Haley b&w

Dear Michael,

Everything about this portrait is interesting....every single thing. Great!

Tim

Thank you Tim.

I want to add and say something about the behavior of Photo.net users who rate photo's adversely. I was surprised and thrilled that after 8 ratings, I had a near upper 5+ rating and the next person came along and must have given it a such low rating because the rating dropped substantially. My gripe is Photo.net is allowing anyone to rate anonymously. One will do this to bump one down the chart for his or her own gain of one of their own and one will work with others to do the same thing for their own gain. The higher the person can get on the front pages, the more ratings they'll get. This is one big reason I no longer pay as a member. I also noticed that those with most comments appear to be peers of others and this group of others all comment on each others. It's Flickr style. So this comment game is part of a popularity game and not genuine. If you observe, you will find that it's the same people with in the same group back and forth and back and forth. There are some genuine members out there and I really do appreciate them There are members that critique and they do not show their own work which really irks me. I just recently decided to post again after a couple years to test the tenure of the true integrity, and since I have not commented on anyone, I therefore have not received any comments but one. I'm not expecting comments or the best of ratings and I am not sore because I'm not getting many comments. That is not my point. It's the method being used in Photo.net's policy. It just doesn't make sense. One other thing that Photo.net users are able to do is turn off their cookies, go into private mode and re-click their own photo's over and over to build up the number of views. Androids can also be used to view the same photo over and over to increase the number of the views. Even when you backward back to a photo, it adds up the views. The advantage of this is this moves the photo's up front or the browser page which helps more views from the public and eventually mushrooms. I have notified the Support group of this problem two years ago and nothing seems to have been done. Until some of these policy's are redefined, I'll remain as a non-paying member. Sorry, just saying...

Dear Michael,

I can sense your deep frustration with PN. I wish I had some helpful thoughts to offer. I am really oblivious to the issues you bring up as I am quite new to PN and don't really invest much in the ratings game.

You are a fine photographer, and I am sure I am not alone in that assessment. I hope you can find a way to ignore the other "noise" surrounding this social network so that we can continue to enjoy your contributions.

All the best to you,

Tim

For give me. I kinda made a typo. I meant the methods being used are to increase the number of views, not ratings. It's the number of views that actually reflect the true interest of viewers. But the ratings at the beginning boost the initial flow that gets the views going.

Thank you Tim for your expression :)

High-key, yet sufficient contrast at strategic places, frontal view with the eyes askew make for a masterful piece of art (not to minimize the beautiful model).  Brilliant work, Michael