National Library by Night

Richard, Pnina, Alex, Frank, Bob, Janik thanks for your comments. I was at the penthouse (POD) of the National Library this morning with PN member Gul Chotrani for the talk/photo presentation by National Geographic photographer Michael Yamashita on "Marco Polo and the Silk Route from Venice to the Far East". Very interesting insight into the ideas of a top lensman. Check out link:

http://www.dnmweb.com/hpnlb/nlb.htm

Great comp and incredible sharpness. Very good picture. Congrats!

Excellent,Alec!

Alex, you're getting skillful with your collaging images together in PS. Nicely done.

For a digital camera, nice nightime exposure quality. Overall composition of the image however, is not so very exciting, with numerous dark spots and nothing that is really attracting exciting or food for thought. Overall, there is TOO much in the image and something that could easily be done by anybody with some skill and a digital camera that's doing the actual exposure work. Alex has posted a large number of good to excellent images, but this one just reminds me of Oracle Road in Tucson on any bright night. The mate rating that's clearly going on is also a big minus for me and causes me to look at such images in a jaundiced manner. Should a party who is cheating the system have their images critiqued in the same manner as those who follow the rules? What if we ALL cheated the system like Alex has done?

Ochoa, Allon, Arthur thanks for your positive comments. I try to stick to the original image as much as possible and my ultimate aim is to achieve high quality 13" X 19" print reproduction. In this image however, the moon was emphasize for aesthetic purposes and interest.

 

John F.

Please be careful with your words. I did not "cheat" the system and my name is Alec not Alex! Ask the administrators if you must on why they chose to feature this image in the TRP but don't penalize me for it. If just by enlarging the moon make you unhappy then you have to comment on many others who "cheat" without even admitting it is manipulated.

 

I strongly disagree with your declaration on mate rating. There are 22 members who rate with 7s out of 34 here. Many of those who rate high have not visited my site before and mate raters are not allowed to give 7s.

 

Perhaps it is because this image was placed on the first page of the TRP (top rated page) that it now has more then 27000 hits in 3 days thus the number of raters may even be considered negligible?

 

I have stated clearly in my details everything I did and no one is encouraged to rate if they find it distasteful. This is a hate free zone so please John don't abuse and contaminate it.

Alex, the facts speak for themselves. This has nothing to do with hate, or the pasted moon. Rather it has to do with an internet site on which ALL people can post their images for a fee, only to find out that others get ten times as much visibility for the same amount. Is is a fact that enforcement of a number of rules of the netsite are shall we say "weak" and that you and a number of others have been able to take advantage of this weakness. I have chosen NOT to take part in the mate rating, although I have been invited to so do on a number of occasions, and choose to reside in the netheregions with my grunge photography which hovers as merely very average, since I won't kiss ass. I cannot change photo.net's rules, but as a paying party I will speak out against those who bend the system and cover themselves with self-praise. As I have noted before, you don't need to play this game as your images are fine. I and other know quite well by now that certain parties collect ratings at high rates because of a weakness in the system. You can tell me to no end that your image is on top because it has been deemed excellent. However the distribution of points and certain ratings clearly show that cheating in the form of mate rating is going on at a frenetic pace. I will not comment further because the critique forum should be for the image and I feel that my critique in the honeypot going on below this image is the first one that questions the quality of the image in a factual manner.

John, you still write but don't seem to comprehend well. Again it's Alec not Alex. It's etiquette to at least get a person's name right. I appreciate your acknowledgement of my capabilities as a photographer. Let's leave it at that and let the members be the judge of our PN sites.

 

I have followed the PN forum pages continuously on the rating system but hesitate to implicate myself by participating. There is so much tension and feelings on one's personal work that I have known many friends who stopped posting here as it cause havoc to their emotions.

 

With more then 270,000 members I feel the administrators are doing a fantastic job in implimenting system control to monitor ratings and I don't envy any of them for doing this. We are in a real world with all it's pimples featured and Prada yearnings depicted and P'net exactly examplify this.

 

If one participate, be prepared to face whatever outcome. For better or worst, I choose to stay, and I am just glad that there are many members here who are genuinely keen to improve and enjoy sharing the beauty of photography. Let them judge for themselves who they wish to visit or comment.

 

Don't blame the rating system or any of the raters here for you are also questioning their personal integrity.

 

If you think you can improve the system, trash it out at the forum pages for reaction to your thoughts but don't show contempt here without validity. I hope you are aware of the continuous rework and fine tuning the administrators have gone through to control it from being abused.

OUTSTANDING night shot! Wonderful! And : GREAT composition for this well balanced shot.

Thank you very much for the 7/7 Yann. You just confirmed my point about the rating system.

Alec: Sorry for the mispelling, but my original premise stands.

Censorious leads to nowhere. It's time to coagulate instead.

John, Spencer, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, let's close the subject. Appreciate your respond.

John you started off with quite a nice comment, a decent critique that one tends to see in all the great photos on this site. when everyone's praising you actually had useful input about what or why this shot is actually not that interesting (though I loved the piicture myself). But I was very surprised and disappointed the way you finished off your comment with the childish and under-handed accusation. Seriously John, you've done little credit to yourself by letting yourself slip like that. You're not just accusing Alec, your collectively accusing a big lot of great photographers on this site as well as the administrators. take it easy.

Back to photography.

Love the peeping moon

 

The photo is unique. I really like your style. Well done!

Excellent photo. Bravo for this wonderful work.

I like the composition but I found the special effect of large moon cliche and distracting. I agree that the moon serves very well as a counter balance to the large and imposing library. I only wish that is smaller or even "moves" a bit to the left corner.