'Gaming: The Addiction that Imperils Old and Young Alike' [With the 19,000th Portfolio...

If one is going to pay attention to ratings, then they all deserve consideration, including the anomalies, sometimes especially the anomalies. I have given ratings of 7 to photos that have received mostly 3s and 4s because I tend often to appreciate different things about photos than what passes mainstream muster. Likewise, I've given a 3 or 4 to a photo that's received mostly high ratings because often traditionally sharp, well lit, nicely-contrasted, so-called "pleasing" photos ring either cliché or hollow to me and I won't let the superficial prettiness or Ansel-Adams-ness of a photo prop up what may otherwise be an unexpressive or ham-fisted moment caught.

I agree with you that all ratings are valid (unless they've been produced by a bot or someone holding a grudge for personal reasons or someone retaliating for a low rating they've received themselves) but I often pay more attention to the anomalies, as I said. The same is true with critiques. When someone feels differently from the rest of the crowd, they are often the ones to pay attention to. Perhaps that's because I like people who either have a very different aesthetic or eye from mine or who simply want to approach something differently when everyone else is "getting onboard" so to speak. The anomalous critic is often the person who will get us to think outside the box as opposed to reinforcing the box everyone else accepts. Of course, on the other hand, the anomalous person could simply have terrible taste and a bad eye for photography!

Sometimes, I even play devil's advocate to a photo that I may like a lot but I feel is not getting honest critique but instead having a sort of praise pile-on. There is a very rare case when there's not room for improvement and sometimes my being the gadfly that simply refuses to heap on one more bit of praise but instead tries to force the photographer to go just a little deeper or reach a little higher by finding something to criticize or give a lower rating, more as a tool than a judgment, feels like the right approach.

There have been cases where I feel a photographer has very much failed, and the critiques and ratings reflect that. I may choose to give an unusually high rating in that case to give the photographer the sense that someone out there appreciates they've tried and put their work out to the public, to help alleviate what could otherwise be a very deflating experience. 

I just had an interesting experience on a photo of a photographer I follow regularly and who I think is very passionate, expressive, and an excellent photographer, consistently putting out work I appreciate. Most people commenting had praise. I raised a technical issue that I thought was a bit problematic even though I thought the content and expressive side of the photo was up to his usual work. After me, an anonymous critic wrote that he disagreed with all the praise. I applauded this critic for disagreeing and asked if he could say more on why he didn't like it to give his comments a bit more meaning. He posted a very traditional, very technically proficient photo of a cat. Passionless, not exciting, but a "beautiful looking" photo, followed by a graphic of the zone system. The photographer being critiqued does not generally work within an Ansel-Adams-style aesthetic. 

The moral of the story to me was not that the anonymous critic was wrong and everyone else was right or vice versa. He was judging by certain standards and, by those standards, a 3 seemed perfectly in line. Others were simply not judging by that same standard. 

A rating of all 5s and 6s may be higher than a rating that includes a 3 but if one can learn something from a rating of 3, then it's worth more than all the 6s in the world.

Reasons someone may have given this photo a 3 (not MY reasons, but perfectly "valid" reasons given the many aesthetics that could be at play for different people).

1) There's a lot of noise (which doesn't bother me and is caused by shooting indoors but which might really turn someone off).

2) The subject is not looking at us (which doesn't bother me but some people like to be engaged with the main subject and get lost without that kind of connection).

3) The McDonald's stuff on the table (which to me helps convey the story and gives a kind of textural orchestration to the photo could be seen by someone else as merely distracting from the main subject, as not very nice to look at, and as something that takes up too much of the frame).

4) Street shots of people looking at devices have become very, very prevalent. This, as a potential criticism, I might have some affinity with. While I think this photo tells a nice story and because this captures so much character of the kid and the situation, I don't mind the person-looking-at-phone-in-public meme as much as I do in many other contemporary street photos. Cell phones were interesting for a couple of years at the beginning. They're less and less interesting as worthy of photographers' focus of attention. They are, however, a part of life and will and should continue to be part of the vernacular of street photography, but that doesn't mean street photographers will get much more mileage out of highlighting the act as opposed to using cell phones as parts of more compelling stories or simply considering them another piece of furniture.

5) I've been told by several people that have looked at my work, even fellow photographers, they simply don't like portraits. There are lots of people who simply don't like street photography. I'm able to put my genre preferences aside and look at most genres of photography with a somewhat discerning eye, but we all have our biases and are influenced by taste. I'd choose not to rate if it were merely the genre I didn't like, but others might want to make that statement for whatever reason.

6) A 3 could be based on hating companies like McDonald's (which has little to do with the quality of the photo but for some people the content is all that matters or all they can see). I like to think I could rise above my political associations with various elements of a photo like yours, but if you presented me with a great street shot of Donald Trump at this moment, I might well give it a 3 out of my own sheer disgust at the man. Sometimes reason gets overridden by emotion!

I wanted to add:

7) You, yourself, said it nicely. "I like to draw my photography very much from my view of 'ordinary life' capturing what others often glimpse at, but never really 'see' or realize the importance of." Others are looking for what they see as more iconic or deeply significant moments and would simply continue to see this as something only worthy of a glimpse and ask why in the world anyone would bother to take a picture of it. I couldn't disagree with that more and instead feel as you do, that one of photography's strong suits is helping us to see ordinary things in extraordinary ways, especially when they're stilled and framed by a lens. But some people gravitate toward photos of majestic sunsets, mythological-like mountain-tops, beautiful natural wild rivers, street photography that deals with more traditional social subject matter such as homelessness, poverty, prostitution, drug addiction, etc. and will see this simply as a trivial, non-important photo. I think they'd be missing something but I also think it's very understandable.

After reading and replying almost always in the now 19,000 comments, your honor (and honorific) of writing me such engaging and compelling thoughts on my remarks next above touch me deeply and flatter me more than I think I deserve.

I have tried to photograph those 'mythological mountain tops', but find they exist almost always in Photoshop or other image-editing' and in the photographer-artist's eye rather than on film or sensor.  

After taking a landscape course on Lynda.com where the able instructor with great credentials told how he 'saw' various scenes, then transformed them into wonderful photos through image-editing, it only re-inforced my view that so many of those 'beautiful' photos now are so often are image-edited and done so heavily. they almost are not 'real' in any sense that existed before the advent of digital image-editing.

Incidentally, Ansel Adams through his use of dodging and burning his giant negatives (as told by his assistant), had his own methods of 'image editing' which were the secret to processing each image exactly as the first successful manipulated ones, and in that regard, he was a very successful image-editor, and almost certainly I believe would have been a heavy digital image-editor if he began photography at a much later age.

I view image-editing, as an adjunct to convey the reality of my capture and to 'save' and make view worthy those with some impediments to clarity.  However, good focus and great clarity are not always the be-all and the end-all of good to great photography either,

Witness the great results obtained by our now absent but great Photo.net member Gordon Bowbrick, whose images literally screamed 'tension' despite never being exactly in focus and being shot in his own personal style which allowed for indistinct (or multiple) lines of his subjects.  

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

I have long admired your portrait photography, as I once time wrote you on a superb image of yours involving mirroring that belonged in a gallery and/or museum of highest caliber, and your other work is stunning.

I have tried to take photos in other genres than street/documentary and in fact do take a certain number of 'fine art' photos which have never been shown, and a certain number of those also are shown here labeled 'street' and never realized by most members to be 'fine art'.

I was told by a reviewer at Lensculture.com (where I did not win a prize) my work was 'fabulous' and he/she anonymously wrote he that he/she refused even to consider reviewing it because that person also recognized I knew it was 'fabulous, so the next step was to get mywork into museums and galleries of world caliber.

(Such flattery -- never expected, anonymous and private, but from a curator or other industry pro, written as part of a contest entry).

I had been told the same thing before by a Lucie Award winner so it was not a one-off conclusion.

I take photos with my brain which works constantly, even when I think it's nearly asleep (and sometimes in my dreams even).

But after a brief stint on Viewbug, which offers valuable prizes, and after excelling there with beaucoup 'views' 'friends', followers, and other accomplishments, I found that because they offered prizes, the 'mythological mountaintop Photoshoppers' stepped in at the last minute in their numerous 'contests' and scooped up the top prizes.  

It was basically just a business -- pay to play.  

They knew their audience.

It was not my photography, and I am not going to change or try.

I wanted more than that.

My photos were appreciated, but NO one gave me even a modicum of a critique such as I get routinely on Photo.net, which is why I stay.

To get a critique like yours (several great ones just on this photo, including your last two) is an accomplishment that stuns me beyond words.

It literally floors me, as you are both perspicacious and eloquent.

I wish I could take a photo of my being floored by what I read of your above, satisfaction on my face.

If ever there is a Crosley memorial . . . . . .  

(I discourage such things, but if someone dares to defy me)

 . . . . .I would like what you have just written to be read as defining my photographic work.

However far in the distant future.

With greatest thanks.

john

John (Crosley)