45.9

24 years ago.

This astounds me. As I write this, this image is placed second in the "Rate Recent" category. I'm flattered, but I have no idea why it's there. For some reason, a bunch of people gave this 7-7 ratings, even though two have given it 3-3's. No one has commented on it. I have no idea what people like or dislike about it. I rather like it myself, but I've liked all sorts of other pictures I've posted that haven't gotten anywhere near the top of the TRP. It's a strange world.

The subject is posed well but I would like to see a little better lighting. No real highlights or shadows to direct the eye.

Thank you. I tend to agree. I've printed a version for myself that has the hair substantially lighter, and boosts the overall contrast. I frankly think it works better than my original post. What I am trying to do is capture the hair, but retain a sense of glow about the rest of the image. Check out the attachment.

Well Barry, having just looked at your work, some of which is stunning, it baffles me why this one should receive the fuss! For me, this is static and poorly lit... HOWEVER... as I look more closely, the triangular formation of the model takes shape as does the balance of her posture.

Very clever and more than initially meets the eye... but I like some of your other work much much more!!!

All the best.

It would seem that just because a nude is posted (and she's pretty much all covered up even), that more often than not, a very high score happens. How could this be 7/7 if your lighter version is indeed much better? The original was just a flat print (or scan).

The triangle shape is excellent, the hair is beautiful. I'd like to see another light coming in from the right side on her, maybe some light cutting across the trunk for contrast, too.

But, as posted, I'd be hard pressed to give it a 4/4. It amazes me that you, the poster, are amazed at the high marks as well.

Your "Backstroke, Clark Dry Lake" image is way better...yet only rates a bit above 5. What does this rating information do for you? How can it help you seek improvement. Isn't that one of the reasons we all post here??

As far as I can tell, all the ratings do is determine whether a lot, or just a few people will ever look at an image. They provide very little in the way of meaningful feedback. If a lot of people look at the image, and if you're lucky, you'll get comments, and even useful feedback, as I have on this one. As you say, I've got images I think are much better as photographs, but a few quick 3/3's, and off they go to oblivion. I've pretty much stopped rating pictures myself, but I try to make a point of commenting often, and responding to comments. I also rarely look at the TRP, preferring instead to scan through the recent submissions; I've found much more interesting stuff that way, when it hasn't been filtered for me. In fact, the only reason I discovered this image had gotten up as high as it did was that I noticed a precipitous bulge in the number of ratings, going from 3 or so (after a day) to 22, and that a lot of the 22 were very high. That got me curious, and there I was, right on the first TRP page.

Dear Barry, first I appreciate your honesty. And I agree with others that this is not a top photo. I looked at your nude portfolio and liked almost all better than this, particularly "Another nude and cliffs" which only got about 5.4!

I'm a new member (two weeks), but I have already decided to disregard ratings; most seem to be made by people who have no aesthetic sense (or too different from mine to matter to me). The comments are what I learn from, and I look forward to some on my entries!

I think you have started a worthwhile debate as I find ratings in Photo Net inexplicable both on my submissions and others . Regarding this photo I like the pose and the model's long hair is striking . On my screen the picture is dark and flat , good lighting would improve this picture and make the most of an interesting model . I also thought you had some very good nude shots in you portfolio.

I guess the problem with the ratings is that, if you want some sort of filtration, then you have to have them, but it's very hard to have any sort of standards. I've seen endless debates about them over the years I've been here, and no one has really come up with anything workable. I suspect what people are reacting to in this image is the hair, which is unusual, and it of course helps that the model is attractive. Just as a technical aside, the model was lit with a single incandescent bulb to the left. I shot on a tripod with Tri-X. This resulted in an extremely contrasty negative, with the hair very bright, and everything else very dark. In my darkroom days, I printed a couple of the other pictures I took during this session with the very high contrast I had intended. In fact, you can see one of them in the portfolio as 45.3. On this one, however, I got interested in seeing what I could bring out of the rest of the figure, with the result you see above, and with the better result you see in an attachment to one of my earlier comments.

I am sorry about me going to give this a low rating. I find the originality is far away, putting a naked in this pose. Even if it is a nice pose, it is nothing more then that. Technically I find the lighting very poor (sorry). Ofcourse her great long hair deserves all attention, but that does not mean the rest of her beautifull self has to be dull and without any contrast.

I do love you honesty in which you ask yourself how the high rating came to be.

 

Frenk

Originality is an odd concept, too. I certainly didn't invent nude photography, and this is a fairly standard pose. By this standard, just about any nude, or any picture of anything should get low originality ratings. On the other hand, almost all pictures are unique in some way. No two bodies are the same. All sunsets are different. You could thus argue that all pictures deserve high originality ratings. I think some of my most original material (one of the few times I went off in an unusual direction) was with my parking lot trash series, yet the images that people bothered to rate were uniformly seen as unoriginal. Why? Perhaps because people see (though don't photograph) trash in parking lots all the time? Because they weren't interested in the subject? Who knows? Interest in the subject certainly seems to help nude images get high ratings, both for originality (no matter how hackneyed) and aesthetics.

 

And aesthetics. If you define this image as being an attempt to show an unusual feature of the model (her hair), then I think it succeeds aesthetically. However, if what you want to see is her body, then no. As to the contrast, this image looks something like a platinum print to me, which many people prize. Platinum prints capture a very wide tonal range, though to me, personally, they look flat. But if people thought of this as a platinum print, then maybe they would all think it was wonderful aesthetically. Conclusion: the ratings system here is just a way of generating numbers. I think the photographer has to finally decide if the image is worth the effort.

As you well know, many people on Pnet don't know poop about the ratings. They think aesthetics is a rating of how pretty it is, and originality seems to be a rating to determine how much they like something. Take my image (http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=10007781) that you commented upon. I defy you to find another nude done in that manner on Pnet or anywhere else. Because it's a nude, it did get a fair amount of attention, but still only made it to 5.21 on the originality scale. I don't buy that.

 

In this image of yours, I'd give it higher than average marks in both aesthetics and originality, becuase it is interesting, and a bit different from the standard and often boring (okay, a nude woman can hardly be boring, so maybe I should say, "commonly rendered") nude. As an aside, let me suggest that you stand back from the screen a ways and view this image. It has a bit of the appearnace of a pepper. Ah, Weston, he even influences our perception!

 

One other comment I would make in regard to rating is that critics should have to be named. I don't want their name so that I can go berate them, and I don't necessarily feel that they have to be good or great photographers in order to be good critics and good judges of images. But, I should at least be able to see what other judgements that critic has made, so that I may form an opinion as to his capabilities. Not having that capability is what is so infuriating about the anonymous 3/3 guy.

Good to see a comment from you. I particularly appreciate the vote of confidence in my artistic eye (maybe those anonymous 7,7 raters were right after all). And yes, I remember your own Weston, still one of my favorite pictures on PN.

 

I guess another problem with a numerical rating system is that it encourages snap judgments. People look at an image and come to an instant conclusion: "Oh, it's flat," or "Oh, there's an out of focus spot," or "Oh, there's a blown highlight" (or, "Wow, what big breasts"). Then they give it a number. Oftentimes there's a lot more to the image than what first appears, and what there is to the image defies easy labeling. But if you can find something to stick a label on, then you can feel like you've figured out the image, and don't have to think any more about it.

 

I'm acquainted with a photography professor at a local university. He was showing me some student work that initially seemed fairly pointless: photographs of the spaces under people's beds. These photographs showed dust bunnies, trash, books, shoes -- all the stuff people stash under their beds. Any one of these images would be panned here on PN, or, probably, anywhere they give ratings. Yet, as he explained the point of the project to me, the images became more and more interesting. You could tell a lot about the owner of the bed by what was stored under it. Last year's nearly-new, but hopelessly out-of-fashion shoes bespoke a fashion-conscious college student with too much money. A dusty world map with pins stuck in it bespoke a man now too old to travel. The pictures were by turns poignant, instructive, and funny. All-in-all, it was a fascinating use of photography, and it was art. It was very original, and yet, without the explanation -- the educated viewer -- the images would certainly be branded both unoriginal and unaesthetic.

 

That's why I find the TRP pages less than rewarding as a place to find interesting images.

I must say that I'm in the "ignore ratings" camp - I don't give them because there are just too many parameters to assess a picture and everybody would be using different criteria. Often a photo which has technical faults and is not dramatically original has a special charm or emotional appeal that overrides these problems.

 

This is a good example: the general form of the pose is quite routine but the details of the way the arms and legs construct the triangular outline work very well. The print is IMHO lacking in contrast but that can easily be fixed. Her peaceful expression and fabulous hair make it special and your photo has captured that

 

I think a written critique and maybe suggestions are much more useful than arbitrary numbers and for me it is generally quicker to make a mod than try to explain what I would suggest in detail.

 

Best wishes, Jonathan

Love your version! How did you go about it?

Thanks Barry. First I tried just increasing the contrast using [curves] to get the highlights to near-255 and pulling the lower end down to darken the shadows. Unfortunately this made her face nearly disappear into the gloom and the foreground details were lost. So I started again with a circular gradient mask centred on her face and blocking out the dark foreground and applied the same curve. Then, inverting the selection, I used a different curve: still brightening the highlights but with less darkening of the shadows so her face still stood out from the background. Finally I enhanced the soft highlights on her arm and legs.

 

It only took a minute or two - much less time than to write this!

 

Best wishes, Jonathan