Hey Howie
How was your day? Good I hope.
I'm guessing but I would say that Andrews comments where aimed at giving me some advice and pointing me in the direction of interesting articles on photoshop as I had said that I thought I should look into it more, I doubt very much they where intended as an attack on the advice you had given or indeed on your opinions, it's just his opinions are slightly different to yours, no less valid! I doubt you are arrogant enough to think that anyone who doesn't share your opinion is wrong in some way! I will say though that it was a very informative first post on this thread, it took quite a while for you to leave anything positive which is confusing as you obviously have a huge amount of knowledge to share.
Actually, the best advice I have been given from anyone is in your last post, you said in a round about way that I was not making anything different or unique with my images, that's something I'd not really thought about before. I look at things that look nice through the viewfinder and take the picture, I will try and look at how to get what I want in a more unique way in order to make the most of what I see down here, great advice.
I know it's difficult to gauge people on the internet, people can be what they want on here, I didn't really give any background about myself before so I will now. I'm 34, I have ran overland expeditions for 6 years before coming down here, I have travelled fairly extensively through almost 80 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America. In those 6 years I have dragged around complete idiots to some of the most incredible places in the world, in the process I have been shot at on numerous occasions and stabbed once. I call a spade a spade, I don't suffer fools at all and I hate bull shit. I doubt that anybody is going to offend me with there comments so go for it, if you think my pictures are unoriginal then say so, it will give me an excellent base line to work from.
Like I said earlier, I value your advice greatly, please don't feel as though I don't, I take it all on board. I have taken 4300 images in the last 2 years here so have plenty to put up for more comments!
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to leave your comments, I hope you will leave more.
Cheers.
Mat.