billysyk

<p>When you lightpaint your canvas is your frame. If you have never painted start painting<br />and see everything as the metaphor for that. First of all as you would paint the background<br />comes first, the foreground comes second. So dark background bright foreground or the<br />opposite depending what you want to express. You can lightpaint night or day. It is just <br />that during the day you will be needing stacked or non stacked good quality 10stop ND filters<br />to simulate night (again if you are starting with dark background). You always prefer a cloudy<br />day from a sunny day for lightpainting if you have that dark background. It helps with the ND<br />filters. Next comes your imagination. Anything can be a tool, since you are in pitch black, and<br />depending on the time you give your shot, the light that the sensor/film will absorb depends<br />on what you have lit more with your lighting equipment. If you are lightpainting interiors you <br />require small led torches. If you are lightpainting exteriors you require bigger led torches.<br />You start counting your light with lumens/ansi and then (again) if you are during daylight you<br />must think of winning the sunlight, otherwise it would be darkness where small led torches <br />do the trick. Again what you paint and how is based on your technique and style. You could <br />do literally anything. Stencil, replication of things, it's only up to you. Do not stop in swirling<br />the light torches around with a rope making balls, or playing with that dangerous wool that <br />might set your hair on fire :-) Start painting not just drawing. Experiment with coloured glasses<br />to paint surfaces with the source of light looking away from the lens and you will start seeing<br />wonders. I babbled enough. Good luck!</p>

<p>I would like to contribute with some suggestions on the subject of gallery photos.</p>

<p>A user of Photo.net who shares his gallery with other photo.net users, awaits for<br /> some critiques from other users to leave and rate his/her image. The rating system<br /> of photo.net guarantees a fair display space with the multi selection of top photos,<br /> top photographers etc. but again in photos that either took a specific amount of<br /> rates/critiques, or a specific rate value in comparison to other photos of the specific<br /> timeframe.</p>

<p>The problem is that whole galleries of photographers are majorly inactive and not<br /> in the "train" of the rate/critique forum due to the system's inability to display photos<br /> of older weeks/months. <br /> On the other hand users/members that are frequent posters try to have more and<br /> more a better "run" on that train being overly "6/6 bravo! - copy-pasters" so to have<br /> a better recognition and psychological boost (along with their "friendly" rates).<br /> The anti-raters of multiple (even paid) accounts make an even more un-fair situation<br /> to this although the sincere and best efforts on photo.net's side to fight this.</p>

<p>So for example a member that posts a number of 1000 copy paste 6/6 bravo remarks<br /> in a month time frame has a better and "unfair" display value than of the five year<br /> members that are not in a skill to critisize fairly or in a position to allow time to give<br /> 1000 critiques and remarks on 1000 photos in a sincere and truthful way to give<br /> sincere remarks on some photos.</p>

<p>The result is that hundred thousand photos that took even rates of 5 and more but<br /> not had the necessary rates because of the rate number ratio due to the inactiveness<br /> the system self generates with the above mentioned problems, make galleries not<br /> visited, cause of the mono-schematic rating system.<br /> Real constructive critiques are rarely seen making photo.net more than a place for<br /> few bravo copy-pasters and haters, than of that photo.net founders had in mind<br /> "in building community we value members who make constructive critisism and helpful<br /> assistance to other members"</p>

<p>Half of photo.net's subjects are based upon this enormous gallery and its photos of<br /> photographers, professionals, prosumers and consumers, yet this constructive<br /> critisism is not valued with an award of some kind or a monthly contest of critiques<br /> based on technical issues on a photo, or lighting or else.</p>

<p>Another solution would be on the place of members to pay for constructive critiques<br /> without rating, on a technical point of view, rather than artistical, cause that would even<br /> worsen the things. Skilled professional photographers would make the time consuming<br /> part with a fee, making constructive judging on technical aspects of photos, without<br /> knowing who the photographer is, making this way impossible to be accused for biased<br /> opinions due to specific rating or other issue. The number of "judges" could be 3 making<br /> 3 people paid instead of one having the photographer choose the number of his/her<br /> "judges"</p>

<p>Random image generator should stir images from various photo.net users, but weeks,<br /> months, years older, being a critique forum by itself with much larger data to share<br /> to newcomers and not only...</p>

<p>Rating system should have a sincere restructure based on true ratings and constructive<br /> critiques, as indeed this would help both members and photo.net altogether.</p>

<p>I hope my general P.O.V. is expressed and ideas explained. In any case the subject I<br /> know is old and maybe a little (or a big) cliche. The ideas I hope to have helped to<br /> revive the steam engine of photo.net as I see it, and I too hope to have made<br /> some constructive suggestions...</p>

<p>thank you in advance</p>

<p>I succeeded after 20 times to log in, tried using Tools->Options->Load Images Automatically (deseleting it) and reloading the page. Yesterday I couldnt log in for the second time...I thought it was only my browsers fault or sth...its a bit a matter of luck...I hope it will vanish when I sign in next time...</p>

 

the late arrangement such as the next before button in the gallery of someone while also in the critique forum is

just great. you cant imagine how great it is. there are very positive things going on lately although the mass is

not very talkative due to the rating problem. but the site is getting better and better bravo

quote

but if someone subsequently publishes that image unaware of your 'authorship' (as the term is used), then they would get off scott free.

 

there is a logic that everything comes from someone. The use of any electronic data came from some person who was the creator. In software the terms are freeware, shareware, trialware, license and normal software. In images (photos in this case) there are from a photographer. When someone uses a photo for use in the internet he must know that this photographer must had an effort of somekind to create and distribute in some specific way this photo. The least thing someone should do is know the name of the photographer so to (at least) put his/her name at the credits of any use. The free use of noname photos in the internet is causing orphan images. Subsequently servers an their administrators are allies in the fact that they allow noname photos without copyright fall in the regime of "orphanage".

So when someone downloads an image, to re-produce it visually he has done it with thought and carried out logic, without any reconciliation of the photographer though. This is a breach of law In my humble opinion, and the helping hand for this is the administrator of a server that lets any photo without a copyright statement. Would that be technically unfeasible ? I dont think so. Everything is programmable and constructable. It's un-wantable by persons who make grey zones for people without real authority

john :-) As to my knowledge and of what an attorney practising ONLY digital copyright laws told me, and under E.U. legislation, there are several ways to prove an authenticity of your works. First there is the full resolution image. Second there is a series of images along like graphologists say this piece of writing belongs to, there are group of professional photographers assigned by the goverment, to say if the photo is coherent with your previous work. (the one that you posted online and got stolen for example). Watermarking is easy. I cant understand though why you get on the orphan image logic while there is an upload time stamp of that image, the backup image on p.net, the jpeg exif data on the file, while you can shoot raw, while there are the continuing shots before and after the one posted, while the image is not of full resolution and you are the one posted the image at that date and xxx.xxx.xxx number of viewers saw them and witnessed them. Its not only photos there is also a conversation about them. Personally if somebody told me a good photo of mine was his I would chuckle because he/she could make me rich with a good fine in court and advertisement the case might have in local papers. Dont you agree ?

Margaret Bourke White. Because she knew what was the right proportion of truth between human greatness and human evil in creation. She seemed to know what she was doing although being in (many) times of trouble, and she had an inner strength to share.

Being an active helping citizen of the world is one part of being human. Being an active photographer in places where destruction occurs is another. Being both does a better result to the broader sense of humanity cause of the information the photographer brings to the rest of the world with his unique view. He does not vulture his "victims" by clicking. Ciccumstances have done this times and times long ago before the click. It is not the photographers fault if that kid was starving to death. He could have photographed it, and then give it some medical assistance. Or that high protein pills for starving children. Where was that humanitarian aid where the photographer was?

Is the photographer to blame for all the starving chidren also ? Maybe for those anorexic teens ? Or for those AIDS or cancer ready-to-die victims ? He should not have suicided. The jealousy of the vultures that wanted that pulitzer made him die. Real vultures can eat handsome of children. Pen-full vultures can "eat" thousands of children with an attitude.

 

In conclusion the photographer that knows why he is going to places with turmoil with the intention to help informatively and with his unique view, can help indeed a situation to the better due to the information age. If he also helps economically or in another humanitarian way, then nobody can throw stones, especially the ones that have not helped a single soul.

 

Really...who were the ones that said that Carter was the vulture ?

Arguing about a rating system, is about arguing of it's faults. It's no solution to deprive new members of a boost and a general guidance of a merit of a photo of them in a numerical way. True that a solution like a non seen numerical ID as a rater (only paying subscriber), could leave a rate, is a painkiller as also, having a fix number of rates for every person per day. Max 3 sets of every rate so every rater would choose indeed wisely his/her rates.

 

On the other hand many people then wouldn?t have more rates, but yet again they wouldn?t be in the all time list where from this photo.net uses the random selection of showing the best photos on it?s front page. For instance a huge technical decisioned "bug" is when for instance in the Concerts category in the all time greatest photos you can see the "worst" 3.45 nominated photos but NOT the 5.45 ones because they didn?t have enough number of rates ... (unluckily for the persons who didn?t know what time the site traffic was low-so the possible number of rates)

 

So until many things get better in the rating system we must see that it's not a sole subject in mind as the majority agrees that he/she would prefer a critique than 100 rates without a critique

 

The critique system is the one in fault in my opinion. Every critique on every photo should count as a point for the person who made it, in a point system where the higher the critiques the higher his/her rates count on a percentage of the numerical rates on other?s photos

 

Top ?critiquers?, would be evaluated by a group of already worldwide nominated photographers that would, then rate their critique abilities and their photos having a prize other than the one of the photo of the week. The win is multifold both for the "nominated" photographers as they gain more publicity from the thousands of people in photo.net, and on the other hand by adding motivation of other photographers online both from the prize and the words of the ?masters?

 

Then starters would be benefited from the medium class and the higher class from the masters. The masters would be benefited from all and all could be benefited from the online ?classes? of critiques ON the critiquers AND the photos where they critiqued.

 

A win/win solution I think...

 

I hope it made sense and sorry for any typos :-)

yeap it's ok now! :-)

Take the 1ds with that bargain price. Use it, test a 5D also, and if you finally like the 5D, exchange it with the 1ds and some lens you may not want ;-)

same here too...I hope it will be over quick... :-)

A three key riddle :-)

 

When I went to a publisher 2 years ago he was thrilled with my work of a presentation of 40 photos (not presented in my portfolio). He asked me to do a specific kind of presentation of a specific subject and return to him. I still havent gone back because it's difficult to sum up say 300 photos of a specific subject and fill it with comments and info of all kinds.

 

What you can do though is start wondering what sells to your target group. Start asking to yourself to what kind of people do I want to meet everyday to give my photos. If you dont have much PR skills the best thing is to find the kind of people that you like. It may be architects and you could photograph their work or others work of buildings and create portfolios and have them in your briefcase for them to see your work. In a likewise manner gradually you'll have met all sorts of people who (at a specific time point) will like your work.

 

In the meantime you need practise, study of photos of Masters and trying to see your photos like they werent yours. Do you really like them ? What is that you dont like about them and why the buyer didnt also like it?

 

Finding the golden mean between what is art and what sells as art is a key to success but not the only key. This month is filled with bands for me while three months ago I was selling b/w work for restaurant walls and gifts for friends and people around me...

 

Again thinking that what you have is good is not good enough. In reality it will never be good enough for everybody, and in order to have a selling success, knowledge of what sells in what target group is the second key.

 

The third key is totally in your hand. :-)

Many simple good solutions exist. 1) anonymous ratings to anonymous photos for 24h in the critique forum 2) 3/3 and 7/7 MUST have a usefull comment like the ones Photo.net pursue for newer photographers to read and learn 3) Min-Max rates per person per month (avoiding both hate&mate rating) 4) It would be nice to get critiques from photographers with 20+ years of experience and have them as critique writers with their rates having a bigger "weight" on the total score (of the same subject-style if possible). For Instance Art Meripol could be the lead critique man and the second could be the best already rated photographer for concerts category having the obligation of this "position" to write a few words on EVERY photo in concerts category. If not obligated then payed to be a critique person? Then a duscussion on a technical level could start on to where or what some photos could have better so the newer ones could be improved.

 

Anyway Bob is right. Learning to take good photos is not the subject with this numerical system. Nevertheless they have thought of it and many will be happy, after some time...

There is a review somewhere in photo.net that sais that MF is beaten by Canon EOS1MarkIID (if I remember correctly). So the question is when LF will be beaten by digital SLR's or anything, and in what time frame by the market "holders". Great discussion! (thanks for the tech ASPC MPix's VS MF)

Well the argument with the friend of mine was about if a photo must carry a message. My friend sais that if it has a message it is not a photo. A photo for my friend is just a frame of view in time nothing else. For instance we were talking about Henri Cartier Bresson and he was telling me ok, ask the persons that they say that a photo has a message, what message THIS photo has (and he shows me this photo of HCB)

http://www.dienes-and-dienes.com/CBManLeaping.jpg

 

For me all photo's carry some message especially if it's in a human centered model. My first posts say exactly how this all started and I felt compelled as a new (relatively) photographer, to ask if I get something wrong to fix it from the start. (Besides a stich in time saves nine)

In onrder for someone to be hurt internally it has to touch his/her feelings, may be for ethical, religion, family etc. reasons.

 

Let's say I paint the figure of someone's mother doing whatever you can imagine, for a "bad" deed, wouldnt this be art and would I be hurting someone ?

 

In a larger scale if I sketch a God of a religion with not a regular depiction holding a Berreta or a riffle wouldnt I hurt many's feelings ?

 

In a much larger scale, if I painted a Map saying this to be the borders of a country to be expanded for instance, wouldnt that be a provocative paint of more than three countries to be lessened ?

 

Trying to blame the medium is not the answer but rather, trying to understand why the maker of the medium used that way of delivering a hurt generating figure

 

So pornography cant cause rape, it's like asking if a VHS cassete can rape humans, pornography cant cause men to stop wanting real girls, because there is no real and fake girls, just meters made by the fashion industry or yet, by plastic doll designers in the starting of our century. Fashion dolls for children dont have bone structure analogies. That's where the problem with anorexia begins IMO. because if you see the standards of beauty in ancient Greece were far from thiny skinny women, or the 18th Century to say an example.

 

So when little girls grow up they want a successful John John for instance and they imagine to be princesses with all the wealth of the world and body analogies of dolls or movie stars nowadays.

 

And a personal story to close this first post, is some months ago my ex-girlfriend was sitting in front of TV crying and I thought she was seeing some soap opera. She was looking at FTV and she was crying because she couldnt have a dress of 150000 euros (I couldnt understand why it costed so much and why it was made by a car designer-saab.)

 

I couldnt believe it at start when she told me, and it was the beggining of our break up. Mental illness is not always inherent in someone but it can be generated by social standards that come along with glam and money standards...(some of the times)

When someone pointed at the moon the other was looking at the finger.

 

No matter to me if it's fake or not. It can possibly be original.

 

And the possibility in a chaotic system as the one we live carries yet another one as a possible message. The extreme diet of dancers. What would be the difference if there was a depiction of the starving children of the third world, the ready to die people from cancer, the ready to die people from this and that. What is moving is not the subject, but the knowing of the mortality in flesh and bones alive knocking the door of ourselves while we dress death cheerfully. That is for me the paradox message sent (if there's a message anyway anyhow).

 

The girl is looking at us saying with her eyes, now I'll be dying soon what you look is the result of your idealized world of dancing bodies, where mental sickness begins. Goodbye you sick world, I'm dancing my way out

There was a photo of mine, that was titled Alien MMS message, and showed a graphic representation of a cellphone behind a plexiglass bus stop advertising place, where on the foreground and stuck on the plexiglass was a sticker stuck exactly on the background where the graphic represantation had the screen of the cellphone, with a face of an alien that said "we have control". I felt this was funny to capture, and when he saw it he told me that this is not a photographical photo, because it carried a message... and then where's the argument began :-)

So to summarize everybodys thoughts and put it in a mixer to get a more whole truth until now, photographs carry a message in their "context" not in their meaning, and if honest most of the times the title can make the message more profound to the viewer but not necesserilly biased.

 

hm ?

...and that is for the predisposition of the viewers thoughts and the photo to be honest...part of Thomas's answer...

In response to Thomas without quoting this time :-) I will ask if the title always play any role in the photo's subject if that exists, or it doesnt. For instance in Judy Ben Joud's photo with the title "Curiosity"

http://www.photo.net/photo/3738878 the message is not really curiosity for me but a whole comic story :-) although there was not only the title and the saying that curiosity killed the cat as we already know the cat wasnt killed after all! :-)

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there's no way on God's green earth a person will know what your message is, unless an explanation is printed under the print you hang on the wall or maybe a cryptic title would be considered helpful; predisposition.

====================================================================

 

So you mean that a profound message is there only if there is an explanation printed underneath or else, there's no way on God's green earth a person will know what the message is ? :-)

Ironically he's shooting mostly street photo! (for more than 20 years!)

I had an argument the other day with a dear friend of mine who happens to be of

the old Tri-x days, and is beggining to see the wonders of digital era, when, we

got into the point of photos having messages or not.

 

So as a new photographer I am left wondering if a photograph should leave a

message, or be as it is, a photograph, that is without any messages.

My gut sais it should leave a message, or some unique perspective of something.

But my friend sais a photo is a photo, it isnt meant to carry messages.

 

Of course, many would say that a landscape, a sunset, a fly or a butterfly do

not carry meesages in a macro shot or a telephoto zoom one, but, the subject is

not only about profound images of terra-earth and the living subjects on it, but

rather, more, one on a human-centered orientation...

 

So, the question is here, and I would be pleased to see views on this subject.