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acearle

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Posts posted by acearle

    Has this been considered.

    in PhotoNet Site Help

    Posted

    Realistically, the problem is that there used to be these mythological things called "Ratings Guidelines." I remember seing them at one point, and I read them...and I tried to follow them to the best of my ability.

     

    Maybe they've disapeared, maybe Mr. Atkins dog ate them to get his new computer, maybe the tooth fairy used 'em for toilet paper, but the current way the natives seem to rate is:

     

    "If it is differn't that whut I wooda shot, I'm givin' it uh 2 or uh 3. If it is eggzactly the same as I wooda shot, it gets uh 7. If I have no idea whut I'm lookin' at, it gets somewhere between a 2 and a 6, depending on which number is closest to muh finger."

     

    and that's for aesthetics. Creativity is simple, with the caveat that "If it has had thuh saturation increased by 30 in photoshop, it gets an extra point over the isthetic ratin'"

     

    Sorry for the lampooning, but I think whatever guidelines were dreamed up and posted need to be replaced with the above, if you can't beat 'em (or get 'em to read), join 'em...

    In Taipei

    in Nikon

    Posted

    GOOD photo shops? Probably none, there are a number of passable ones...the prices are high and an awful lot of people will come across as knowing something they don't, lol (errr, this is NOT a unique problem to Taiwan, unfortunately).

     

    Places to shoot? Depends on what you like to shoot. I've been here far too long, so I don't even see a lot of shots anymore...markets...Yang Ming Shan if you like flowers, trees, and the like...OH, I've been threatening to go to Hsin Men Tin and shoot as the sun sets for about a year (hmmm, I think I'll have to do that SOON, lol)...be aware that you need to define photogenic before anyone can really answer you...I'm to the point myself of shooting abandoned factories and rusting equipment because Taiwan and I don't get along as well as we used to as far as photography (errr, I've been here too long, lol)...

    Critique Please

    in Portraits & Fashion

    Posted

    I've gone back and started re-scanning some negatives from a couple

    of years ago now that I've actually figured the scanner out (many a

    Homer Simpson moment - DOH! - in the process). This is one that I'd

    initially dumped in the reject pile for various reasons, but once the

    shadow details came out, I sort of liked it...I'd love to hear what

    others think of it, mainly because its one that I moved from "reject"

    to "Eh? I kinda like this..."

     

    Oh, I print to watercolor paper, so try and insert the paper texture

    of a Widsor & Newton warm toned paper in your mind's eye, I tried

    scanning a print, and )@#$@#$ it looked awful at web resolution, and

    you didn't get the paper texture at web resolution...the print is

    10x14, by the way...

    Direct/anonymous ratings question

    in PhotoNet Site Help

    Posted

    <I>Does that mean that my ratings are not important, only because I don't give anonymous rates?</I>

     

    That's exactly what it means. It also means that people are free to lowball things based on their political viewpoints instead of the photographic merit of the work.

     

    Some of us post images here to be amused by the ratings, but the entire system makes the ratings worthless...however, as management has pointed out, the database of images IS huge, and to change horses in mid-ocean is a rather big undertaking...and the idjits of the world would try and weasel their way around any alternatives (errr, between P.net and where I live, I have zero faith in humanity these days)...

    Do all humans view a composition from left to right?

    in The History & Philosophy of Photography

    Posted

    Errr, just a side note on Chinese, it goes from right to left, left to right, AND top to bottom...wouldn't believe the number of times I've been stuffed up by reading in the wrong direction (with my limited character vocabulary)...

     

    ...anyway, I tend to view images oddly, I tend to jump to the most visually interesting area of the image (the ones with more tonal variation or contrast), jump around a bit, then do the left to right perusal.

    Wanted: ultra-cheap, photographer-tolerant country outside U.S.

    in Travel

    Posted

    Thailand is very westerner friendly, and rather easy to travel in...also VERY cheap. I'd also consider (err, or I should say I AM considering) Cambodia (Ankgor Wat). For some reason Myanmar (Burma) has managed to get off my radar screen, but I do have some plans to shoot there, but need to figure out who to talk to in the military junta to get permission to go into certain areas...hmmm...Laos can be dicey, I do know that certain areas of the countryside are simply to dangerous (from the banditos) for foreigners to go into. What REALLY came to mind when I read your post is Northern Thailand, The Golden Triangle...and specifically, the hill tribes (yeah, yeah...some DO ask for a small payment for photographing them).

     

    I LIVE in Taiwan, travel here is cheaper than in the U.S., hard to get around without a car...err...and after over a decade, I can't figure out WHAT to shoot (just kidding). In other words, I've been here so long that I can't see the forest through the trees).

     

    Cuba is actually the place I would retire to if I could get my wife sold on Spanish, so I'd definitely vote for that :-).

    Ways out of the Digital Wilderness

    in Nikon

    Posted

    Interesting and thoughtful responses to a gread question, and an interesting problem. I shoot very differently, but may have something of use to add. I use the D70 for now (waiting for the D2Xs to come out so the price on the D2X drops). Yep, the viewfinder is cramped, but it is very usable (yes, I can see facial expression in it). I haven't gotten my hands on the D70s, but I wonder if they didn't do some viewfinder tweaking in it? Might be worth a check.

     

    I know you have a lot invested in Nikon glass, and someone suggested looking at Canon (worth looking at, might find what you need)...but I have a friend who is shooting Olympus. He went there from Nikon and has been doing some incredible stuff with it. The viewfinder is exquisite, and his results are fantastic. Might be worth looking at, even if you are (like me) married to Nikon (too much money invested in the lenses)...

     

    If you CAN live with a D70 for a couple of years, the prices seem to be rock bottom right now, and a firmware upgrade makes it a D70s as far as internal software goes...

    Introspective trend in photography.

    in The History & Philosophy of Photography

    Posted

    Great thread...I'm in agreement that a photo does not have to be either art or reportage, both come into play and in wierd and different proportions. At the moment, I'm completely obsessed with the work of someone who in my eyes doesn't really differentiate between the two: Nan Goldin (her stuff from Tokyo underground in the early to mid 90s is to me unspeakably brilliant...it tells a different story to different people, I think).

     

    As to whether or not a photo HAS to tell a story? I don't think so. Photography is basically painting on film or sensor, you can choose your content just as you would if you were working with a brush and canvas...abstraction is fantastic at times. HOWEVER, I realize that the vast majority of photo.net disagrees with me (errr, you'll notice a conspicuous lack of a series of abstract light thingies...yep, a technical term...that I did a while back. If I recall, NO ONE commented, and the ratings consisted of 2-3 6s and 7s and a WHOLE pile of 2s (errr, and the odd thing is that almost no one has figured out how I did 'em, and its scary brain dead simple...a drunk martian could pull off similar shots)...BUT, the point is, they don't have a story. They don't even have discernable objects. Its just light and color with form and shape. The interesting thing is that people who have seen the prints with their titles love 'em, but those who see 'em online tend not to...

     

    ...as to introspective on p.net, I had found the opposite from my perspective, people tending toward realism and not really willing to go out into creative la la land and try looney stuff (just to see if it "works"). Then again, I thin we may be using different definitions of realism...

    Photo Club Marginalization...

    in PhotoNet Site Help

    Posted

    " It's Popular Photography, not Lenswork. That's not necessarily bad, just different."

     

    Errr, yeah...brilliant. You are VERY right. I think you have hit the proverbial nail squarely on the head. And you're right, not bad, just different.

     

    I'm gonna have to spend more time perusing the Philosophy of Photography forum, been a while since I've done that...that may placate the wild hairs that occasionally sprout in unwanted places :-)...

    Photo Club Marginalization...

    in PhotoNet Site Help

    Posted

    Bob, actually...you are right in some ways about management being restrained, but as a fellow business owner, some of the responses to some people were...err...a tad short fused, which is bad bidness globally (errr, my wife quit letting ME interact with customers YEARS ago, I'm danged nasty when riled...got tired of ripping the duct tape out of my beard). Yeah, I really AM surprised at how many people won't pony up the p.net membership, but maybe the low level of fellow critique forumites may be some of it. Errr, and as I've started perusing the other forums for stuff, DANG there is some SCARY creative stuff in there (stuff I might "rate" in the negative range on aesthetics and near 100 on a scale of 1-7 on creativity, he he)...

     

    I dunno, I suppose I'm still looking for a site where people really ARE more interested in creative photography than in ego stroking...keep deleting my portfolio here, then putting up new stuff...and am always surprised at what people like and don't like.

     

    Oh yeah, and your comments tend to be insanely reasonable with the claws well sheathed :-)...

    Photo Club Marginalization...

    in PhotoNet Site Help

    Posted

    Mike, I agree (and in another post, I've said that I've learned an INCREDIBLE amount from looking at other people's work here).

     

    I piss and moan about ratings because comments are so few and far between. AND, if you'll notice the original post, my comments were less about that than what is viewed here as a good photo, in general...I dunno, how do you think Goldin, Riefenstahl, Modoti, or Weston might have fared (okay, so Weston would fare well anywhere, so that's a freebie, he he).

    Photo Club Marginalization...

    in PhotoNet Site Help

    Posted

    This is not a complaing (errr, for a change), but more of an

    observation. Seems to me that Photo.net has become a massive "Photo

    Club" with the marginalization of creative shots that result. If

    shots fit into the "Calendar Shot" category, they tend to be well

    rated, but if not, they tend to get panned (I won't even talk about

    the 1 in 50 raters who actually comment, they are so few and far

    between it is comical).

     

    It really IS a pity that photo clubs like photo.net attract the

    lowest common denominator in in creativity, but those who can tend

    to re-create shots they've seen elsewhere with fairly good accuracy

    (the craftsmen as opposed to the artists). The result is that the

    highly rated shots get marginalized and rather predictable. My shots

    that have been rated well in originality (I don't bitch about

    aesthetic ratings, hate what I do if you must aesthetically, but I

    defy the lowballers to try and get the same shot)...in any case,

    cute kittens, beach debris lit from 3 axis...feeding

    frogs...standard calendar fare. They've gotten respectable ratings.

    Experimental nudes with massive negative space (yes, it is symbolic,

    and different in each shot) have gotten hammered by the "boobie

    crowd" and the "religious nuts" crowd, with very little input from

    the "fine arts crowd" which seems nonexistant (and that makes sense,

    as this "crowd" tends to shun the entire "photo club crowd"). I

    wonder if <a

    href="http://www.fraenkelgallery.com/exhibitions/e_goldin.html">Nan

    Goldin's</a> work would survive if it was posten anonymously here?

    Or <a href="http://www.leni-riefenstahl.de/eng/photo.html">Leni

    Riefenstahl</a>? Or how about <a

    href="http://www.patriagrande.net/mexico/tina.modotti/fotos.htm">Tina

    Modotti</a>? Or some things by <a href="http://www.edward-

    weston.com/edward_weston_nudes.htm>Edward Weston</a> like <a

    href="http://www.edward-

    weston.com/images/Edward_Weston_Nude/Nude_New%

    20Mexico_1937_large.jpg">this</a> or <a href="http://www.edward-

    weston.com/images/Edward_Weston_Nude/Nude_1924_Tina_on_the_Asotea_lar

    ge.jpg">this</a>, or (a natural study) <a href="http://www.edward-

    weston.com/images/Edward_Weston_Natural/Pelican%20on%20Sand,%201942%

    20PL42-BI-1.jpg">this</a>?

     

    Would their work have survived the photo club marginalization?

    This is only an issue because my membership is about to lapse, and

    I'm probably not going to renew for several reasons, among the

    others being that after years and years photo.net admins are still

    favoring U.S. based photogs in payment policy (and I'm not going

    through the week or two of hell to get my non-US credit card to play

    nice with Paypal, when Paypal only changes the rules every few

    months so the card won't work). Odd that you can pay for space

    upgrades with an international bank draft, but not memberships.

     

    The other thing is the attitude of the management toward dissent.

    Its often snippant and a bit flippy. As such, I'm not surprised that

    many of the people that are attracted to this site are of a similar

    ilk.

     

    Photo club marginalization, fairly low levels of customer service,

    and semi-abusive (at times, I've seen incredible posts from the same

    people who are nasty as hell to customers at times) management. Boy,

    THAT makes me want to spend a week or two in order to find a way to

    renew my membership.

     

    Damn, and I TRIED not to complain, and failed (well, at least the

    thought was there). Anyway, just some observations...call me crazy

    if you must, just don't call me Shirley ;-) :-).

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