montana back roads Rambler

This car is from the same town where I was born:  Lewistown (Fergus County, right in the center of the state).  The car and I therefore have a lot in common, except it's in better shape.

Now thats both funny and interesting. I assume you can see enough of the license plate to determine the county ? My Dad had one of these.....I think a 1955, white station wagon. He didn't even keep it a year. Total lemon. I do have another shot with the whole plate visable if you need more detail on where it was register.

Once again I am baffled by the initial ratings I am getting on this series of photos. I love these photos, but so far the fine art folks think they are just OK. I give two 7's and two 6's for these...oh right, I can't rate my own photos. Guess I won't try to raise any money for the non-profit with these.

It's the initial "8" that indicates its from Fergus County, and Lewistown is by far the largest city in that county.  I carry a laminated card with all of Montana county license codes, so I can tell where a Montana car is from.  I grew up in 20 (Glasgow) and most love 56 (Libby).  I've started many conversations just based on the person's Montana license plate.

Ratings are a funny thing here on PN.  They seem to aim for the middle as well as what's unique and or interesting in that middle.  Outlier subjects, common subjects, and easy subjects don't seem to fair well.  All the rating seems to tell me is that "I like this photograph" or "I sort of like / dislike the photograph" or "I really don't like this photograph."  Often I think it simply has to do with subject matter and relatively little with the lighting, composition, techniques, etc.  I also think raters have become "harder" over time; fewer very high ratings are given, and more lower ratings are given.  A photo that may have been rated "7" years ago is likely to earn somewhere between "5" and "6" today (which is probably how it should be).  The only time I ask for ratings is to get the photo in front of more people; I seldom look at the results of the ratings request.  Unfortunately, many interesting and important aspects of how PN operates seems to be based on ratings.  If your photo doesn't get rated, it falls into an abyss.  But I don't blame PN; I can't think of a better way to sort such a large number of photos.

I have taken to glancing at the average rating of a photo after I have rated it and I seem to be lower most of the time than others and on some I am the voice in the dark for a photo giving it a 6 or 7 and others are down in the low 4 range. I think we should be honest with our ratings though. The unfortunate thing about it is how much time is spent deciding on a rating. I got a statistic from the Artists Trust in Seattle that said:Jurors spend an average of less than 20 seconds to decide whether a piece of art is elimated or moves on to the next level of elimination, therefore there should be nothing in your image to distract the juror away from what you want to convey. The problem with the short time is it probably eliminates images that are subtle and need some contemplation to decide if you really like it. Also a 5x7x72dpi image is pretty limiting on finer details. I know I don't even spend 20 seconds per image when I decide to go on a ratings binge. This is fun no matter how you slice it, but I am still surprised by what people like and dislike for others as well as my work. I actually had a fellow e-mail me a couple of months ago and ask me why I was rating his images so low and ruining his score ?! I was honest with him and said I just don't like that kind of Photoshoping and then I asked how did he know I gave him poor ratings? He explained it to me, but it seemed like a lot of trouble. I try not to rate him if I happen to notice his name before I decide on a rating.

I really like this one, love the colours in the old cars in contrast with the black and white sky. Very nicely done!

Warm regards, Gail

Thanks Gail.

Now I see what you seen through wide angle lens. Nice capture. I like wide angle perspective. Also, it nice that day was cloudy. Well done!

Grigoriy

I like these shots.  Very cool