Summer Storm, Grand Tetons

A Summer Storm lets the sun shine through momentarily, east slope,

Grand Tetons, visible from desert of Wyoming. Your ratings and

critiques are invited and most welcome. (If you rate harshly or

very negatively, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment/Please honor me by sharing your superior knowledge to help

improve my photography). Thanks! Enjoy! John

Now this one is excellent John. The opening is magnificient and is matched by the distant mountains; silhouette of the ground with the darker part of the sky make good framing.

 

Good work!

Thanks for the very nice comment and the rating. Apparently the two who rated it 2/3 and 3/3 didn't agree with you that it is so wonderful, but then I strongly disagree with them. That is a hazard of exposing a photo to the anonymous ratings system with raters of varying experience (or none at all).

 

Maybe someone thought I was using a point and shoot digicam or my old Kodak Brownie -- but even that took wonderful photos when I framed them; I always contended the photos were the bailwick of the photographer, and less of the camera.

 

This image was Photoshopped, to enhance the contrast, as almost all digital images have to be, since the D70 renders 'flat' images, which are pretty dull -- and Photoshopping approaches the results that a good, high quality photo processing machine would produce.

 

I don't rate much, and therefore don't enjoy mate-rating, but I comment now rather extensively -- even profusely at times -- and a look at reply comments indicate my critiques usually are spot on, but that doesn't translate into ratings.

 

So I live with mediocre ratings, and relish when a discerning viewer like yourself volunteers a wonderful compliment. Thank you so much, no matter what the rating, for taking the time to comment and rate.

 

John

I found this photo in your 'top rated photos of others" with a high rating, next to another photo of mine. Thank you doubly. John.

My eyes were immediately drawn to this photo. It looks like something outter wordly. Sci Fi. Well done.

There's a phone suspended in midair at the top of the peak, just to the right of center. It's where my good friend E.T. goes when he wants to phone home.

 

Thanks for the nice comment, I thought this photo was a little underrated myself (E.T. is angry with me and won't talk to me: I blew his 'cover').

 

John ;~))

I am not sure exactly that this has been commented on exactly, but I want to point out that above the highest 'visible' peak, in the center (right) of the photo is a vast section of whiteness that represents 'sunshine' but which is desaturated or 'blown' from lack of dynamic range of the CCD chip of my D70.

 

And the shape of that 'blown' area is the exact shape of a mountain peak, only rendered in white, mirroring the general shape of a mountain in white, above the various peaks, all in blue/black and gray/whites beneath.

 

If anybody meant that in his/her comment, it was not clear, and I don't think any of the raters exactly picked up on that 'device', which is why I took this photo and chose this particular image of the several I had available. On reading Eugene Zaikonnikov's prompt comment, it may be he hit the mark fully, but his comment was so brief it passed by without being fully noticed.

 

(I'm working on the use of compositional 'devices' such as 'repetition' here, for presentations, although they are not yet finished and their completion date is speculative.

 

If you want to be a recipient of any of these presentations, please place me on your 'favorite' photographer list, and I'll try to send most of my presentations to all those who have named me as a 'favorite'.

 

John (Crosley)

I think most people do appreciate your comments. While mate-rating is popular here, many folks (me included) would still prefer an honest opinion to an overblown rating. E.g. I don't quite understand how can one feel good with mate-ratings knowing that these raters don't give a damn about his photography and only care of getting a favor in return.

This work of you is quite good in my humble opinion and it is hard to understand why is it underrated. I don't see being processed in editor as any problem; people were dodging and burning for ages and it isn't really any different.

Thanks for the kind words -- sometimes an image of mine for critique gets lower than expected ratings and often that will be because a first rater gives it a low rating -- others will see that and 'take a cue' and think the first rater 'knew something'.

 

Likewise for other images which are sometims higher rated. So, sometimes the ratings rank and thus even the number of ratings can be determined by the first two or three ratings one gets -- if they're 2/3 or 3/3 or even 3/4, then one has to work very hard and get very many high ratings to even have a 'good photo' 5/5 rating. And if it is ordinarily a 5/5 photo to begin with it will suffer.

 

But my highest rated image, a photo of a soldier with a bayonet and a gas mask in front of seated students, while good, is not deserving of 35 ratings and mid '6s for ratings compared to many of my other photographs -- except it's emblematic for the era to many people who want an emblem for a period and my photo is that. But as a photograph, it's good but not so wonderful -- I have many other better photographs, and many were never submitted for ratings.

 

I just looked through my images for submission for critique and there are almost 200 of them, and some are wonderful -- some already with ratings in mid 6s but never submitted for critique. Who needs a critique for those -- just to increase the views and get more ratings?

 

So, sometimes you get higher ratings than deserved, sometimes lower -- in the end it all works out.

 

Go figure and who really cares. PN is a wonderful forum for displaying one's work and getting honest feedback and my commmentators are almost uniformly wonderful -- taking time and effort honestly to critique my photos and help me improve them (as I request), and I take it to heart and am most thankful. (While I always like to see '6/6 stunning, absolutely wonderful' it really rings hollow and if you glance through my various rated folder, you notice that those people don't leave such comments on my photos, and the comments generally are well thought out -- sometimes stories, poems, photoshop hints, cropping hints, color, saturation, contrast, etc., hints or just philosophy and stories.

 

What more could a guy want??????

 

Thanks for stopping by my photos.

 

You have honored me.

 

John

Thanks for the insightful post John.

 

It seems that the photo critique at PN could improve a lot if the author's critique requests were displayed along with the photos at the 'Rate Recent' section.

I read your comment on repetition and it made me think of the repetitions on the peaks themselves. I simply love mountains and this photo is just amazing. I've heard of a thechnique that you take double exposures and you make a composite of both in order to exctract information of both frames.

 

Happy New Year B. B.