Impressing a nikon man!-take 2

[tashley]

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No, no, no. The participants _are_ the forum. With people of varying ability there should be a place for everyone. What is the alternative? Having a panel of the great and the good reviewing submissions before they're shown?

 

Almost all of us were poor photographers when we started. Constructive criticism can help improve someone's standard and in the end encourage them in the hobby. I'd suggest that what you propose would have quite the opposite effect.

 

What would weaken the forum IMHO is preventing people from expressing themselves. Yes there are sometimes too many 'great shot', or 'great capture', but if you disagee with another person's posting say so, and more to the point say why. Most of us here can take it on the chin. Dialogue is good!

 

 

Steve, I am 100% with you. Leica owners are so often accused of being deluded gear snobs (we know that for the great majority this isn't true) and I feel very uncomfortable with this shoot-to-kill policy on any poor sod who posts an image that isn't Adams or Bresson. If we're not gear snobs, let's not be image snobs. Critique is one thing, bullying is another.

 

Tim

[Guest stnami]

Life's pretty good up here on the roof, I comprehensive view over proceedings, I can see all these people running around with black boxes over an eye wrapped in cotton wool.

 

Altogether now;.........'We Are All Individuals'.

...... sometimes it is more like this here

"I wannt be different ,can I be like you?"......and come up smelling roses!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DaveEP]

Life's pretty good up here on the roof,

 

"I wannt be different ,can I be like you?"

 

Hmmm... be the same or be different. Actually, who cares? People need to do what they feel comfortable with.

 

One thing I learned early in life is that rules are put there by people who like to think they have power, or think of themselves as some how superior. That could be based upon knowledge “they” assume to be superior, or it could be out of plain arrogance.

 

Another thing I learned was that rules can be bent, broken, or generally ignored, and some times that is not only fun, but allows us to look at things 'differently'.

 

There are many inspiring photographs (and paintings) I have seen over the years that don't adhere to the golden rules put down by the high and mighty. They are not on the 'thirds', they are not 'noise free', and perhaps don't even have the right colour balance. Who cares? Those are inpiring shots to "some", and plain "bad" to others. There are also many shots I have seen that have followed every rule to the n’th degree, and still don’t look good to me. Again, who cares?

 

Some people like paintings by Picasso, others don’t. Does that mean Picasso was good or bad? Did he follow the rules or not, and if so, what rules? His early paintings seem a lot more ‘normal’, and by the "rules of the day", but some how ‘he’ wasn’t happy, so he “changed” the rules. Many people don’t like his rules, yet others pay huge amounts of money to posses the results.

 

For those who like to live by the rules, please be happy, and continue living by them. But not every one wants to follows the "same" rules, and not every one will agree that they are exclusively the 'right' way to do things. Not every one even likes the results of those rules. To many people, ‘your’ photos could be crap. You don’t care? You think they don't like them because they are ignorant? That’s OK too….

 

It doesn't matter if you were taught rules in college, in university or just by reading books. If you don't agree with them, they are no better (for you) than any you make up yourself.

 

Photography is not an exclusive art form. Just like painting and other mediums, people see different things when looking at a shot. I happen to like Carsten's shot. I don't care if other people like it or not. I would be very happy to have taken that shot myself. It's OK to criticise it, as long as the people criticising don't assume they have exclusivity on being right.