******* Tired of "Street Photography" ?

[itlv]

If you are also tired of those endless "Street Photography"-threads, there is a very useful function to get rid of it:

FORUM - SETTINGS - ADD FRIENDS/FOES

Much more fun now to walk through "Show+Tell"

[monkeypainter]

Yes!!!

I discovered it last week.

Now my pbase-experience has improved a lot!

[mnl]

Yes!!!
I discovered it last week.
Now my pbase-experience has improved a lot!

Let me start by saying that your photos are magnificent. I admire your "restraint" in gallery presentation/organization and photo selection. I plan on returning to your site. BTW, I'm traveling to China next week.

Now, about those street photos: I agree that there's a ton of pointless, cliche that may have a place on one's personal site (if it's personally meaningful,) but does not warrant sharing on it's own merits. It's partly a democracy thing. Nearly everyone has access to strangers on a street. Partly it's a relationship thing: I'll show you mine; you show me yours.

A number of your best photos could fall within the street genre. It's just that I find the streets more interesting than my usual haunts.

But why street photography in particular? Why not flowers? Enough of the lilies! Kodak moments from a national park "viewpoint"? Does the world really need another sunset photo? Colors, for heavens sake: "show me your purple."

Anyway, I'll see your rants and raise you one.

[akmc_in_au]

Yes!!!
I discovered it last week.
Now my pbase-experience has improved a lot!

A number of your best photos could fall within the street genre. It's just that I find the streets more interesting than my usual haunts.

But why street photography in particular? Why not flowers? Enough of the lilies! Kodak moments from a national park "viewpoint"? Does the world really need another sunset photo? Colors, for heavens sake: "show me your purple."

It doesn't have anything to do with the subject as such. It has to do with one attention wh*re (I tried to think of a more diplomatic way of putting that, but just couldn't come up with one in this particular case) who posts on that subject (incessantly) and who feels the need to shove everyone else's images and postings aside while screaming "look at me, look at me!". The forums are just a much better read with that person consigned to the foes list so that their posts are given the attention that they deserve; that is, none. (Especially as most of the photos were nothing to write home about to start off with.)

This was also the reason that the number of postings per day in some Forums was limited. In the bad old days you'd go to some Forums and find the entire first page "bombed" by that person.

[mnl]

It doesn't have anything to do with the subject as such. It has to do with

OK, this bit of "context" is helpful. I've been using Pbase for years but only for locked, passworded, work-related sharing. Just a couple of months that I've tried to tailor a personal site for a personal list and whoever else wanted to look in. And just weeks that I've been frequenting the forums.

It's hard to draw the line between "polite discourse" and asking the question, "Why did you post this photo?" However, I think it's an important question, especially if one can't fathom the answer, and I think the Friends/Foes option should be a last resort. Personally, I come to the forum to read what others have to say-----to help me think about (and be a better critic of-) my own photos. Otherwise, I can just browse open galleries on this and other sites and see lots of great photos. Most often, people don't say enough (or anything.) Sometimes they cop out to a philosophy of "my photos speak for themselves." Yes, but if they don't, you need to help me out.

I suppose, like most, I just ignore posts that perplex me, but that could be my loss. Let's hear from (maybe insist upon) the photographers themselves saying why they choose to post a photo. Simply fitting a category (it's a cat; it's purple; I saw it on the street today) is not sufficient. In a world with so many millions of photos generated each minute, why should I look at this one? What does the photog expect me to see? This isn't a matter of "justifying" the posting, it's about helping me see what you see.

[mangoman]

Regardless of the interesting philosophical discussions this thread might provoke, I wonder how many people will use this new found knowledge?

... Cool, it works!

Thanks, itlv.

[amoxtli]

Regardless of the interesting philosophical discussions this thread might provoke, I wonder how many people will use this new found knowledge?

I did. Thank you.

[monkeypainter]

Let me start by saying that your photos are magnificent. I admire your "restraint" in gallery presentation/organization and photo selection. I plan on returning to your site. BTW, I'm traveling to China next week.

Thanx!!!!

In fact I'm not very confident about my own work, so these kind of encouraging opinions are a great motivation to me for trying to improve my photography (and the way of presenting it...)

...and regarding the 'Street photography' thing... As you can see it was more about a specific way of showing it than about the genre itself.

I could use the 'forum-settings-foe' option to hide the kind of photo's I don't care of, like macros, sunsets or flowers, but macros-sunset-flower-photographers are always very respectful with the forum and there's no need to hide it, and sometimes there're gems among these kind of photos.

[akmc_in_au]

Let me start by saying that your photos are magnificent. I admire your "restraint" in gallery presentation/organization and photo selection. I plan on returning to your site. BTW, I'm traveling to China next week.

Thanx!!!!

In fact I'm not very confident about my own work,

You should be. I spent some time there tonight, and there's some great work in there. Nobody hits the spot with every single shot (well, ALMOST nobody, can think of one or two exceptions on PBase), but your strike rate is well above average from the couple of galleries that I've viewed so far. I plan to return to it as well.

[kzaret]

Yes!!!

I discovered it last week.

Now my pbase-experience has improved a lot!

This does work! Thanks huge! I like street photography, but not forced upon us at the exclusion (and bump) of a lot of other interesting work. My pbase experience is going up now too!

[erichmangl]

Colors, for heavens sake: "show me your purple."

[stevenoz]

Thanks for the tip!! Makes browsing the forum much more pleasureful!

[monkeypainter]

In fact I'm not very confident about my own work,

You should be. I spent some time there tonight, and there's some great work in there. Nobody hits the spot with every single shot (well, ALMOST nobody, can think of one or two exceptions on PBase), but your strike rate is well above average from the couple of galleries that I've viewed so far. I plan to return to it as well.

Wow, Thanx! Yep...keep coming back...new stuff every 2 weeks or so...!!!!

[rotaford]

Purple in the street.

[jerseyfinn]

Thanks for the heads up about the forum filter itlv. I sort of chuckle at the friend/foe designation given to the command as IMO it' a somewhat trite ( but clever ) way to create what is essentially an ignore filter -- and those have been around from day one. That said, I appreciate that the moderators create useful tools for all of us to utilize, even if I think that the personification is unnecessary.

One comment/reaction to this thread. Photography is an aesthetic art which placed into the hands of individuals is gonna yield both interesting ( and sometimes breath taking ) results as well as some not-too-interesting stuff. I know that my galleries contain a little bit of the later along with some earnest effort -- I'd venture that this is true for most of us. It's just my opinion, but "no comment" is a powerful option we all hold in our hands. So I respectfully withold judgement about the individual poster mentioned here, though I will note that their interest in photography appears genuine although their zeal is perhaps a bit mis-directed here in the forum at times.

That said, I enjoy PBase and the community. I've met some top-notch photographers here who inspire and teach me to hone my techniques & knowledge. That I can communicatre personally with them is an extremely important attribute of PBase for me. My only real surprise/disappointment is how many photo folks I meet have never heard of PBase as I feel that they are missing out on one of the better photo communities on the Internet. I too have my genre likes and dislikes, but I gotta say that when I log into PBase ( every day ) I enjoy the journey picking through galleries as one can always find something that catches their eye.

Keep shooting folks.

Barry