Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: amolitor on July 07, 2019, 02:34:59 pm
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For a bunch of guys who profess to hold the Michael's legacy in the highest esteem, you sure are hell ain't shy about shitting all over his living room.
My relationship with LuLa and Michael was always, let us decorously say "more nuanced," so I cannot say I disapprove particularly. Indeed, it's belly-laugh funny.
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For a bunch of guys who profess to hold the Michael's legacy in the highest esteem, you sure are hell ain't shy about shitting all over his living room.
My relationship with LuLa and Michael was always, let us decorously say "more nuanced," so I cannot say I disapprove particularly. Indeed, it's belly-laugh funny.
We are in violent agreement, and for those asking yes, I knew Michael personally.
What's also amazing is the number of posts and views of the political discussions here compared to those that are based on what the site strives for (or did strive for); photography (https://luminous-landscape.com/about/).
I will duck into the 'conspiracies theory mode' and state that perhaps the very reason this is allowed to continue is such discussions greatly raise the hit's to the site which the advertisers must love. Now I'll go away from the Coffee Corner and the grassy knoll as I'd rather spend time posting and reading about the software created by Thomas Knoll ;D among other topics.
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I think that’s my cue to offer clarification, again :
You will notice we have about TWO advertisers. We’ve eliminated all conflict of interest advertising (as per my father’s original MO). We may add more, but we don’t answer to advertisers nor mutate the site’s quality or culture for them.
The numbers which reflect the strength of the site reside elsewhere.
Our subscriptions are actually growing (including statistically to last year etc). This keeps the lights on and glowing. This growth is largely due to the age of the site and it’s subsequent score on google which is 1.5 million. It ranks incredibly high when people search for almost anything photography related. Those searchers then begin their journey into Lula.
View counts on older articles are more robust than in the last few years (again, reasons for attraction are age/google strength/cool new articles) and most importantly new articles being published are seeing 10 to 20x the shares and views ever (!!) IE the latest: https://luminous-landscape.com/
I appreciate the sentiment shared and share the concern for not seeing exhausting and nasty discourse. I do.
It was not my decision to remove or reinstate political threads. I stay mostly clear of meddling with the forum as it is a common space.
I’m personally (hesitantly) for political threads. Why ? Because otherwise there is a bubbling pressure in other threads, this space alleviates this build up and allows people to express.
The moderation is important, as are people’s temperance and civility. Even better would be some things like levity and compassion, especially by people with long standing relationships. Life is short.
I think people can make cases without humiliating or hurling ad hominem frantic pride shots at each-other.
I mean, you’re going to see each other at the park the next day! Learn to play with your adversary.
I hope people hear the concern though, and once again reflect on it.
The site can afford to have political threads if people use this space as an example of how discourse and disagreement (even high stakes and heated) can be done among a community bound by a common passion.
Thanks
Josh
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For a bunch of guys who profess to hold the Michael's legacy in the highest esteem, you sure are hell ain't shy about shitting all over his living room.
My relationship with LuLa and Michael was always, let us decorously say "more nuanced," so I cannot say I disapprove particularly. Indeed, it's belly-laugh funny.
Andrew, the "living room" model vanished with Michael.
And if anyone is shitting, as you so delicately put it, then it's in the toilet section which is where such things are normal. Of course, first you have to define what shitting, in this context, is. You may have difficulty. When you have produced the definitive definition for "art", then I am sure your services in pursuit of this other challenge will be most welcome.
Rob
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It was not my decision to remove or reinstate political threads. I stay mostly clear of meddling with the forum as it is a common space.
I’m personally (hesitantly) for political threads. Why ? Because otherwise there is a bubbling pressure in other threads, this space alleviates this build up and allows people to express.
Josh is quite correct. It was my decision to restore political threads, which I made on my own initiative and without discussion with him; he does indeed stay clear of the forum.
As it happens, we agree on the presence of political discussion. It has, as he says, precisely nothing to do with advertising.
Jeremy
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The interest in discussing photography, and in particular, photographs, is simply waning, with or without political threads present on the forum.
There is another forum, Fred Miranda, where I, and some other members here, occasionally post. There are no political discussions there, and the forums generally have much more posted photographs than here. However, as of recently (a few years back?) the number of views, and in particular, comments on posted photographs is approaching abysmal: 3-5 on average in threads other than landscape, where it might be 8-10. Very often no comments at all.
In other words, political discussion are not "choking" photography threads.
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Josh is quite correct. It was my decision to restore political threads, which I made on my own initiative and without discussion with him; he does indeed stay clear of the forum.
As it happens, we agree on the presence of political discussion. It has, as he says, precisely nothing to do with advertising.
Jeremy
Or photography.
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Or photography.
Except it is photographers discussing politics.
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Except it is photographers discussing politics.
Yummy.
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I think that’s my cue to offer clarification, again...
Josh, well said.
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Josh, well said.
Thanks Slobodan,
FYI we are building a proper photo sharing application into the site as part of our web dev (as we speak). Upload time will no longer hinder engagement.
J
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Well, yes, while sometimes the length of threads reference Conrad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKcAYMb5uk4), they have been an education. I appreciate Jeremy's moderation but wouldn't want his job.
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It was not my decision to remove or reinstate political threads. I stay mostly clear of meddling with the forum as it is a common space.
I’m personally (hesitantly) for political threads. .
The moderation is important, as are people’s temperance and civility. Even better would be some things like levity and compassion, especially by people with long standing relationships. Life is short.
I’m unsure of how ‘politics’ evolved into being the prime descriptor of the Coffee Corner.
‘Current Affairs’ would be more apt. Your dad was involved, and both contributed and moderated with gusto, good humour and no small amount of insightfulness. His exasperation showed, often, but he always responded in a measured manner without being afraid to pull punches where necessary
His old posts are a masterclass in moderating and testimony to his invaluable contributions.
A family talent worth perpetuating ?
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It was my decision to restore political threads, which I made on my own initiative and without discussion with him; he does indeed stay clear of the forum. [...]. It has, as he says, precisely nothing to do with advertising.
Possibly not, presumably more to do with the 70% decline in monthly page views from Jan-2018 to Mar-2019. (99m down to just over 30m)!
A Gerald Ratner prawn sandwich moment, if ever there was one ...
https://www.businessblogshub.com/2012/09/the-man-who-destroyed-his-multi-million-dollar-company-in-10-seconds/
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Possibly not, presumably more to do with the 70% decline in monthly page views from Jan-2018 to Mar-2019. (99m down to just over 30m)!
A Gerald Ratner prawn sandwich moment, if ever there was one ...
https://www.businessblogshub.com/2012/09/the-man-who-destroyed-his-multi-million-dollar-company-in-10-seconds/
I don't know the figures, and figures may or may not indicate real strength, which I suspect resides more in the hands of regular posters than in those who fall into the site by accident, as many seem to do into my own website, if the Weebly numbers indicate anything that makes sense.
As others and myself have indicated, photography forums may well just be suffering the same consequences as have professional photographers in many cases: they have become irrelevant. People, by and large, are delighted with their cellphone output, and want nothing more. And who can blame them? A toe in the photo waters soon shows just how much time and money you have to be able and willing to invest to do what: spend time chatting about it online, counting the hairs on your pet cat's ears, swooning over the amazing OOF bokeh of its tail?
The division between pro and am has become huge, almost unbridgeable in most cases. We have a few fat cats here - lucky they - with all the gear any pro would want - ever - but they are the exception. I can tell you this: apart from a natural, instinctive aversion to the entire digital way of photography which I feel is sterile, the very cost of getting set up would never have let me enter the profession on my own as I could and did back in the 60s. An Exakta and and an old Rolleiflex, a basic, amateur Gnome enlarger and away I went. Today? Are you kidding?
So what, exactly, other than tech guidance - which LuLa already offers in heaps - can photographic websites offer? Even private websites for pros seem to be becoming second-fiddle to social media presence. I really think it and all of the rest are simply going through the evolutionary changed of the day, exactly as does everything and everybody else.
When electricity eventually becomes rationed, not based on abiity to pay, it'll be the end of such frivolities anyway.
;-)
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Rather sad that the political
discussions bun-fights are the most popular threads on this a photography forum. They are divisive, destructive and belly-laughs apart are utterly pointless.
If, as RobC has said, the photography forums are indeed irrelevant then why on earth bother?
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Rather sad that the political discussions bun-fights are the most popular threads on this a photography forum. They are divisive, destructive and belly-laughs apart are utterly pointless.
If, as RobC has said, the photography forums are indeed irrelevant then why on earth bother?
The simple answer, Keith, is that the bun-fights are more interesting than another guy's new lens.
Rob
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Until they become sufficiently soporiferous to put to sleep all but the fanatics.
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Rob, Keith,
Go back a few years snd read some of the old threads. It wasn’t politics, more current affairs - everything from hi-fi , wine, the Canadian health service and more. In fact some of the biggest (and more entertaining) bust-ups were both pro and photography related.
I won’t even mention the threads on RAW V DNG.
Good old days , when humour wasn’t drowned in male testosterone.
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Rob, Keith,
Go back a few years snd read some of the old threads. It wasn’t politics, more current affairs - everything from hi-fi , wine, the Canadian health service and more. In fact some of the biggest (and more entertaining) bust-ups were both pro and photography related.
I won’t even mention the threads on RAW V DNG.
Good old days , when humour wasn’t drowned in male testosterone.
I'm not saying the coffee corner should go and at least the "RAW V DNG" threads were photography related.
;-)
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The simple answer, Keith, is that the bun-fights are more interesting than another guy's new lens.
Rob
I can't help feeling that for some here the bun-fights hold more interest than making images.
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I can't help feeling that for some here the bun-fights hold more interest than making images.
Possibly, yes.
As Schewe said on the ‘other’ site
“ I’m excited to have a forum for me to go to again!
Looking forward to pithy and enriched discussion and debate (and mud wrestling…I missed mud wrestling) “
but at least he was a wealth of invaluable information!
(Actually, also a pussycat below the gruff exterior - just don’t let on that you know!)
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Rob, Keith,
Go back a few years snd read some of the old threads. It wasn’t politics, more current affairs - everything from hi-fi , wine, the Canadian health service and more. In fact some of the biggest (and more entertaining) bust-ups were both pro and photography related.
I won’t even mention the threads on RAW V DNG.
Good old days , when humour wasn’t drowned in male testosterone.
But hey, there are no more current affairs other than stupidly oversized cruise ships causing mayhem in Venice. Gone are the juicy days of Profumo, Mandy Rice-Davies and the rather exquisite Christine Keeler (who has a dam named after her - I think) and in their place just sordid politicians playing the main chance; the delightful peccadillos of the past have become venal and devoid of the saving glimmer of exoticism. I blame the music.
Pro photography is fading into the rarified stratosphere within which few of us have the lungs to breath; what's there to say about the high street guys that you want to know? I'd rather just shoot more dirty windows - or even wash them.
You mentioned hi-fi: I don't even use my system anymore. The most interaction comes when I have to dust it. My music is all iPad and earphones, and so much more varied and convenient: I can even listen having lunch somewhere just as long as the place is wi-fi alive (or weefee, as it's called here). Wine: love it, but it's now out of bounds after a single glass of red per day. As I only have one meal per day, and only home-cook once a week, I have abandoned buying wine for the home, and have started to buy six-packs of San Miguel instead, as they don't go off in the manner that does wine when you open it and use but a glass a week! And I don't even like beer. But with my cooking, I need something drastic to wash it down.
Don't recall anything old about the Canadian Health Service, but that must have been political too, surely?
Really, I do believe that the trouble is that the newness has gone, and there's not a lot to replace it. I can remember being absolutely thrilled at being able to chat with somebody in Australia, America of South Arfica as if they were next door, all within the space of ten minutes and get replies, too. Today, who's impresed by any of that? And I think that lack of amazement leads to stagnation.
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I can't help feeling that for some here the bun-fights hold more interest than making images.
Some of us keep making (and posting) images, but nobody seems to care.
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Some of us keep making (and posting) images, but nobody seems to care.
Of course not; it's our own stuff that interests us as amateurs: we do not live in a really competitive atmosphere but in one where platitude is enough. It just does't matter what the other fellow can or can not do: we will still eat.
Also, running on automatic is not even its own reward: been there, done that - possibly done with that... frankly, I think I get more pleasure now from the pen than the camera. The pen does not limit me to my immediate conditions, thank goodness.
The camera limits me to the quality of whom I can put before it; with my mind I can imagine anything I want to imagine including too much that I'd rather not.
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Possibly, yes.
As Schewe said on the ‘other’ site
“ I’m excited to have a forum for me to go to again!
Looking forward to pithy and enriched discussion and debate (and mud wrestling…I missed mud wrestling) “
but at least he was a wealth of invaluable information!
(Actually, also a pussycat below the gruff exterior - just don’t let on that you know!)
I miss Schewe as much as he misses me. I never found him somebody with whom I could find any relationship. Most of the guys in the tech area are like that, with the exception of a couple that has treated me very kindly indeed. It's not anyone's fault: it's chemistry.
If the "other side" refers to the previous management of LuLa, I must say I regret the loss of Chris. Same thing: chemistry. Nothing anyone can do about those things.
Rob
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Some of us keep making (and posting) images, but nobody seems to care.
Which seems to say more about the images than the posting of images.
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Which seems to say more about the images than the posting of images.
Oh, stop.
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Some of us keep making (and posting) images, but nobody seems to care.
Careful now, there's a distinct possibility we could actually agree on something.
;-)
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Which seems to say more about the images than the posting of images.
Feel free to say something about the images.
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Careful now, there's a distinct possibility we could actually agree on something.
;-)
HA!
I wish I was out making images. Instead I'm neck-deep in review of my last several years of images and trying to get them into one place so I can respond to requests from people that actually want to BUY them. Shocking to me too, but I've had several requests in the last year or so that I haven't really been able to respond to that well simply due to a lack of viewable content/organization.
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HA!
I wish I was out making images. Instead I'm neck-deep in review of my last several years of images and trying to get them into one place so I can respond to requests from people that actually want to BUY them. Shocking to me too, but I've had several requests in the last year or so that I haven't really been able to respond to that well simply due to a lack of viewable content/organization.
I think that's a reflection not so much of your methods, but of the fact that where once all one needed was the job book and a logically numbered negative filing system, today it has become very much more complex. For example: I have all my files numbered, but have no visual way of identifying them comparable, let's say, to the ease of looking at a wallet of negs or a sheet of transparencies. If I consult my website, neither I nor Weebly, the hosts, can determine the actual file numbers and so it means a mind-numbing search through hard drives. Part of my desire for a website was the dreamed of ability to use it as a ready file reference organ, which it clearly fails to be.
So, instead of digital making life easier, for me, were I still in business, it would have meant the employment of another person to do the photographic bookkeeping and less of the rewards going to my bank account.
All in all, digital has been very good for the second generation of manufacturers, but pretty much killed Kodak, its photographic father, along with thousands of photographic firms and labs. Great stuff.
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I think that's a reflection not so much of your methods, but of the fact that where once all one needed was the job book and a logically numbered negative filing system, today it has become very much more complex. For example: I have all my files numbered, but have no visual way of identifying them comparable, let's say, to the ease of looking at a wallet of negs or a sheet of transparencies. If I consult my website, neither I nor Weebly, the hosts, can determine the actual file numbers and so it means a mind-numbing search through hard drives. Part of my desire for a website was the dreamed of ability to use it as a ready file reference organ, which it clearly fails to be.
So, instead of digital making life easier, for me, were I still in business, it would have meant the employment of another person to do the photographic bookkeeping and less of the rewards going to my bank account.
All in all, digital has been very good for the second generation of manufacturers, but pretty much killed Kodak, its photographic father, along with thousands of photographic firms and labs. Great stuff.
Rob, it's called DAM (Digital Asset Management).
Any modern version of Lightroom, Photoshop, Capture One and a whole host of other imaging software have DAM inbuilt.
Really, it's a breeze.
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Rob, it's called DAM (Digital Asset Management).
Any modern version of Lightroom, Photoshop, Capture One and a whole host of other imaging software have DAM inbuilt.
Really, it's a breeze.
Keith, my "modern" PS is CS2; the previous one was PS6. CS2 is way beyond my abilities and understanding. It comes with a thing called Bridge. In that, I find a list of thumbnails of my pics (shot since getting that version of NX2) but they are all NEFs bearing numbers out of the camera, not the saved TIFF numbers that are different. As bad, these will not open in Photoshop because they are "the wrong kind of files" and there seems no way of getting into Nikon's Capture NX2 from Bridge to open them.
That said, if I right click on an image there, then under File Info, there is a panel that means I can write in the new numbers by which I want to identify that work. (I had not realised that until writing this reply, so thanks for the prompt!)
It seems, then, that I should start to second-edit the original NEFs in Bridge (which I ignored before) in an attempt to get another form of register, a secondary list with the final file numbers on it. The step numbers just keep on growing!
Oh for the simplicity of the friggin' lightbox, a pen and a job register book!
Rob
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Keith, my "modern" PS is CS2; the previous one was PS6. CS2 is way beyond my abilities and understanding. It comes with a thing called Bridge. In that, I find a list of thumbnails of my pics (shot since getting that version of NX2) but they are all NEFs bearing numbers out of the camera, not the saved TIFF numbers that are different. As bad, these will not open in Photoshop because they are "the wrong kind of files" and there seems no way of getting into Nikon's Capture NX2 from Bridge to open them.
That said, if I right click on an image there, then under File Info, there is a panel that means I can write in the new numbers by which I want to identify that work. (I had not realised that until writing this reply, so thanks for the prompt!)
It seems, then, that I should start to second-edit the original NEFs in Bridge (which I ignored before) in an attempt to get another form of register, a secondary list with the final file numbers on it. The step numbers just keep on growing!
Oh for the simplicity of the friggin' lightbox, a pen and a job register book!
Rob
Rob, I'm afraid CS2 is now 14 years old. However you should be able to configure Bridge to show thumbnails rather than just a list of images which would make searching more intuitive. You can also use filters from within Bridge to narrow any search.
when uploading NEF files they will have the camera shot numbers unless you choose to do otherwise. It's entirely up to you how you subsequently rename and order your files.
I can, at a click of a mouse, find and know where to find any shot I've taken in the last twenty years. Given modern DAM software this really isn't, or rather shouldn't be difficult. This is all about a self imposed and logical workflow. I would give you examples but I think this would only serve to confuse. The point is to devise a system that is intuitive for you.
Good luck.
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Rob, I'll endorse what Keith has said. The tools available nowadays to catalog, index, recover, and process stuff are phenomenal compared with what they were even ten years ago. I've found that sometimes a book can help. Kelby's attempts at humor drive me nuts, but the guy knows what he's talking about, and he's written some pretty easy introductions to Photoshop, Lightroom, and Camera Raw.
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Rob, I'm afraid CS2 is now 14 years old. However you should be able to configure Bridge to show thumbnails rather than just a list of images which would make searching more intuitive. You can also use filters from within Bridge to narrow any search.
when uploading NEF files they will have the camera shot numbers unless you choose to do otherwise. It's entirely up to you how you subsequently rename and order your files.
I can, at a click of a mouse, find and know where to find any shot I've taken in the last twenty years. Given modern DAM software this really isn't, or rather shouldn't be difficult. This is all about a self imposed and logical workflow. I would give you examples but I think this would only serve to confuse. The point is to devise a system that is intuitive for you.
Good luck.
Sorry, Keith, it does show me thumbnails, but uses the camera NEF numbers to identify them, which mean nothing to me and the rest of my numeration system - such as it is - and so I have no idea in which folder they live.
But as I said, I am a step forward as of your previous post, because I now know that I can record the new TIFF numbers into Bridge, though it takes twice the effort. Wish I'd known that some years ago when I was still making regularish snaps!
It still amazes me, though, that neither I nor Weebly can find a way to identify my file numbers from the images on the Weebly-hosted website I use! It should be a right-clicker, single step!
;-)
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Sorry, Keith, it does show me thumbnails, but uses the camera NEF numbers to identify them, which mean nothing to me and the rest of my numeration system - such as it is - and so I have no idea in which folder they live.
But as I said, I am a step forward as of your previous post, because I now know that I can record the new TIFF numbers into Bridge, though it takes twice the effort. Wish I'd known that some years ago when I was still making regularish snaps!
It still amazes me, though, that neither I nor Weebly can find a way to identify my file numbers from the images on the Weebly-hosted website I use! It should be a right-clicker, single step!
;-)
Rob, the point is you should be choosing the folders in which they live.
I've no idea how Weebly works but I would imagine that you should have the choice of file name on upload.
If I were you I'd sit down with a pad and pencil and decide how you would like things to work and then set about finding out how to achieve it.
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Rob, the point is you should be choosing the folders in which they live.
I've no idea how Weebly works but I would imagine that you should have the choice of file name on upload.
If I were you I'd sit down with a pad and pencil and decide how you would like things to work and then set about finding out how to achieve it.
Of course I choose the folders: they go from folder no.1 up to, at the moment, folder no.22 with about the same number of images in each. I do not break the folders down to sub-groups because there is nothing to define them anymore. I would have broken the folders down to clients and specific shoots were I working in digital (in analogue days it was simple to list them all chronologically in the job book under client and job description). In the past few years of non-specific randomness there are no subject collections that would make more sense than just using chronological numeration.
The only kind of grouping that would make some vague sense would be to name each website gallery as a different folder; that would limit searches a little bit, but still nothing but a workaround to the best solution: the ability to identify a file number from my own website without having to incorporate it on the image. Even Weebly admitted in an e-mail that they can't do that. The series of numbers that I get on clicking on an mage in my website have no similarity to the real numbers I use. I think we tried this together once in the past, and by fluke, two or three could actually be traced that way.
In the Sales gallery I put the actual file number onto the image border to identify it. It's the only way to do it, but I don't want to disfigure pix with that information on top of copyright lines and titles - enough soon becomes visual overload. As I say, even when they could read the numbers visible on the borders, Weebly were unable to trace back to the same numbers from their own data as it appears on clicking on the image on the site.
Never mind, time to walk the terrace for an hour and stretch these legs.
Anyway, I can hardly describe what the situation here is with words; I can't imagine anyone would be able or even willing to take it aboard with so vague a description. But it's really all a bit too late in the day to matter very much: I have neither time nor patience to trawl through all this stuff myself; frankly, I know the pix so well I'm sick of the sight of them. I just can't find where they are very quickly!
:-)
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I have two cats; Nigel and Hamish. Google Photos can tell the difference between them.
A search for "Nigel" brings up all the images of Nigel, AND the two-shots with Hamish that include Nigel. Awesome.
If I search for "Frito", all the pictures of my so-named white van appear.
etc.
Best DAM I've ever seen, and zero keywording. I have several thousand images uploaded to Google Photos.
Google learned all this by itself. All I did was upload them.