DickArnold

Go to DP review any day to get the latest industry news in detail on the opening pages of the site and read the large number of gear reviews they do on new equipment. Their forums are extensive and provide a significant amount of information. They are not near as collegial as PN IMO. It takes financial resources and staff to stay up with and compete for new members with either site. Both sites have much broader coverages that today add to my knowledge. Neither one is afflicted with entropy. I am of the opinion that PN is slowly expiring of entropy. I am not saying I like either site better than photonet but they have the wherewithal to grow and survive and stay abreast of the very broad and interesting subject of photography. I stay abreast of what is happening elsewhere these days as do former PN users that are no longer here. I go here for discussion. I reiterate that Photo Net is a business and without significant expanion it will not either catch up with what is happening elsewhere or compete or effectively compete for new members. I would guess our PN demographic is uncomfortably old. I am trained in organizational dynamics and functioned effectively in that area in my former profession. You cannot fix an organization unless you face the truth. It would be very interesting to see the financials of PN compared to other sites. The best measure of that truth, IMO, is financial strength . Yes, Tim, sadly, I learn a lot more about photography elsewhere these days. .

I came to photonet about ten years ago because I wanted to learn; and I have learned a lot but not so much recently. In my opinion PN has fallen into entropy and is not competitive. It is, after all a business and has to generate cash flow to survive. I have operated my own photo business and every day I owned it my primary thoughts were to marketing and the bottom line. DPreview and Fred Miranda along with other sites have invested in expanding technical capability but most of all have generated the cash flow to stay abreast of the competition. As with Julie I really like the in depth discussions and the friends I have made over the years. Alas, as time has gone on, many of those people who used to make this site robust have left here. I no longer make daily visits here. In my opinion the survival of photonet is up to management and the resources they are willing to put into being competitive and to expand membership. This is true in almost any business and PN is a business.

David. I agree with you. I like to post pictures but have given up after posting some 170 pictures in my gallery here as other sites function better. Although I think DPreview is somewhat biased, it works better and I get a lot of information there because of better UI and broader content. Fred Miranda is a little difficult to use because of dated UI but the regulars seem very comfortable with it. My preference is for a simple direct interface and not to have to reduce my pictures to 700 dpi on the long side which I won't do any more. I think these picture posting functions should be done in background on the site rather my having to do reductions so as to post in the Canon picture weekly forum. Better yet the site should readily handle larger pixel content in pictures. Go to FM to see nicely done large pictures where one can much better discern quality. Whether one likes it or not, DP is a roaring success because of decent UI, a big staff and decent income based on growing photo business support. I rather doubt that PN can really compete in the long run. A new format will not stop growing entropy. The aging complacent membership is a result not the cause of ineffective managment. It is and has been because of inadequate investment in the personnel and marketing resources to develop this site. The new members are elsewhere because of better, more aggressive management by an active competition;

When I did weddings at the end of the film era I carried three Bronica Bodies, 6 or 8 backs, winders, viewfinders, rolls of 120 and 135 film etc., plus 2 canon bodies, lenses, as well as two canon flashes and two Vivitar 283s. They took up three bags. I did a substantial number of weddings with this gear. This was done solo as I was too tight to hire an assistant. Loading backs was an issue but I always found time to do it. I did formals with the Bronicas and Candids with the Canons. I took the film to a processor the Monday after the weekend weddings and delivered an album of proofs to the customer within two weeks. I cashed out my business as digital came on because my weddings wore me out and I am no Spring chicken.

I had retired from my profession and settled in a seaside town. I had been taking Medium Format pictures while working overseas on aviation matters before I retired. The local newspaper did a story on my retirement. Their overworked photographer came to photograph us as we moved in. She saw some of my Russian pictures and she and her editor asked me if I would like to work for the paper. It was all black and white with development done in a little space in a darkroom below a stairwell. Who knows what bad stuff we inhaled in there We made contact sheets and blew the selections up 5x 7s for layout. Shortly after I started one of the employees was getting married and her photographer backed out of the wedding three days before the date. I stepped in never, ever had done a wedding. It was a small wedding and the pictures came out quite well. I put some pictures up in the newspaper lobby and I got two weddings out of that. This was still in the film days. This grew into an active business that lasted for several years as I learned how to do weddings. There was little competition and my fees were quite reasonable. I had come from a high pressure job and this little business turned into a high pressure job in and of itself. Actually, on 9- 11 I was processing two weddings for albums. I hated waiting for prints from my processor. No instant gratification. It finally dawned on me that this was not why I retired and as a solo business as it was taking a lot of time. Why was I beating my brains out. So I cashed out the business. I did like working for the paper.

Bronica P lenses. Plus 2. I used Bronica 50, 75, and 90mm PE lenses for weddings. They were rated very highly against Leica and Leitz at the time.

Julie. I respect your approach to learning photography and it must deliver a lot of satisfaction. I am old, 84, but fit and still very active with photography. My profession was aviation for over 40 years. My retired profession was a photo business that I ran for several years. I still shoot a lot of organized sports. The most humbling thing about getting this old is the realization that it is impossible for me to ever learn enough about either subject and it was important for my staying alive in aviation to be eclectic. I realized from this thread today that if I preset my camera with auto ISO etc.. I would not have to fumble with it when I pulled it out of the bag while I was on my walks around the harbor. I should have thought of this as it is so simple but I didn't. I also learned that gaining knowledge from others by listening was the most important thing I could do as an aviation executive. The same was true when I was propelled into wedding photography by an odd circumstance. I needed help when I started. This is one of the best threads I have seen on PN in quite awhile. I come here to learn from others.

I shoot a few thousand swim meet pictures a year in venues big, like Harvard and smaller. I go along with Jeff Spirer about pointing and shooting. When I shoot fly or breaststroke, being a swimmer myself, I move up and down with the swimmer to anticipate when the head comes out of the water so as to predict the apogee of swimmer's rise and anticipate it. When I do 10fps on starts I point the camera where I think the swimmer will be when leaving the block and then hold the shutter down for four or five shots hoping i have kept the subject in the frame. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. One has to keep the shutter speed up to avoid blur. The pictures I take while a swimmer is.underwater don't come out well. I like to shoot tight to catch agony and I love to have lots of flying spray, in focus, in my images. Back to Jeff's point. I do this unconsciously while doing it. I had to think about it in order to write about it. This is just my own version of esoteric BS. I really don't know what the hell I am doing most of the time let alone analyze tt/

So there is no technical solution to this. It does not happen on any other of the several photo sites I visit. Why is that? Perhaps there is a deeper problem of ownership under funding the purchase of more effective protective software. It goes along with the failure to upgrade the site itself. Entropy is the gradual diminishing of a system leading to subsequent failure of a system through lack of sustaining supportive input to that system.

Look. I have a lawyer and a good one. He would probably charge me a couple of hundred bucks to compose and send a letter stating your contractual rights and possibly prevent further action by the client. It will save you trouble in the long run and may prevent further demand from the client. I speak from experience having had my own photo business. You know the old saying --He who is his own lawyer-------------.

Contact a lawyer in the jurisdiction. This is no place to get legal advice. It is worth a legal bill to get some representation and to get you out of the middle. A letter from a lawyer has some weight.

I am 84 years old. I have done weddings at high noon on a beach in bright sun light. If one uses enough flash and one drags the shutter one can make decent pictures when one cannot find shade. Aside from that I have always done my photographs for my own satisfaction. My wedding customers cared. I still shoot large swim meets. My client swimmers care. I just made two 13x19 prints from a mirrorless that really, really satisfy me. Excellent late afternoon light. I don't need anything more than what I have to keep me happy. If no one else cares I don't much care. Nor did I care to listen to all that sophomoric eye rolling drivel.on the opening. .

If you are going to do weddings in future get a good battery pack to maintain constant reserve for recharge and a decent high capacity flash and then duplicate it for backup. Flash was necessary when I did weddings and I was effective with it in bright sunlight to fill shadows, filling facial shadows, bouncing off walls and ceilings, and controlling direct flash when necessary. Even with a high quality system you must leave time for the flash to re-charge. Batteries have constantly reducing voltage. If you do not have enough juice because of insufficient recovery time for a shot you will not catch up immediately with rapidly following subsequent shots. The above advice about ISO will help reduce the load.

Having spent three years in Thailand and southern Taiwan, I would second the nomination for a mirrorless. I am not advocating this M3 body but it is what I have and what I would use. The body is 24MP with the same sensor as the latest Rebel at only 12 ounces. With it I have the following lenses:18-55, 55-200 at 12 ounces, 11-22 and 22mm f2 for low light. There is a built-in popup flash. The lenses and body weigh about four pounds is a small bag. The lenses are inexpensive, and they are very sharp. I have done my share of sweating in those climes but one gets used to it. I shoot moving birds with a 100-400. It weighs three pounds so does the 70-200. I think the M3 can be a pain as sometimes it still surprises me. There may be better out there but the lenses are really good for their size. They are not that fast save the 22mm. The Canon pictures are sharp and true to color. I can easily carry three lenses with two in my cargo pants and one on the camera. I don't know how one can shoot birds without a 200 or better and that's not long enough most of the time. You may have great short lenses but birds are very small at those focal lengths. The 200M lens is 320 on the crop body and the two of them weigh less than a pound and a half. Maybe you would be happier with less weight. The pictures are usable but certainly not fine art. An EOS M1 would be a cheap and very light backup.

I am an old man. I long ago stopped making high sounding moral judgements about almost anything concerning the arts. I reserve my judgements to those things I experienced during war, particularly the Viet Nam war where 58,000 of my comrades died. That was immoral. McCurry's pictures are arresting. Almost all of mine are not. He is certainly several cuts above me edited or not. I just viewed an exhibition from Holland at a US museum. I make no moral judgements about those that produced that art. It is simply enough for me to bask or lose myself in the exhibition itself. It is simply enough to appreciate viscerally what I see. Dorothea Lange moves me. I simply don't want any picture ruined by someone's so called version of the truth about hers or any other art or photography. .

I am late into this thread and cannot read all of this. Among other things, I am a retired pilot. I have never, ever tried to justify that fact. I just went out and flew airplanes over and over again. Don't call me a photographer, call me anything you would like but I still go out and take pictures over and over again even sometime ago professionally. Taking pictures satisfies a deep, unfilled need in me.

Jeff can't be more clear. I have releases from several models. I can use those pictures commercially. I cannot do the same for those of whom I do not have releases. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Exigent circumstances is not an excuse. How I feel is no excuse. Having worked for a paper editorial use is a reason for not needing a release. Putting peoples unreleased pictures on a card that is for sale is commercial use in the jurisdiction where I live.

I shoot to please myself. I shoot to please others when I shoot swim meets as the pictures are posted and printed to please the swimmers. When I had my photo business I did it to please my customers. When I did weddings I did it to please brides and their very close relatives and to please whoever was paying me. When I worked for a paper I did it to please my editor and those who read the paper. I did high school sports for the paper mostly to please the parents. When I shot for shows I did it to please the judges but I soon disabused myself of that. I have 170 pictures posted here on PN. I don't know whether that has been to please me or the few people here who look at them. Some of them are not very good but I am too lazy to take them down. Most of all I enjoy the human contact between me, the photographer, and the subjects. I think I am somwhat adept at evoking some kind of emotion that shows in the photograph. That gives me great satisfaction.

I found the video Ray the OP posted useful re-enforcement of the way I use LR CC. I actually learned a couple of things despite having used LR since it came out. You guys are all above my pay grade when it comes to philosophical interpretation of truth in imaging. I think I will go back to editing the pictures I took yesterday. Have a nice day all.

" I find it impossible to believe that McCurry did not tell his Photoshopping team what to do - if you worked for him why would you suddenly decide to remove people from a rickshaw photo, " Robin, it is one thing for you to believe on your own through unsupported deduction and another to vet a story for publication. What are your independently verifiable sources for your belief? Can you identify them to lend credence or proof to what you say ? Is your belief newsworthy? If one does not actually have facts assumptions are just that, assumptions. As a long term pilot I learned that truth is in the laws of physics. Exceed limits and you may hurt yourself. I worked professionally in R&D in aviation. Truth there has to be rigorously proven, peer reviewed, and tested as ultimately lives depend upon it . I see assumptions here about McCurry's methods motives or intents without much backing. My newspaper experience came after I retired. My assumption today is that a lot of news today is unsupported speculation that is not properly sourced so I am just morally flying into a strong headwind.

Steve. I take your point. My post was a bit of an over reaction for a photo forum. What got me going was the indignation of a few in judging McCurry's motives without substantiating facts. I just got through reading a post on the worlds ten best photos. McCurry, of course was included. The NatGeo Pakistan shoto was shown along with high praise for McCurry. I think it appropriate to believe that he is human and should be forgiven mistakes. So yeah this is just photography and we are supposed to have fun, aren't we? I wonder how Dorothea Lange has been judged as she is also in that list. That list, of course, is just someone's opinion.

These are two instances from my own experience doing weddings in the past where the photographer was placed between a rock and a hard place as the clients wishes about photography differed from the officiant. I did quite a few weddings at an oceanside inn where I took pictures of during outdoor ceremonies. One protestant minister forbade photography during the ceremony. The bride was adamant in wanting those pictures. She was one of those very nice clients that one would like to please if at all possible. The Minister was quite rude and hostile to both of us about this issue. I crawled into a bush some distance away from the actual ceremony where I could not be seen with a 70-200 2.8L and took quite a few pictures. Some of the departing guests were surprised to see me crawling out of the bush in my suit and tie. The bride was highly pleased with the results and we maintained contact for quite a while after the wedding. The second was in a Catholic church where I got specific priest permission to take a couple of pictures during the ceremony. I took two and he angrily waved me away I think because I may have stepped in front of the first row of guests. Who do you please? In both cases the client really wanted the pictures. When I did weddings I was also working for a newspaper and my editor expected me to come back with pictures not excuses in much harsher situations where I did have to elbow my way into position at times. In other weddings I was allowed to shoot during the ceremony without issue. I would otherwise abide with the decision of the oficiant and did a few weddings ex post facto after the ceremony.

I did about a six year stint with a newspaper. We did film and contact sheets and never had time to alter photographs but I used harsh direct flash to capture politicians I did not like and as the one who selected photographs for the paper I did some editorializing in those selections. So did my editor. I go back to my point. Who the hell am I to judge and if I did judge who the hell would care? As long as a photographer does not break the law i.e. misrepresent to the point of fraud all you all are expressing is self-righteous moral outrage. As a combat veteran I save that for my 58,000 comrades on the Wall or the doctors that just got bombed. You all are not going to change anything. As I said, I do not know whether McCurry was careless or whether his altering of pictures was deliberate and, all things considered, I don't care.

O lord deliver me from being overly judgmental for I have sinned supervising large projects and by scaring the crap out of myself several times in over forty years of military and civiian flying. I cannot read McCurry's mind. I ran major aviation facilities acquisitions in my work career and I certainly had things done by well meaning people that I oversaw that got out of my control and like the proverbial guy following the circus parade who had to clean up behind the elephants I had to go in and clean things up. That was my job. I have no opinion on McCurry's motives as as I think he is too good and too successful, however, to resort to deception. He doesn't need to. . What follows is an excerpt from Reuters standards for photo editing in their publications; "Downsize photos on their longest side to 3500 pixels, when necessary. Do minor brightness and contrast adjustments in Levels, using only the extreme left and right sliders without clipping or removing detail from highlight and shadow areas. Crop, providing the crop does not remove information with journalistic value. Use the crop tool to straighten a slightly slanted horizon, but not add a tilt to an otherwise level photo or flip a picture upside down or left to right. Minor use of Levels and Curves to fix the color balance of a photo to its natural state. Editors in the Berlin Desk, London Desk, Paris Desk, Toronto Desk and Global Pictures Desk and direct injectors working in controlled conditions on calibrated, high quality screens Use all of the above processes listed above in the photographer section. Use the Levels and Curves tools. Use the Burn tool. Use the Shadow Highlights tool. The Eye Dropper may only be used on a neutral gray area to set color. Use the Saturation tool. Cloning or Healing Tools may only be used for sensor dust removal. In rare and exceptional cases where an important photo has been improperly exposed, make significant adjustments using a variety of tools to 'rescue' a photo that would otherwise be unsuitable for publication"

Lannie, this is a great thread, garbage included. It contains a lot of information and more thoughtfulness than I ever see on other sites. This is why I am still here on PN. I don't have a hell of a lot to add. I do as pointed out earlier have a system. There is a lot invested financially and in gaining and maintaining familiarity with this system. I had a fling into Sony with an NEX 5N with EVF and I used Bronica for weddings, portraits and some landscapes. However I am more comfortable with Canon having been a user since 1988. It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. So if my math is correct I have been using EOS for 28 years. I could have used Nikon just as effectively in all my photography and my former photo business where I did weddings, events and newspaper work. I just have not needed anything capable of 50MP to have done what I have done except for wedding formals that I did with Bronica ETRSi. but that is even doubtful. I just got locked in to Canon early on. I still am active shooting sports and I need an optical finder, a fast focusing, 10 fps body and the big lenses in my current system.