Barry Thomas

<p>John, The words come direct from the original poster. I'm just trying to find out what's acceptable here, only the mods can tell us since we mere civilians might have an opinion, but have no power to keep things polite. Of course if any and all 'street' language is OK then you might want to make sure your elderly aunt isn't looking over your shoulder while you are on p.net.</p>

<p>I'd say 'bitch-slap' is street pure and simple. Next time you're in polite female company, try dropping it into conversation. Try getting your grand-kids to use it in conversation with their parents. Should we blindly follow the lead of ESPN or maybe speak nicely in public? ymmv of course.</p>

<p>Hah! Fair comment. But I'd still like to know if the mods now consider bitch-slaps, pimps and piss to be acceptable language for this meeting of polite ladies and gentlemen?</p>

<p>Could someone explain 'bitch-slap' to me please? And is there a button here for "get this ranting bigot off my nice screen please"? Should be.</p>

<p><strong>Ken:</strong> You said <em>"Warren = no photos/portfolio, no website, no bio, freeloader on PN... sums up to total nonsense.</em>" Well I've got photos a (brief) bio, a website and I pay subs to PN. I also agree with what Warren said. OK, I haven't been to SE Asia, but I have been to Cuba, Peru and a lot of Europe and the same message stands. Special mention though of the immigration desks at any point of entry to the US, they are the first people you meet on US soil and if I hadn't just had an 8 hr flight to get there I'd generally turn round and go somewhere else. And that predates 9/11 by a dozen years plus in my experience.</p>

<p>I used to write medical software... (I still do some coding just for fun) but mainly I'm a <a href="http://www.barrythomas.co.uk/">silversmith.</a></p>

<p>There's a wedding Photographer in Boston (ex Doctor, struck off... a number of assumed names, sounds like a bit of a 'character') whose web site was full of wedding shots he got off a stock images CD - didn't even show off his own work! Admitted to it in public too - what a star!</p>

<p>Thanks Rob, didn't know that one. Sorry I jumped the gun, maybe should have waited til 20 or 30 posts later! LOL. Is there a lesser level of analogy I should have used? Maybe I should have started with dancing pumps and worked up from there. I'll go barefoot next time. I am suitably chastised.</p>

<p>Sorry Matt, don't recognise the Godwin reference?<br>

My point was simply that Jeff's intervention came across badly. Not being a noob he aught to appreciate how one's tone of voice can be misinterpreted.<br>

I agree that if this is standard PN policy then that's it, I'm not attempting to change it. Your explanation of the situation was perfectly clear and also polite, Jeff's came out like he's wearing his, erm, serious leather footwear, or other garments, way tighter than the situation demanded.<br>

The mods rightfully expect we punters to play nicely, so when a mod leaves his charm and good manners in the other room, it weakens his case next time he attempts to break up a spat between a couple of noobs with a bad attitude.</p>

<p><em>There's no need for "civil debate." It's not really up for "debate."</em><br>

Wearing your jack boots a bit tight there aren't you Jeff? Isn't the a forum the right place for a "debate"? And Josh very nicely continues the debate, so your attempt to put a lid on it seems a) aggressive, b) defensive, c) rather lacking in charm.<br>

YMMV of course.</p>

 

<p>O no, someone thinks I'm a girl again. It happens a lot. I think boys and girls in this thread were scholars and gentlemen, they just disagree with you. If you come out with an opinion and nobody agrees with you, there may be a message in that.</p>

<p>I got off the plane and walked into a bar in somewhere in the USA. I said, to anyone who happened to be in earshot, that having seen a guy called George Bush on TV, who appeared to be kind of dim, that it might be because he's American. "Am I just imagining this or is [stupidity] sometimes a characteristic of..." Americans. And you know what? Some of the people there didn't like what I was saying!</p>

<p>Some Americans are so defensive.</p>

<p>(Please insert your own stereotype / nationality / social group into the above so we can ALL get defensive).</p>

 

<p><em> "I guess it would be unreasonable to expect digital to look exactly like film."</em></p>

<p>You may have missed my point - I'm saying that most of the shots in this 100-shot theoretical archive would prove that a decent film shot and a decent digital shot are very hard to tell apart. Unless you know in advance what the medium is, you would be guessing, which undermines the kind of comments some people make about "this digital shot shows this flaw", or "that film shot shows that flaw".</p>

<p>Say photo.net had an archive of 100 pictures, 50 shot on film, 50 on digital. But they are not labeled. The film shots are scanned by someone _good_ and the whole gallery made available for anyone to try to guess which were which.</p>

<p>The gallery could be refreshed every week or so by the addition of a bunch of new shots and removal of older shots, but overall keeping roughly the same 50/50 mix. Then anyone wanting to post something along the lines of the OP here, first they have to prove that they can tell one set from the other.</p>

<p>All we have now is people seeing characteristics in shots from one medium or the other, mainly because they already know what medium was used.</p>

<p>You might say, ahhh, but only in a 100% analogue wet print can you tell the difference... maybe so, but the posters I'm talking about are comparing shots they have seen on the web.</p>

<p>If anyone nowadays can do better than average on such a test I'd be prepared to eat my shorts.</p>

<p>April 1996, Kodak DC50, res 756 x 504.</p>

<p><em>This is the greatest country in the world. Just think what the others must be like!</em></p>

<p>An independent observer might ask a different question... "with things like that happening here, perhaps this might, after all, not be the 'greatest country in the world'".</p>

 

I can't believe nobody has mentioned Joni Mitchell! Where have you guys been all your lives?

 

I go back and forth between the (noisy) workshop and the computer in the office next door, so having something that suits both, at a volume that suits both, is a problem.

 

On quieter days, anything by Joni, especially Hejira or Hissing of Summer Lawns. Any time of the day or night, Handel's Messiah, especially the trumpets.

 

If I want melodic, it has to be the Carpenters.

<p><i>I'll bet money that he wasn't holding the ice cream cone until someone asked him to, so they could take the picture. They were using him as a pawn and an advertising prop.</i></p>

<p>It strikes me that you are getting very angry about this but you are still only guessing about what actually happened in order to get that image on the magazine.</p>

<p>Was it computer rendered or was the kid from one of the model agencies who supply fat / ugly / short / tall / weird models, in which case he was probably paid for the job and presumably relaxed about being fat - since it actually led to a paid job.</p>

<p>Until you get hold of some facts to get angry about, I'd chill out and take come pictures.</p>

<p>Hey, nobody invented the free lunch since I last looked, however:</p>

 

<p># In 2005, the United States spent 16 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care. It is projected that the percentage will reach 20 percent by 2016. (<i>Poisal, J.A., et al, Health Spending Projections Through 2016: Modest Changes Obscure Part D?s Impact. Health Affairs (21 February 2007): W242-253.</i>)</p>

 

<p># Although nearly 47 million Americans are uninsured, the United States spends more on health care than other industrialized nations, and those countries provide health insurance to all their citizens. (<i>California Health Care Foundation. Health Care Costs 101 ? 2005. 02 March 2005. <a href="http://www.chcf.org/">http://www.chcf.org/</a></i>)</p>

 

<p># Health care spending accounted for 10.9 percent of the GDP in Switzerland, 10.7 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in Canada and 9.5 percent in France, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (<i>Pear, R.. ?U.S. Health Care Spending Reaches All-Time High: 15% of GDP.? The New York Times, 9 January 2004, 3.</i>)</p>

 

<p>Info from <a href="www.nchc.org">www.nchc.org</a></p>

 

<p>"<i>You pays yer money, you takes yer choice.</i>"</p>

In the UK we are paying around 9 of your US dollars for one of your US gallons (diesel). When you reach that level, carry on whining! On the other hand, we don't need health insurance. You pays yer money, you takes yer choice.

Partly what Chas said... as you are looking at graffiti which is generally cut or scratched shallow, not V cut lettering which is generally deeper, you might find that natural light is your friend. As the surfaces are apparently often curved it will be difficult to position a flash in the right spot for everything in view.

 

I'd use a tripod, try natural light, use the current camera and see how you get on.

I use mine to clean my glasses (specs) which probably don't have the highest quality coatings on the lenses and lacquer on the frames etc and they come up sparkling with no damage, even with several cleans a week for several years. The juice in the machine varies, mine has a lot of ammonia in it plus some kind of soap-like thing and it gets EVERYTHING off, even if the juice is a bit murky that day - it all rinses off under the tap anyway, so oil content or no, the soap in the solution deals with it.

 

Other than the multi-layer caveat above, go for it. (Usual limitations on the value of internet adice apply; ymmv etc).

Matt, I don't really understand what you are saying. Are you comparing this jury process to that at a county fair, or is there something specific quoted in their bumf that gets your back up? It all seemed pretty reasonable to me.

 

Of course any choice of photo is going to be subjective - that's why I think most other people's photographs are great and mine are rubbish. There are few hard datums here - we are talking about a subjective topic.

 

What's really on your mind? It sounds like we are missing something.

<p>Whatever is going on in your head, don't blame the equipment for not being right. If you don't want to do digital, don't do it - there, that's one problem solved. Now it's <i>just</i> about what's in your head.</p>

Q11 seems to assume all of your respondents are in the USA, and to clear that up, it would be interesting to know how many people are where. Maybe add that question? I know you could probably work it out by processing the web logs, but I'd certainly be interested to find out.

 

I know the site is US founded and run, but I suspect it has a very broad international readership. Most of the US posters in forums seem to assume everyone is in the US.