Forest for the Trees

Enjoy, and thank you for your comments and suggestions!

why people (muzzy people of course) leave 3/3 ratings or even 4/4 rating without at the same time leaving a reason boggles my mind. However ... what can one do other than pray for their instant removal from our space and time (yikes!)

 

This is a wonderful photo - though I would like to see more of the left hand information and less of the out of focus right. If you could, I would reshoot it to try and capture a little more detail. But the overall colours and dof are great. Keep it up!

Excactly! That's what bothering a lot of people on photo.net, leave a comment when rating low, that shows respect to the photographer, i hope there will be more people on photo.net making this an issue, Arthur

Arthur - this is a copy of a recent forum post I wrote:

 

>>This is coming a little late in thread - however, I think what Nova has said is absolutely correct. I too have seen my rating go down the hole - 2's and 3's now, whereas 6 months ago I was getting 5's and 6's on pictures that are not even remotely as good as the stuff I'm shooting now. But hey, what can I do? Rating is entirely someone's opinion - though I do think that those who rate should be made to leave comments.

 

But that may in and of itself not be an answer at all. If I was some random muzzy person leaving low ratings because I was...well, muzzy, then I would simply copy and paste the same "I hate it" message after my rating. And guess what Nova, you and I still will never learn why they didn't like it. The world is like this - so we should just take solace in our own artwork and the few others (sometimes many others) that generate the same vision as our own.

 

I always rate fairly and offer comments to my ratings. If Nova posts crap, I'll let him know (this has yet to happen and only the coming apocylpse could signal such a thing). And people like Nova do the same for people like me. So I stay a part of this community becuase the photographers that are true to themselves and true to their art always make it worth it. I ignore those 2's and 3's from anonymous raters - but will pay attention if they come from a member that also leaves me their 2 cents.

Just curious Doug - but why the title "Forest for the Trees" on this particular photo? (g/f loves the photo too, but was wondering about the title)

Thanks for the comments Dave, I agree with your suggestions on composition - I actually cropped a little on the right because the element there was distracting -- but I couldn't really crop more without losing context, as I had nowhere to go on the left of the frame. If I had been watching that closer through the viewfinder, I could have recomposed and ended up with a better overall design.

 

As for the title - when I saw this image full size on my computer, the stamens of the flower gave me the impression of a grove of trees. The title popped into my head at that time, and the idea that a forest full of trees, with flowers on them, in turn having forests in each flower gave me little recursive chuckle, so I went with it.

 

PS - perusing your photos, I noticed you have shot with a Canon AE-1, that was also my camera before recently going digital, and I still have a great fondness for it.

ah yea, the AE-1 - my dad uses one too...actually, it was he who taught me how to first use an SLR, so when I had the opportunity to buy an AE-1, with 3-4 lens for about 200 bucks, well, I couldn't turn it down.

 

I'm saving up for a 20D at the moment - I guess you and I are very similar camera buffs. I don;t know if I'll ever get rid of the AE-1...it shoot s some great images. Cheers,

Dave L

Doug, Love it, especially the DOF. I'm only now learning what a bear getting appropriate DOF is since I got my 105mm macro. Super composition. Regards, Bernie