Way in the Rain

After posting this photo two weeks ago, I received quite a few

positive feedback, as well as a suggestion to improve its sharpness

by several viewers. Followed this suggestion, I really saw an

improvement in the photo quality and decided to re-post it. Thank you

for the old and new input!

the tracks create gorgeous composition. impressive.

I loved the old version and this one is even better! Is there more detail now in the shadows? It certainly is sharper. Did you scan it differently or just rework it in photoshop? I'd love to know...

 

Frank

I love the composition and find this image incredibly interesting...

Nice work Julia.The tracks reminds of the rudiments of composition.The lines are leading the viewers eyes to the centre of the picture.

Excellent composition with appealing textures, good timing to capture the figure which adds dramas and stories to this wonderful and meaningful picture.

Julia,

 

I'm glad to see you back. I checked for you yesterday, but you had vanished from the top list, because you had only 2 pictures left in your portfolio. Now you re-uploaded this one and its rating success in just a little more than 1 day proves you did the right thing.

 

I think you are also the first one to get an average of >16 in your ratings, I think this marvelous. Given all this it really doesn't matter that there is nothing to learn from all the cheering comments that you get [including this post]. I think there is nothing much you have to learn photography-wise anyway, the ratings and comments prove that you are one of the masters on this site.

 

I also think that the ratings system is really on the right track here. I used to believe that the elves should do something about the abuse of the ratings system, but now I realize how wrong I was. We should not ask what photo.net can do for us but what we can do for photo.net. I'm glad that a couple of courageous guys took action to bring the rating system to a much higher level than it ever was.

 

In the end it will benefit us all, because as perfect 10s we will all be equal again! That's what the time calls for:

 

United we Stand, Together we Rate.

 

Thanks to all of you out there who helped to make this happen.

Bernhard,

The trigger that lead me to remove my photos was Tonys (original) long comment on me and my photos of last week, which idealized me too much and was hardly acceptable for me (now he has changed his text after receiving my protest letter). Actually, I almost wanted to stand back from this forum by deleting all my photos when I saw my name had suddenly appeared under "top 10", due to the shortcomings of the rating system (e.g. no weighting of the total number of photos rated).

I have admired the wonderful works of the leading photographers in this site since I got to know it four months ago. I clearly know I definitely dont belong to the "top 10" with regard to photographic skills and experience. Finally, I dont have a large collection of first class photos like other top-photographers. My style of photography, which comes from my painter training in childhood and my experience of life, has never been very popular. So, Im very happy to see such enormous resonance towards my photos in this forum, since, despite increasing assaults on me these days, I still believe the majority of the viewers are honest and in earnest about their ratings and comments.

Lovely composition.

beautiful. reminds me of well done cinematography

My original comment was ironical. If your ego hadn't got in the way you would have seen that clearly. The comment was intended to embarass you into deleting your photographs. So I deleted the comment after (as I thought) it had done its job. I obviously misjudged your determination to succeed (and your capacity for embarassment). You're back. Mea culpa.

 

Your name has been associated with, shall we say, "curious" low ratings patterns in the past (July 2001) and now your own quite ordinary quality photographs are averaging the highest ever score in the history of the site. Coincidence? Perhaps.

 

You are correct when you say, "I clearly know I definitely dont belong to the top 10 with regard to photographic skills and experience. Finally, I dont have a large collection of first class photos like other top-photographers."

 

Couldn't have put it better myself. These four quite ordinary photographs deserve, perhaps No. 200 or 300 rating, but not the highest rating of all time on photo.net.

 

There is some REAL talent, dedication and skill on photo.net, much of it unrecognised and languishing in lowly placed ratings positions. These people hike through snow and mud just to get to their photographic destinations. Then they camp out, waiting for the right light, or on the off-chance that a special bird or animal or even an insect in its uncorrupted environment will wander in front of their camera. They walk the streets of cities hunting for that special situation that can be recorded in a frozen moment and make us all better people for seeing it as they saw it. They record great news events, sometimes only made great by their skills as photographers. They learn about film and technique and the craft of photography before they even open the shutter. They experiment, they explore and they think hard and long about what they do: be it capturing a human moment, a grand scenic landscape or even just a refreshing and quirky macro view of a mundane object. They have a life view of their art. That they often rate in low positions is usually because these people do not have a rent-a-crowd who will come to their aid with instant 10/10 assessments and fatuous "bandwagon" critiques. Also because they bite the bullet and offer a substantial body of work for review that cannot possibly have universal appeal. They are victims of their own integrity and dedication to what they do best. And there are hundreds of them.

 

Sadly, integrity, dedication - and critical skills - have been in short supply of late around here. It's too easy to hijack the Top Rated position with three or four photographs and a handy fan club who will escalate you to dizzying heights in 24 hours, seemingly on demand. Contributors who do this fool no-one but themselves.

 

Julia, if you DO have more work to show (as you say you do) then upload it. Please don't worry about "disappointing" us, your colleagues, who are eager, even intrigued, to see what you will come up with up next.

 

 

Thank you for your trouble and revealing your deck at last.

This is a very interesting discussion. When I joined this site I was happy to find a serious place to exchange pictures, ideas, styles, etc. After some time I find that some users are very serious about the "ratings" and "comments" they receive.

 

The ratings competition is very interesting. I have received a couple of disgusting comments from someone (not you) because I rated some of his work lower than his expectations. I believe the idea of many people rating a picture is to give a wide assessment from many points of view. If somebody wants to have only professional ratings the best place is to submit to a contest.

 

Like most of the people on this site, I am not, and do not intent to be, a professional photographer, not a professional judge or anything similar. If I like a picture I try to rate it as best as I can, and I use my judgment, not any guidelines.

 

If somebody posts a picture here for the enjoyment of the community, and to learn something from others opinions, should accept any criticism, no matter what ratings, top lists, etc.

 

Julia, I saw your other pictures, and I rated some of them. I am thankful for seeing your work and I expect to see more of that. Dont delete your pictures, please

 

When my ratings start to drop (which I expect they will) will you rate me "1/1" under your own name Julia (like last time?) or will the assassin be someone else? Another tiresome hotmail alias, perhaps? I've noticed a few of the mid-year blitzers are already climbing high up the list again (same photos as before, it's just their ratings that have rocketed). One or two of them have even duped "fans" into defending them by name, in public posts. Of course the elves deleted the original July "perfect 10" ratings the scammers gave themselves, and that seemed like a good idea at the time. But now of course there's no proof of what they were up to (except private archives, lovingly preserved from that glorious 24 hours when the real truth was on public display). I can smell another photo.net melt-down, coming soon.

That red is unbelievable!

How many time is this picture going to appear, I liked it before but come on let some other folks have a look in.

Ian, Vul, Bernhard, Tony,

I have neither interest nor time to joint your drama which is changing to a scandal. Instead of attacking me constantly just because of my current "unfair" place in the top list, I suggest you to do something constructive/productive.

The following is a more advanced and reasonable rating system of another site I post to. The clue of this system is, the number of ratings for each photo and the number of the photos rated are taken in consideration for the final rating (the so-called Integral Rating). I already pointed such a system out to the admin of this site long ago, but got no response. So, please use your time to persuade the admin to adopt a better rating system according to the principle of the following system. When this happens, I'll drop in the top list deeper than Tony suggested, so that you will become (hopefully) more satisfied with your place and can leave me alone

.

 

*************************************************************

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp How the Integral Rating is calculated

The Integral Rating calculates marks and quantity of marks.

Formula:

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Rating=(average_mark+(average_mark-median)*ln(count_of_marks))*1000

where

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp Rating - value of rating

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp average_mark - average value of all photo's marks, graded by registered members

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp count_of_marks - quantity of all photo's marks, graded by registered members

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp median - mid-value, in case of 10 points value system (1, 2, ... 10) can be set to 5.5

&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp ln - hyperbolic logarithm

 

Thus the maximum value of rating approximates to infinity but is unlikely to exceed 15000, and minimum value may be negative but is unlikely to be less than zero.

Someone told me once: "Your picture did not manage to turn my head".

 

Frankly, I could not care less about ratings. Though it's good to know what other people think of your work (via comment or rating), I think that the best way to know if your picture is successfull or not is through the times it has been seen. How many times did that little thumbnail picture got people curious? To be interested in the whole picture? To take a good look at it?

 

Of course, being in the top rated members here means you get much more exposure, thus chances to make your work known. That goes against my philosophy and so whatever I say here is pretty much pointless. But to me the real success story of a picture comes from how many people got curious about it enought to look at it, even better if it's was for more than 10 seconds.

 

I don't think there is any real way to judge pictures in a fair way, at least not on a web site with over 600k monthly users. You need a showing room with no names under the pictures and a simple ballot system that ask you which pictures impressed you the most.

 

I believe the rating system here is more of a tool to help the photographer understand what other people think about their pictures. All the comments I received in the past helped me become a better photographer. I'm always happy to hear comments from other photographers who give me their insights on what I do. I beleive that's the whole point of Photo.net after all.

 

Tony, your right when you say that you are only fooling yourself when you toy with your own ratings. Note that I'm quoting your comment, I have no idea why this whole rating exploit story came up and who is to blame for it.

 

Julia, your right about the system not being fair, but not for the same reasons as mine. I think that "Originality" and "Asthetics" could be interpreted in many different ways and that should be taken care of.

 

What we need is a system to make people understand what they think about your picture, not make them better than the others. I wonder how different things would be if there where no top rated pictures or top rated photographers... But that's a bit too utopic I believe.

Thank you for your long comment, Patrick! Talking about comments, I have just pointed out in another thread that the mean ratio of comments/ratings is extremely low in this site, and the mean ratio of comments/views is even lower. At the beginning, I was told this is the largest community of photographers online. Now, I can say yes, but not the best one with regard to design, transparency, atmosphere and overviews, apart from the very primitive rating system which causes conflicts from time to time. I guess you may like the policy of another site I also post to: One cannot post a new photo before having commented at least two photos of others, and one is allow to post maximally three photos in the last seven days.

 

Regarding number of views, this picture must the worst in the whole site, since it has only been viewed 7 time according to the above counter.:)

 

See you!

To all the assholes that try and intimidate people when they get high ratings for photos that they don't think deserve it keep these thoughts in mind. The photographer generally doesn't have control over who rates their photos or how. With over 60 ratings on a photo it's hard to argue that the photographer set this up.

 

Also a lot of the things people argued for and got is causing the higher than normal ratings that are occuring. So for all you people that wanted non-anonymous ratings the result is fewer low ratings because people just skip over photos that they don't rate. And higher ratings in general.

 

What's also interesting is watching the same people that try and manipulate the ratings system attack others when their photos seem to get rated highly on their own merits.

 

I have to say it's very nice to see new people on the top of the list.

First, I think this is a wonderful picture, quite above the pedestrian photograph some make it out to be. I've been shooting about three years, and I'd be thrilled to turn out something this expressive.

 

Concerning ratings: I know nothing of grade-inflating groups, but I suspected they could exist (though not in Julia's case; today is the first day I've looked at here stuff and have formed no opinion about how the rating came to be). But I am convinced there is some rampant grade inflation going on by most of the casual visitors here, and some of the veterans. When I look at most photographs and thier ratings it seems to me there is about a four point disparity, based on this website's rating standards (at http://www.photo.net/gallery/photocritique/standards). When I first started rating photographs I read this carefully, and applied it as conscientiously as I could. I found that my ratings were consistantly below the average when I rated all photographs in the photocritique system (now I only rate photos where I make comments, hoping to contribute more than a number as feedback to the photographer). I felt the effects of grade inflation most accutely when I was harassed by email for giving a rating below average for what looked to me like a snapshot and blew the photographer's chance at a top 10 spot (he later reposted the shot hoping to get a higher average without my participation).

 

I gave this shot an 8/8, because I think it is very, very good. That's an 8/8 using the Standards, not the norm. By the norm this would be a 12/12 or so. I like it because of what the light is doing with the ground. I've seen nothing like it in the past, and it's a very appealing effect. I also think the B&W appearance of the ground is nicely offset by the red behind it. This shot would have gotten a 9/8 or a 9/9 had I felt there was a little more compositional balance between those two elements, but the ground is a bit too dominant and the red building is too near the edge of the frame to compliment the moody feeling of the shot.

 

Just so you know, I'm saving my 10/10 for a picture of God. Let me know if anyone gets it.

Bruce, you've got it spot on for the 10/10 rating. Thanks for pointing at the rating standards as well.

 

I heard about "rating wars" but I never though it was that bad. I guess as long as you have ratings, you'r going to see these kinds of fights and arguments. People are trying to much to be in the top spot when photography, at least to me, is not about that...

 

Maybe we SHOULD have to comment on the photos that we rate. At least that will give an insight as to why we rate things the way we do. I for one will start doing it. That might be the best ratings change we could ask for as it would not screw up all the past ratings.

 

I'll be a happy photo.net user as long as people tell me what I did wrong or what I could have done better with my pictures.

Julia, I've noticed your pictures posted before and admired your striking use of color. The red building in the background and the silvery wet road make this picture very poetic and wonderful!

just great!

You are an amazing person. I applaud you and I applaud your cause trying to maintain your high ratings. Way to stick with it girl, I mean YOU ARE LIKE A DOG WITH A BONE! Its definitely not about your photos any more, which are somewhat above average, but many photo.net users are drawn to your comments section, being intrigued by the childlike manner in which you carry on about your ratings, and they want to see if you will continue to rant and rave. I'm sure you will, until you get all the attention which you seek, and the ratings which you desperately crave. But the best one really was your comment that you believed there was a conspiracy against you. Yeah, you and Mrs. Clinton...

 

Interestingly, you seemed disappointed when your ratings fell after you had landed yourself at the top. This is what happens when one arrives at the top, whether they deserve to be there or not. This will happen, and IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT, GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN.

 

One more quote comes to mind while I am commenting here, that is: WHEN IN ROME DO AS THE ROMANS DO! (If you are a member of photo.net, learn to live with the rating system in place.) This is a very well put-together site, (not to mention it is free) and the rating system is the best one on the internet. You mentioned another system that you believe is better, from another site that you post to. Perhaps it would be wise to consider switching your membership to that site and leaving well enough alone here at photo.net. No, your photos don't do anything for me, but your commentary sure does. I will definitely be checking back often to continue to watch the unfolding of your charade.

 

That recent ridiculous photo of the statue you have posted in your portfolio really takes the cake though, girl! I suggest instead of trying to make a mockery of this site, you may try doing something constructive, get out there and take more photos. This website is about photography; lets try not to make it a soapbox for one person's effort to change the world to be like she wants it.