Common Merganser

Thanks for your time. Comments are welcomed.

Good composition and colors. It is almost like a painting.

 

Good shot

Thanks for looking. Thanks for commenting even more.

 

I have been trying to get some decent photos of the Common Merganser for a long time. I have yet to get anything I am really happy with.

 

I didn't have the best light the day I took this and the birds really don't show up well. No amount of processing is really going to change that. So I decided not to worry about it decided to go for a more abstract look with very dominant background color. If you want to know the truth it was a late night experiment where I was just fooling around. When I got finished I thought what the hell, let me throw this up on photo.net and see how badly it gets hammered.

Actually I did consider cropping it. To really show off the birds I would have to. I have another shot of these guys that I took immediately after this one that might be better suited for that. I never have gotten around to processing it yet though. Nothing new about that. The number of photos I haven't gotten around to yet just keeps growing.

Can't argue with that. I think it was Robert Capa that once said something to the effect "if your photographs aren't good enough, you aren't close enough."

 

But I was as close as it was physically possible to get when I took these. Tween me and the ducks was a fence, a very deep ditch full of water, a lot of thick brush, and a good quantity of pond. Its situations like that make me lust after the EF 500mm f4L.

Nice colors, textures. Careful with that lusting stuff! :)

 

db

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Thank you sir. I had fun playing with this. I love tweeking things in unconventional ways that are not approved.

 

Lusting is sinful but alas and alack, I can't help it. I have always been a bad boy anyway. :)

Larry! And to think I've had this upstanding image of you all along! Come to think of it, if lenses are what you're lusting after, age must be sneaking up on you....ah well. As far as this photo goes, The water is my favorite part of it; it's so pretty with all those colors that it doesn't even need the ducks, though I like them.

Thank you Kim. Age isn't creeping up on me any more. Its abandoned a stealthy approach. It's out in the open and charging full steam ahead. :)

Am I going to have to keep you two separated? :)

 

Here's to things disapproved [little gets me riled as much as quoting text books in regards to design]!

 

db

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GOOD-GOOD.

Valkim Rosk

 

I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but this is quite a change. Based on past history you are not my biggest fan. When you give one of my photos a 5/5 rating and say that its good I can't help but wonder when the other shoe is going to drop. I would like to think you genuinely mean it. If so I will say thank you. To be honest it will take a while for me to accept that you do. Time will tell.

 

By the way I have been convinced since day one that you are actually Stefan Strandberg. I may be wrong but thats what I believe.

Oooh, now we have a mystery going too...:)

Kim

 

Alfred Hitchcock wouldn't buy the script. :)

 

Because of the way I always rated photos, when Photo.net changed the system a couple months ago my name showed up next to the ratings I had given. Mr. Strandberg took serious offense at four ratings I had given his work. You can guess what happened. He showed up and promptly rated a lot of my photos around the 2/2 range. Photo.net deleted all of those ratings.

 

Shortly thereafter Valkim Rosk started to pay me periodic visits. He got carried away and rated about a dozen of my photos in the 2/2 range in a 36 hour period. Photo.net then deleted all of those ratings. Since that time Valkim has periodically given me the benefit of his opinion every week to 10 days by judging one of my images. Yesterday he gave me a 5/5 on one picture and 5/4 on another. That is a big shift. Like I said time will tell.

 

You know the funny thing is, I have become convinced that the rating system is so dysfunctional that I really don't care much anymore. No matter how good a photo is, there are a certain number of people that are simply not going to like it. And the reverse is also true. I have seen a lot of really bad photos get high praise on photo.net.

 

I don't mean to sound cocky but I have faith in my own photographic ability. I know I am not the greatest photographer in the world, but I am also not the worst. I trust my eye for composition and aesthetics more than I do some anonymous stranger on the internet. (Most especially since I have seen this strangers work) A bad rating or even a series of bad ratings is not going to shatter my world. And thats never more true than when I know that the rating is not a genuine critque of the image itself, but is simply an attempt to cause me emotional distress.

 

Anyway thats the story in a nutshell. I am sure a lot of Photo.net patrons have had similar experiences.

I've finally gotten to where I rarely even bother to look at my ratings, and I'm having a much better time here. I think the rating thing is a joke because the low raters never say why they rated low, so their ratings are worthless...and the originality ratings don't usually make sense, they just go along with the aesthetics rating. I think there are just mean people out there who get their kicks by making people feel bad. If they had any integrity, they'd give helpful advice or explanations.

Larry, Valkim is definitely a fake identity.

Thanks Christopher. Have you perchance been blessed with his attentions too?

 

I am certain that Valkim Rosk and Stephan Strandberg are one and the same. I also suspect Marina Brohlin may possibly be another identity this person uses. I haven't gotten a huge number of ratings from her but the ones I did get made me look at her home page. Three photos of a similar quality to what Rosks page has. She is also from Sweden, which is a common thread. It doesn't take a rocket scientist in other words. Can't prove anything but I am convinced of they are all the same person.

I am also convinced this individual uses the rate recent queue to low ball my postings. I may not be Albert Einstein but I do pay attention. Not every low rating I get is from this same person. But I have noted certain patterns that lead me to that conclusion.

 

I could be completely wrong and it may not be Strandberg/Rosk/Brohlin. But whoever it is, I definately have one specific admirer out there that follows my work closely and regularly low rates it. From what I read in the feedback forum a lot of other people have the same problem.

Yes, I just received some unwanted, direct-rate attention. I haven't been out cutting up his/her/its images, so don't think I did anything in particular to draw the attention directly, but I have been visiting mate-raing circles lately with some frank (but honest) opinions that offset the "popular" vote.

 

I really could give a damn about the numbers, and shake my head at the deplorable behavior. I think some people are just too insecure and threatened by anthing but praise, and you know what? Reality is harsh. I know I sleep better than they do - because honesty is what I'm looking for.

 

Followed the suspicious trail to your photo here, I figure either it's a huge coincidence that we're both drastically paranoid....or we're dead right.

That brings to mind the old saying that just because you are paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't trying to kill you. I wish to hell Photo.net would clean up its act and restrict the ability to rate to paying members. That would eliminate the vast majority of abuse. I have seen the admin folks acknowledge that in the feedback forum. But for whatever reasons they won't do it. Sometimes I think photo.net is almost more trouble than its worth.

Thats the theory anyway. It may even be correct for all I know. Bitching about the rating system is an exercise in futility however. It won't accomplish a thing so I guess I'll stop.