jonathancharlesphoto

<b>Late response</b><p>I just stumbled on this thread and I

think you pose an important question which the answers so far

don't really address. <p>The categories of people-photos define

the reason for taking the photos - so it <u>is</u> a creative

issue. An "interesting face in Bombay" is not IMHO a portrait but

a snapshot unless the person is known to you or you feel some

particular insight into his/her situation. A portrait should say a lot

more than just what a person looks like - in fact a family "snap"

is more likely to be a portrait than the "interesting face" as you

will naturally choose a moment when the subject's personality is

revealed by expression or posture. The unknown "face" remains

a mask which you can not see through with the camera.

<p>

At best, street photographs tell us about personal situations or

the public <i>persona</i> of the subjects but not about the inner

reality of the characters. Ther same applies to travel photos of

people. The cute kid pics and glamour "portraits" tell us almost

nothing except about the photographer's taste in cute / glamour.

<p>So, if your aim is a portrait you have to be personally

interested in the subject and know or intuit something of the life

and personality behind the mask and so make it transparent. If

you just want an "attractive" or dramatic snapshot it is no different

from photographing a tree - you choose the photogenic subject

and photogenic surroundings and create the image as you like.

Hotel rooms in far away places hold the promise of romance.

Does the dream come true?<div></div>

Doug, that's a great idea which I'll try - except that I think it's

interesting also to critique photos of group members as the

photographer's aims and technique can then be discussed.

Maybe as per your suggestion but each member chooses one

outside & one own photo when it's his/her turn.

The main problem with photo.net, and the reason many people

drifted to PhotoSIG, is the lack of any useful category / search

system here. Since PSIG's disastrous re-jig p.net could easily

grab them back if only it included a half decent way for finding the

photos you want to look at (or avoid having to look at).

As one of the many serious members who have completely

given up rating photos or caring about my own ratings I believe

that the qualitative feedback from comments + a little quantitative

element from [no. of views] are far more helpful and interesting. I

agree with MarcG that the ruling clique is impregnable and

there's no point the rest od us worying about it.

I'm more concerned about how the photos are selected by the

"random" "critique photos" system. Obviously, if your photo isn't

selected often it won't get critiqued. Despite being a paid-up

member it's clear my photos don't show up nearly as often as

last year (when I wasn't) - maybe it's just a function of the

number of photos submitted.

It's a pity the critique circles idea seems to have been dropped

as this, with some modification to allow people to join the circle

they wanted to, would have generated more personal interest.

Paul, your original question was related to the Foschi POW ,

which was (as far as I could tell) intended to be a portrait. In this

case (portraiture), the model being a "real" person is central to

the picture. If anyone is brave enough to allow their portrait to be

posted on a discussion forum (I presume she gave her

permission) they must expect that most comments will

represent the viewers' reaction to the photo and may have rather

little to do with the subject. Clearly if everybody says "what a

lovely person..." they will feel better than if the comments say

"creepy", "having chemotherapy" etc. Neither the artist nor the

subject should get into the situation if it is seriously going to hurt

their feelings.

The whole value of a critique forum is that if you intended to

show someone's beautiful and peaceful personality in a photo

and the majority of the comments say "creepy" your visual

communication has obviously broken down somewhere and you

should try to learn how to do the job better. Of coures you have

the option of thinking that the adverse comments all came from

numbskulls, and certainly universal appeal isn't necessarily a

sign of artistic excellence, but I digress! ... The subject of a

portrait may well see the comments and the concept of the

critique forum should be explained before a portrait is posted up.

OTOH critiques should try not to be needlessly insulting about

the subject even if they have strong criticisms of the picture.

Peter's (and others') comments about professional models are

very reasonable but IMHO any picture including a person (as

opposed to a plastic dummy) gains power from the dimension of

the the real person in the role, so considering a model as just a

"reflector of light" or purely a representation of the artist's own

idea loses that potential and results in a shallower image.

Reallly effective actors put some of their own reality into the roles

they portray and I think viewers pick up on this and become more

involved in the performance - likewise with pictures.

I tried to send an email to circles@photo.net but it was

repeatedly blocked. So I tried to post a messege on:

www.photo.net/contact-us, but despite the fact I was already

logged in and I'm a subscriber I was asked for an ID &

password. I tried giving my name, my photo.net id number or my

email address, along with my password (I re-logged in to check

it was still correct) and every time I got the "valid username and

password required" message. Is there some other "username"

I've long since forgotten (I joined in Sept 01) or is there another

problem?

Brian, could you include number of comments >3 as a criterion? - as this would weed out most of the junk while keeping in photos that might get a low score because they're controversial.

Will you use the folder name in the indexing process and have you considered asking photographers to categorise their work, or provide key words? - because the titles often don't give much idea of the content and if the photo is obviously of a particular subject there may not seem to be any need to mention this in the caption. Asking for key words at this stage would be a good way of checking who is remaining active in the community.

Finally the "score" (first column) seems an obscure parameter and a fairly useless one.

I must say I'm absolutely delighted that you are re-jigging the search process because its present weakness is the main reason I have been spending more time on PhotoSIG recently.

What I would really like is a special category comprised of: family snaps, flowers, cars, pets and 9/11 - so I could EXCLUDE it.

Thanks for an otherwise great site.