We both know, as demonstrated in the two links below, that getting detail in fine white fur of animals like cats is extremely difficult. I'll call your cat's whiskers and raise you: http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/Photography/Miscellanea/i-zbZLpHz/0/XL/2010-03-04-1-XL.jpg No, I feel quite the opposite. I would like to see more participation in the SI comments including participation by those who don't submit. The whole thing of submitting images in forums and competitions, to me, is to know what other people see in my images. I don't care if the person commenting has a submission or even if they do decent work themselves. Other people see things good and bad in my photos that I don't notice, and I learn from it. The only thing I ask in comments is that they include the "Why". Don't tell me my image is crap or my image is great without saying why you see it that way...What is wrong about it, or what is right about it. It try to include the "Why" in my SI comments. I also ask for an understanding of timing. I do a lot of candid shots, and "street" stuff, and that's usually shot on a grab-it basis. You don't wait for the sun to be right or something in or out of the scene. That's fair with some shots, but not all. I do think that the regular posters here should be willing to post links to their images - even if not in the SI - so we have a feeling of their capabilities. Otherwise, it's "all hat, no cattle".
I don't see how this pertains to this discussion, but it's OK if you just want to get it off your chest. It seems like you're talking about "documentary" photography, and I don't really do that. I did just do a series of a mock disaster drill at a local hospital, but that's an exception for me. That expression is usually used when the "means" used are somehow suspect or dubious or illicit and the "end" is obtaining a particular desired result. I don't see how that pertains to this discussion. If the "means" are simply some trick to obtain a particular "end", then it doesn't seem to fall under the "end justifies the means" heading. If I photograph a dog by having someone hold a treat or make a sound in order to get the dog to perk up and look a particular way, there's nothing (that I see) illicit about it. Baby photographers do it all the time. When you go to photograph a furniture grouping, but end up including something unexpected in the shot, that's initiative in that the photographer initiates a new plan and carries through with it. The point is more that what was seen was the presence of the cat added to the scene, or, at least added in my estimation. More contrasting objects in the scene. My use of "initiative" was making an on-the-fly change to a new plan and composing the image with the new element. Certainly I do use old shots. I have below. What I don't do is use old shots for mandates where "fresh" is more appropriate. The idea of a mandate should be both a challenge to find something that fits *and* make a good photograph from it. I participate in some forums where there is no mandate, and I'll submit archive shots there.
You have that cat plugged into an AC or DC socket? This one was taken through a plate glass window. No polarizer. http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/Photography/Miscellanea/i-h8f5jrr/0/XL/2012-02-16-3G-XL.jpg
More and more I have come to hate the "pussy cat portrait". I loathe the thousands of images of loved kittens, and broody, moody, and indifferent domestic cats, including the handful I have snapped because the cunning, ruthless animal made me believe that it might be an unusual capture, but it is just another cat snap along with all those other cat snaps. We all love the idea of capturing the totality of the loved feline pets in an image. Most every time they defy us, and and we are left to appear to be fawning fools confounding the World with the cat captures which are no better than the pussy pix with which others bore us. Everybody thinks their cat must be seen by the universe. Personally I preferred my opinionated dog over cats. Alas, she is gone now. < https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1295663/FileChute/Gypsy-opinion-Bw.jpg >
[/QUOTE] It's a question of the camera's dynamic range, the usual methods to limit the dynamic range of the scene where needed, choosing the right settings and producing a print (which has less dynamic range) from the negative (respective JPEG/RAW). I guess the "black tux and white wedding dress" is the same problem type. The white parts of the fur are plain 255-255-255 white. Was that your point, using too strong a graduation and too much exposure? "All hat, no cattle" ... is that different from "only cows"? -Wolfgang
So where's the difference in all the landscapes, all the wedding shots, all the car portraits, all the architecture shots? Never mind all the hobby astronomers who can never even get close to what large telescopes or space based telescopes manage Oh, I'm happy with capturing a fragment of their personality in one image. Same with people. This is true for most any type of picture. (Or posting. Or book. Or webpage. Or recipe. Or program. Or show. Or film. Or song. Or building. ...) There is very little new under the sun, after all.[1] So why should pets be any different? Yet people keep *their* pets, talk about *their* pets, think oh-how-so-clever *their* pets are, photograph *their* pets and show *their* pet photographys. And how about "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. ..." --- is that about something unique? -Wolfgang [1] There are some things. First DSLR, for example. First photo of the earth as a sphere. First colour photography. First photo of the Empire State building. etc.
[/QUOTE] "staging an event and claiming it represents news" was yours, wasn't it? "the difference between capturing a unexpected scene and Photoshopping a news shot" was yours, wasn't it? I'm talking about arbitrary rules for shooting, be they competitions ("only shots made for this competition"), news ("no photoshopping except for basic X, Y and Z") or e.g. "only planned scenes". Arbitrary rules mean people sidestepping them (even if they don't break them), and that means you don't get what you made the rules for. And you get unintended side effects. "Desired result": the shot. You got the shot. Doesn't matter how you did it -> the means. Depending on the arbitrary rules this is not allowed. OTOH, composite photographs are not necessarily bad either. Then an intervall timer can show initiative. Place the camera on a tripod, point it at a furniture grouping and set the timer to shoot every N seconds. If something walks/flies/creeps in and the timer fires the trigger ... whee! Initiative! That doesn't really jive with how I understand initiative. Congratulations, you have won a new irony meter. Your old one seems completely broken anyway. -Wolfgang
Wolfgang is an odd duck, but not your kind of duck. Sometimes he posts informative and interesting comments, and sometimes he just babbles. The day this post appeared, he was in one his rambling babble phases.
It could be worse, I could be an even duck. There is some truth to that observation, however I offer an alternative explanation: the "babbling" and "rambling" is a bad impedance mismatch between sender and receiver; the problem is not utterances without sense but that the utterances are not understood by the recipient. Which is undoubtedly the fault of the speaker as he hasn't found a common language with the receiver. -Wolfgang
