billfoster

KISS! Stick with HTML and make that minimal. I suggest this because (a)many if not most of your clients may not know much about computers and .PDF or something else will jsut confuse them (resulting in your message not being read) and (b) many people are security concious. They won't open a file, even if it's not executable (I generally don't unless I know and trust the sender) and they probably have their email set to block pictures. IE or Firefox may be set to block Active X or java ... all of these will stop your message from getting through. Concentrate on meaningful, useful content and don't worry too much about the presentation ... they can see your web site for that.

Thank you Ben S. for another worthwhile and thoughtful response with coonstructive advice. Look, Randall, low ratings and no comments suck. I just uploaded a collage of three shots of a kayaker going over a waterfall and it's got a 3 averge for originality, which is odd when I've never seen anything like it here and I've rated 16,000+ pics. Furthermore, it only has one comment and that was posted before I put it up for critique. You can't get mad about it and you can't worry about it. If those seven people see it as a "3" then perhaps it's not as good as I thought it was. Or, perhaps it is and I need to have more confidence in my judgement. Either way. it does no good to to whine about groups that "attack photos." I don't think it happens like that. Most people rate honestly and some people didn't like my photo. I'll get over it.

 

I am getting really concerned about all this worry about 3/3 marks. It used to be that you could give 1s and 2s, evidently you can't anymore. So now, people are upset about 3/3s. All a 3/3 says is: "It was a little below average; it didn't appeal to me." I saw one of the highest rated photographers on PhotoNet who posted an (admittedly spectacular) photo and it got 1 (!) - JUST ONE - 3/3 out of 70 + rates and he wrote a snide comment about "morons" who rate 3/3 and don't leave comments. I thought, "How big is this guy's ego?" and immediately lost a good bit of respect for him. How is one mark of "below average" out of 70 + ratings not within the acceptable range of opinion? People have opinions and someone didn't like it; they are not obligated to explain it and perhaps they can't. But for this guy, 70 ratings of 6.5 or so weren't good enough. He had to focus on one 3/3. We have to all stop being so damn sensitive about this stuff.

 

In other words, if you want mandatory comments, then do it! Join Five, make yourself write comments - MEANINGFUL COMMENTS - each day. We don't need the administrators to enforce this. That will just lead to a bunch of "Nice shot" comments that don't mean or teach anything. Lead by example. If everyone on this site who complained about the lack of comments did so, than there wouldn't be a problem.

First, get out of Gatlinburg! It's tourist toxin! Second, be aware of the weather. 41" (164 cm) of snow in the peaks yesterday. Be aware that the Blue Ridge parkway, the Roaring Forks Motor nature Trail and the Clingman's Dome road are all closed in the winter, till March at least. The main road through the park (441) opens and closes with the weather. You can get to Clingman's Dome, but it's a 7 mile hike each way ... watch the weather! The Clingman's Dome road starts at Newfound gap, in the center of the park at the TN/NC border. The views from there can be great. Tonight and tomorrow, there should be a full moon. You can watch the moon rise on one side just as the sunsets on the other. Incredible!

 

Cade's cove is overphotographed but unmissable. Check out Tipton Farm, the Mill and the Oliver Cabin. If you have time, the hike to Abrahams Falls (on the far west end of the Cade's Cove loop) rewards you with one of the best falls in the park. A strenuous hike (8 mile round trip but hard) is Ramsey Cascades. You start from Greenbriar. They are about 100 feet high and ice covered this time of year. Spectacular. The aforementioned Chimney top is crowded, but nice.

 

Less crowded spots include Big Creek (east side of 40) with the beautiful Midnight Hole and Mouse Creek Falls and Treemont (easily accessible and beautiful streams and cascades).

 

Don't stick to the park though. Try Burgess Falls and Fall Creek Falls (about two hours east in central TN) or Bald River Falls (one of the most beautiful and accessible falls in TN). Great views from the tower on Look Rock (just off the Foothills Parkway but may be difficult with current weather).

 

Lastly, don't miss Knoxville! Tune your radio to 89.9 (WDVX) to hear great independent, local, bluegrass and country. Try to grab a beer and a pizza at Barley's in the Old City (go on Sunday when you can see Robinella, a great local "jazzgrass" band) or get a brunch as Sunspot on "the strip" (Cumberland Av).

 

Obviously, I live here. You can see some local shots in my portfolio and feel free to email me (billyverona@hotmail.com) if you need any more info.

First, great idea, Daivd. I would love to see that and I see nothing wrong with us being able to comment on the slection process. That isn't the main point though, it would just be nice to be exposed to a few more nice pics that slipped through the TRP cracks.

 

Second, doesn't haggis have scotch in it somehow also? Tasted it once .... I finished my plate but I'm in no hurry to find another plate.

For once ... I'm not in agreement with Carl (although I am looking forward to the cup). Ocean Physics nailed it. Embarrased for the the Hawks, the Steelers, the refs and the stones ... this was the first Superbowl I could watch at home at the normal time in 17 years. What a disappointment! However, Wison, that was absolutely pass interference (if you extend your arms they will always call it) and the touchdown was doubtful but it didn't meet the standard of "indisputable visual evidence" to overturn it. And, Holmgreen is a TERRIBLE game day coach. Fortunately for us here on PN, Seattle will lose Alexander next year and probably a couple offensive lineman, than you can spend your playoff Sundays adding to that brillant portfolio of yours!

Sounds like you have a handle on the plantations, but I just visited there ... not a native. Some some film (or megabytes) for the downtown area houses also, though. I was particularly impressed with Rainbow Row, a set of colorful townhouses (go in the morning as they are backlit in the evening) and with all the large houses on the bay. I was there last July (smokin' hot) but it should be gorgeous in March.

When you resize the photo, make sure that you are resampling it also (In PS or Elements, there is box you check in the resize photos dialog). Then, size it at around 1000 pixels wide. You can go a bit bigger or smaller as you desire. Pay attention to vertical pictures, usually you will only want to go about 600 wide on those. These numbers are for posting pictures on your site. If you want to comment on someone else's photo and insert a photo, it should be about 300 pixels wide.

I had a 1280 and eventually sold it to a friend when I upgraded to the R1800. I'm not sure it WAS an upgrade. The 1800 is nice, but so was the 1280. It was a great printer, as the fact that Epson is still supporting it demonstrates. As far as noise, I would say it was in the middle. It's not going to run you out of the room, but I wouldn't call it quiet, particularly in text mode.

Well, at least now I know what is going on and have an answer to something that has been puzzling me for weeks. In fact, I have posted questions on the forum concerning this and I wish a moderator had been kind enough to explain to me what was going on. It used to be that every photo I posted got 10 rates, maybe more, but 10 at minium. Now, five seems to be a minimum and I feel like they are not being seen and I don't have a chance to get helpful feedback. Only a certain (low) percentage of people provide useful comments; we need more views in order to increase the chances of getting useful information. I agree with Louis that they threw the baby out with the bathwater on this one. While I appreciate that nudes no longr dominate the RRA section of the TPR, it's not worth the tradeoff to me.

I've given up on trying to understand this. I had my highest rated picture ever recently, which atttracted 25 ratings but for some quirk it never made it onto the TRP even though it was more highly rated than any of the pictures there. Surprisingly, I found that I really didn't care. I got a lot of comments and a lot of good feedback and that is much more important.

 

I am more concerend with the number of times that I submit a picture and it gets say 5 or 6 ratings, acceptable ratings of say 5.5, and that's it. It just stops. It seems to happen quite often and I don't care about the numbers but I want to get feedback and that only happens if people see the picture and it doesn't seem as if very many people see it.

 

So, I understand your frustration. I understand that the administrators cannot please everybody and I think they do a good job all in all, but people complain about this all the time and I think the adminsitrators are a bit jaded about it. Oh, it's just us customers whining about ratings again .... but, I do believe there is a serious problem here and I wish they would look at it.

I have noticed this phenomena myself and commented upon it before. First, I want to say that I have no problem with nude photography. I enjoy looking at it and I don't think it's my place - or anyone else's - to judge what is and isn't art. I would not censor anything on the site if it were up to me. That said, I realize that not everyone feels that way and I think that the administrators could do a better job of segregating some of it. It's not censorship to ensure that it doesn't just pop up unexpectedly. In particular, I don't think nudes should appear when you open the critique forum. People go there with children or at work and shouldn't have to deal with that. I don't go to PN at work for just that reason.

 

However, as someone noted, this is a private site and it's driven by clicks and the nude girls bring views. I just went through all the Top Photo sections and the numbers are quite interesting (BTW, this is a GREAT way to find a lot of great photos that have slipped into PN obscurity). As of right now only one of the top 50 photos as sorted by "Rate Recent Average" is a nude (and it is quite tasteful showing only the side of a breast). It didn't used to be that way. A couple months ago, the administrators did something to the system and nudes began to appear much less frequently in the RRA, which is the default setting. There were about five nudes at the top of the RRA top photos a day or two ago, but that was, I believe, the result of someone gaming the system. So, I think we should thank the administrators for responding and at least getting the RRA right.

 

However, if you search by "Sum", which shows the pictures that are attracting the most ratings, 17 of the top 50 are currently nudes. That is not too bad, it has been as high as 40 of 50 and I have seen the whole top 30 be nudes before.

 

What is really interesting is when you go back in time. With the RRA for the year 45 of 50 are nudes. 1 year ago: 29 0f 50. 2 Years ago 12 of 15.

 

With the sum for the year: 47 of 50. 1 year ago: 44 of 50. 2 years ago 9 of 50. 3 years ago: 3 of 50. 4 years ago: 4 of 50 and 5 years ago: 1 of 50.

 

Just to finish it off, if you sort by "all," 44 of 50 Sum are nudes and 31 of 50 under the RRA.

 

What I find interesting here is that it seems as if the prevelance of nudes here is a recent development. 3, 4, 5 years ago, you don't see the prominence of nudes. It seems as if it began about 2 years ago and now it does seem to drive the site in terms of views and clicks.

 

Of the most interesting people (the people who are on the most interesting people lists) 8 of the top 10 have nudes and seven of those eight specialize in them. 20 of the top 30 feature nudes (I didn't look past there). NOTE: Everyone of them is a FABULOUS photographer. Of them, I only saw one who wasn't. He is on over 800 lists and his folder is just shots of 1 woman with nothing particularly skilled in the setup of photography.

One thing I just learned ... screen names are Unix based so they are case sensitive. JohnSmith is NOT the same name as johnsmith. Spaces can be a problem as they are rendered as %20. Therfore, if you have a space in your name, it can lead to a situation where the link will work if they click on it, but not if typed in (and - to confuse things further, only on some systems). To avoid confusion, I would recommend something with no spaces and no caps.

I'm not familiar with the Martin Evening book but I have the Scott Kelby book and I have never been disappointed with his books. WHy?

 

1. I think that, in general, he offers a good mix of beginner and advanced knowledge, along with some useful little tricks.

 

2. He goes through things step by step and explains each procedure from the beginning. So, you can pick up and start anywhere in the book if you want to experiment with something.

 

3. He usually offers quality pictures with everything in color. It makes the books cost a bit more but there is nothing worse than reading a section on color management with B & W pictures!

 

4. He is that rarest of creatures, an actualy skilled and funny technical writer.

A quick note to Brad ... don't be so sure about not shooting in Kosovo. I don't know why you are going but I was there with NATO and didn't plan to do anything but work. Instead, I wound up buying a camera while there and becoming serious. There are remarkable sites in Pec, Gracinika, and Decani among others. The mountains are incredible. Take your camera if possiblle!

I agree with you ... but I wonder how many of the people you refer to think of themselves as artists? Keep in mind that the vast majority of people on the site are amatuers and I imagine that there is a curve in photography where one becomes more artisitc as one grows more experienced (although perhaps some people move the opposite way, striving for more realism). The thing that makes photography so different from any other form of art is that photography can be art or it can be a simple recording device and the two are often intermingled.

 

I don't think that one can arrive at a point where one can definitivly say that one has mastered the technical side and can now concentrate on the artisitc side. There is a balance.

 

I can only speak for myself, but I find that as I have learned more (I have only been doing this for 2 years) I have definitely come to apppreciate more abstract things and more "artistic" things. But, I also came into this having spent a lot of time reading and studying art (although I was never any kind of artist) and I do think that a knowledge of visual art helps. It reminds me of when I was playing guitar and the instructors would always tell you to listen to saxaphone or violin players for ideas.

 

You ask how many of us go to exhibitions? But I wonder how many of us actually critique photos here on the site with an eye towards thinking why a picture works and looking for emotional impact, not just technique? Do many people seek to learn from PN in that manner, by looking at some of the really marvelous shooters here and wondering what makes them so good?

Thanks for showing that. Haven't heard of him but I loved it.

 

What struck me is how much the pictures depend upon on each other. THe first few set a mood and get you looking for the "hook," which isn't always obvious. Some of the pictures wouldn't be near as good if taken out of context. I think he put a lot of thought into the order of these pictures. Anyway, quite good. Thanks again.

B Diamond:

 

I actually agree with every word you wrote in the last post. For me, advertising before movies was a sacred boundary and crossing it has pissed me off so badly that I don't go to theaters that do it (there are still a few here that don't). I agree that pop-ups that take over the site are incredibly annoying and I prefer to avoid sites tht use them too much. I think Brian might want to re-think the aperture ad. That said, here we are all discussing Aperature and to a advertising execs way of thinking, there is no bad publicity.

 

That said and as much as I agree with you and like the way you express yourself, there is no excuse, none, for not subscribing. Photonet is not a free site. It's free to try but you are expected to subscribe. I understand that you feel that time invested in forum postings, advice to to others or whatever is a form of payment, but it doesn't work like that. You can't go to your local store and just start sweeping the floor and then say "Give me some merchandise." The user agreement here is that if you can pay, then you should pay. You don't pay to get benefits like more storage space or less advertising; that's just a bonus. You pay because it's not free. You pay because it's a good site - beloved in fact - and you are using it and you have to support it. In PN, we have a rare resource that's not run by some huge media corporation. It's a small group of dedicated people who have found a way to make a living by providing us with a service we enjoy. They deserve your support and any excuse not to provide it is just .. as noted previously ... rationalization.

Exactly, Thomas!

 

Elis, you say that when something stops being intriguing or interesting for you, it stops being art. That's all well and good, but as soon as a new person walks in your house and sees the photo that's no longer art for you (but you were too lazy to take down), it's art for him. So, we run into a situation where we have a descriptive word, a noun, that is one person says it fits and another says it doesn't. We can't disdain projects or work that we find banal or over-the-top or beyond our own imaginations by saying they are not art. We can call them bad art or unworthy art or just plain crap art ... but they are still art. Michael says a photo can be very good but not be art ... how? Someone will like it and if it is art to someone, then it is art to everyone.

 

The problem is that we are all still using the word "art" as if it carried positive connotations in and of itself and we use it that way in everyday language. When we see beautful car or girl or fishing pole, we can say, "Man, that's a work of art." Over the years, the word has evolved into a term that carries praise. But, it cannot be that way for artists. We (to the limited degree that I am an artist) have to acknowledge that art is simply a descriptive word that describes some kind of creative endeavour with intent and purpose behind it. All of the definitions above are definitions not of art, but of good art. For example, Chris says "Art addressess the eternal questions." No. But ... how 'bout "Good art addresses the eternal questions." Figuring out what is or isn't art for you, our subject, means figuring out what is or isn't good art for you.

 

BTW, love the comment about the frame and there is real validity there, I think. I read a post on a picture here - don't remember which one - where the poster talked about how a frame defines the image and the power of this. Not just the frame around the photograph, but the frame that you create when you take a photo by isolating a particular object. For example, the above mentioned urinal is, in a way, framed by the act of taking it out of it's normal context and making you look at it in a different way. Photography is about framing and that is art.

 

Whether it's good art is another story ....

Again though, isn't a test a search for a definition? Isn't that what a test is for: a way to find out what something is and define it's parameters? And, Jim's test seems to me to say "If you like it, it's art." A photgraph is art whether it intrigues you or not. The level of intigue is merely a level of like.

 

The problem with his test is that if applied publically, then artists who aren't "liked" don't get funding or shown or whatever.

Bill J: you are correct that Elis' definition relates to art as it applies to one's personal tastes." However, that definition still includes the word "art"; you can't have a definition that includes itself! :-) "Art as it relates to one's personal tastes" is just another way of saying he likes it or he doesn't and Elis' definition of art is just a definiton of whether or not he likes it.

 

BTW: if the elephant somehow randomly wlked through a paint factory, maybe it wouldn't be art but if someone (perhaps ... an artist) laid out a REALLY big canvas and put the paint there and convinced the elephant to walk through it, wouldn't it then be art and the elephant just be a particularly smelly and and ill-tempered brush?

I've never tried it, but I believe that if you create a folder and then go to option - edit folder and sequence, you can set the sequence number to "0" or to a negative number and the folder will not be visible to other members.

I doubt this applies, but thought I'd pitch in. I have seen this problem with laptops when people have failed to turn off the touchpad.

The problem with this theory is that it assumes that "art" is an adjective ... menaing it's interesting, emotional, pretty, whatever art is for you. But, art is a noun. Art simply is. If someone creates something, it's art. Now, we can then debate whether it is interesting or menaingful but even if it isn't, it's till art. I hate to admit that the Hallmark greeting card type crap my Mom collects is art like I hate to admit that Toby Keith makes music ... but, these are descriptive words and they fit. This argument reminds me of music arguments over what is and isn't "jazz." It's all art just like anything from Kenny G to Coltrane is jazz. It's just not all good.

I have the 1800 and have gone through about 5 sets of cartridges so far with no clogging, or indeed, any problems.

 

That said, I bought it right before the 2400 came out (or at least right before I heard about it) and, in retrospect, I wish I had gotten the 2400. Even if the cost is more, I think that the higher one buys up the technology curve, the happier one is for longer. The 2400 is faster, quieter is at least equal for color and far superior for B & W. I love my 1800, but I wish I had waited a bit and researched more.

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