help.

Go into your workspace, click on "Request a critique of one of your photos", and pick your best photo. It will show up in the critique forum. You still will be in with tons of others, but there's not really any way to avoid that. _Everyone_ who is looking for a critique wants theirs seen, so it's difficult to get noticed. Just keep working at it and participate in the site. By critiquing photos yourself, you improve the odds that someone will notice your portfolio.

Bill, it takes some work but your work will get noticed. What you can't do is just post your photos and hope that people will notice them and start rating them in droves. However, if you rate, and especially, comment others photos, they tend to reciprocate.

 

There are two approaches to this reciprocation process.

 

You can cruise through folders and give 10/10 ratings and highly complimentary "best photo on photo.net" comments all over the place. If your photos are at all reasonable, you will get the same kind of thing in return, with a mix of low ratings from vigilantes who notice this kind of behaviour and take it upon themselves to punish it. The problem with this approach is that it isn't very honest, and the comments and ratings that you get won't be very helpful to you in developing your photography skills (although it easier to deceive yourself that you don't need to improve.)

 

Or, you can give sincere comments with a mix of praise and constructive criticism along with a judicious range of ratings. You will probably get back some of the same, along with a few retaliatory low ratings and some complaining emails from people who didn't really want honest criticism. However, the value as a learning tool of what you get back will probably be greater than the first approach. Plus the second approach has the advantage of being honest.

 

Like in most other things in life, you get back what you put in.