Tough love vs Benevolent leader

[ginger_55]

Andy, I am sorry to outright quote you. I am particularly sorry to do it in a difficult to read red stuff (tough love there, Andy), but since you seem to jump to the occasion to identify your own stuff, I figured I might just as well be out front.

(I can't find that red stuff that I cut and pasted. Andy I did quote you from how you are going to be tougher, etc.)

I know I am in the minority here, but this new tough love thing bothers me.
This is supposed to be fun, not a 28 hr a day job, only to be insulted at the end.

Just before you "wrote" this, you mentioned that care was not given, in particular there were a lack of questions to you. Andy, you were out of town. I did ask for the settings, "before" I went out to shoot at Shem Creek.
You were out of town.

Lynn answered my post, nicely, she said that she did remember you saying the lowest ISO possible. That was about all that I remember. (I remember it, because not understanding what that meant got me in trouble, it was actually all I did wrong, since I did use a tripod with a shutter release, etc. at Shem Creek) But I did ask.

Now the other day, the day I knew I was going to a concert, I again asked for advice. And the benevolent Andy was right on the trigger. Great, complete information. Just what I needed. I don't know that I followed all of it. I did use the kit lens before the concert, just to get a sense of "place". And starting with an ISO of 100, well that wasn't possible. I had it on AV, the most important, to me, advice that I got, and the only way I could shoot was on 1600 ISO.

That information was so good and complete that I printed it out and took it with me. It was in my head when I was photographing.........to a degree. At least the mode was set on AV.......and that made sense once I thought about it, but during the "After Dark" Challenge, I was floundering on that stuff. AV/TV ????

I did not shoot in RAW the night of Shem Creek, and after that I couldn't, as I didn't have my camera. I think by then, Andy, I knew that you wanted me to do that. Actually it seemed that everyone wanted me to do it. Baby steps was a descriptive phrase, then leap in and do it became the order of the day.

No, I don't want tough love. I don't want to cry all day when I have inadvertently done something wrong. OK, that is my problem, others probably don't even have that luxury. But this is what is on my mind. That is the name of this "thing".

I want to be liked, I want to be helped in my photography, I want to be guided, I do not want what has happened to me.

Fear..........last night I asked my husband to look at Shem Creek as it related to my entry for this current challenge. I did not learn anything from him except that I was being picked on. I don't think that was the case. I think I was being judged by what was, compared to what could have been.

The thing is, I am taking each little thing now, and thinking is that going to haunt me. Bill was trying to help and with each suggestion as to what picture to enter or what I could say, I would tell him, "no", because then it would be off theme, centered............I am not thinking in totality right now, those are the obvious. Oh yes. Not in clear focus. I read that about Shem Creek, and I ran to look at the boy with the birds. I am now paranoid about his face.

Also a comment was made about too bad it was the middle of the day. I have shot at all times of the day. Not for this challenge before, but this time I did. Since the comment was made so nicely and with a lot of nice things said, I did not pay that much attention to it. Then I started thinking: perhaps that was a warning not to enter that picture...........it had to have everything going for it in order to enter.

Fear does not make me want to shoot. I have tried very hard, not to win Challenges, my actual and often stated, goal is to reach the finals and be happy with my picture. I have tried so hard I have slacked off on tennis, that will not be the case, in a week, and that will be a problem, as if I shoot, I then like to stay up all night uploading, etc.

I am actually putting almost all my waking hours into this. I have to pull myself away from the computer if I am home. Sometimes I shoot just to have something to work on. I am trying to learn how to read, again, something that does not have anything to do with photography. I don't think that anyone who knows me would say that I am not tryng, or putting time in on this, or asking questions.

Now, Sid, I think it was you, mentioned "burn out", and this would sound like I was there, if not headed that way. Not when I am doing something I love.
My father always said to work at something you would pay to do if you didn't have the job. Well, I am doing that. I am paying to work at something because I don't have the job, smile.

When I was discouraged about dGrin, people were just not here, busy, out of town, etc., I happened to have an appt with my therapist, she loves it when I am doing photography, she says "Ginger, you have a life now", you are doing things and happy. When she saw that I was having a problem here, she tried to think of other things in the world of photography.........anything to keep me doing what I do and stay happy. Where I don't have to be able to hear.

There is no replacement for dGrin, not on the internet, not FM, Kodak, where ever, no other Andys, no other Lynns, Sids, Snappys, Rutts (not spelled that way), no other Grubbs.........and I could keep going, Pathfinder, Sam (sweet Sam, love that man).

But do I want it to get tougher? No, I do not. And that is on my mind. It is on my mind when I shoot, when I enter. It is on my mind when I color correct a photo. I am not sure, having read some thread, whether there is supposed to be more yellow in a face, or more red. I am losing my confidence, not gaining in it. Too much knowledge, pressure, too fast. Well, I am not going to give up the thing that has been giving me pleasure the last few months, to the extent that it is noticed by everyone around me. At least I am not giving it up until I have tried everything to learn to exist in the system with the same feeling of confidence, eagerness and life, that I had until just recently.

If it becomes more painful than any pleasure, I will give it up, and it will not be noticed, because we are gaining new people to take my place.. My therapist will not be happy. I will miss everything I had here. But if it becomes more pain than pleasure, I have lost it anyway.

I am very tenacious, loyal, I will hold on, but there comes a point....... I am a turtle.

If everyone else wants it to be tougher, to work for hours only to be told how we didn't try, well, I am in the minority. Life is like that sometimes.

ginger

I thought this was a different subject from the snapshot subject.


Here it is, the quote from Andy:

oh and put on your body armor from now on, guys, becuase i'm going to get tougher and tougher on the choosing of finalists, and on the comments i make on your photographs. this is a competition, after all, and i'm going to call it like i see it. i will always try to do so in an encouraging way, and if my critique leaves you flat in any way at all, you are welcome to pm me for further discussion.

[mercphoto]

Ginger, I'm sorry you are feeling down, but I saw nothing wrong about Andy's comments. Tough love it is. Like he said, the Challenge is a competition by its nature. He's trying to raise the bar, and that's great. These aren't personal attacks on people, and one shouldn't take them as such.



Here it is, the quote from Andy:

oh and put on your body armor from now on, guys, becuase i'm going to get tougher and tougher on the choosing of finalists, and on the comments i make on your photographs. this is a competition, after all, and i'm going to call it like i see it. i will always try to do so in an encouraging way, and if my critique leaves you flat in any way at all, you are welcome to pm me for further discussion.

[miketaylor01]

Ginger... I jsut finished reading you post and was hopling that I might help you out a bit with some comment.

I know that I am new to the forum and may be a little off base providing advise when I am so new. Although I have not recieved any feedback on any of the pictures that I have posted over the last couple weeks I posted them with the hope that someone here would give me an honest opinion of what they thought of them. They were all photos taken with a digital P&S and I didnt take much time to try and take the best possible picture. Although I definitely intend to start doing that once I recieve all the pieces and parts of the DSLR outfit I am in the process of buying.

One of the things I cant wait for is to go out and shoot what I feel. To me a good photograph is in the eye of the beholder and in the end what you feel about it is all that matters if you are in it for the personal satisfaction. Which from your post I would say is what you do this for. I am the same way. I see andy's comment about tough love as his way of trying to make you the best photographer you can be. No matter what reasons you have for taking photos, he has your progression as a photographer in mind and wants to do everything he can to help you along that progression.

Take everyones comments with a grain of salt and dont read into them too much. It seems like you were saying that you take criticism of your photographs as a personal attack on you effort and ability. If that is what they are then that is totally wrong and those comments have no place in this forum. I find it hard to believe though from everything I have read here that anyone is out to make anyone else feel bad. This is an open forum for people to critique the work of others. Please let me know if I am wrong or if you really feel that this is not how everything is operating. I have basically jsut been an outside observer for the last two weeks and I have full intentions of using the assets that the forum provides. Which I see to be very quick suggestions as to how I can improve myself as a photographer. As I believe you do I want to learn and grow and the only way I see to do that is for people to give their honest opinions of what they like/dislike or would have done differently in a specific photograph or situation.

guess what it all boils down to is that I feel like you think Andy's tough love means hes being mean and hurtful to you and that what you dont want. I hope you get the clarification you need on this because I have seen some great stuff from you on here and would hate to see you lose interest in the new livelyhood photography and this forum has provided for you. I am feeling the same thing right now in that This forum has hellped me get back into photography after a few years of slacking on it and finding a new way to go about it and recieve the knowledge I need to improve.

Please dont give up hope because of a false perception. I hope this reply made sense as I had to type it real quick since im supposed to be working :noob

Mike

[ginger_55]

Ginger, I'm sorry you are feeling down, but I saw nothing wrong about Andy's comments. Tough love it is. Like he said, the Challenge is a competition by its nature. He's trying to raise the bar, and that's great. These aren't personal attacks on people, and one shouldn't take them as such.
I am not saying that one way is right and one way is wrong, I am just saying how I feel about it, and how I react to criticism, especially when I am trying as hard as I know to do.

You and everyone else can feel very different about ..............lots of things, including telling it like it is and criticisms.

Ginette noticed that some people are not participating in the challenges. I would think that there are many different reasons. But at least I am talking about how I feel.

I am trying to problem solve, not accuse.

ginger

[ginger_55]

Mike, I really loved and appreciated your post to me. I am trying to hang onto the thought that Andy has said in the past that to do your own stuff in such a way that criticism is not an issue, as you like it so well.

I will look for your stuff. Make it a point. It is kind of hard when I know you are changing cameras, but IMO, they eye is the thing. So I will look.

I do like my things........that well. On the other hand..........

However, I am going to get more coffee and eat.

I wanted to tell you that I love your emoticon. Made me laugh.:rofl Kind of that much, not quite this much, :roll Almost though, best one I have seen. I sure wish I could carry these things around with me. I miss them when I am posting to my friends and stuff, elsewhere.

ginger

[wxwax]

Hi Ginger, love ya babe! :wave

You make beautiful photographs. If sometimes you feel unhappy, I suppose one can have too much of a good thing.

Please don't take anything written here too personally. No-one here is mean spirited, that I can see.

Love ya, babe! :flip

[snapapple]

Ginger, I'm sure Andy did not mean you when he said people did not get into this enough in the beginning of the challenge. You were the only one who did get right in. So, you should not take these comments personally. Andy could have said, "except for Ginger", I suppose. But, let's be reasonable. He, and all of us, know you try very hard, and ask questions. The comments were meant for the masses.

I have been working and have much less time for photography than I did before. I did manage to get out on the last weekend for the night stuff. I knew it was too late to ask questions or to shoot again. I knew my subject was a tough one because it had been done before. But, I had always wanted to shoot that theater. I had so many limitations. The marquee could not be shot from the other side because it said, "Now Hiring" on the other side. There were cars parked all along the curb and there were trees. When I shot it, my tripod was against the trunk of a tree and there was a parked car on my left. I could not move back further. If I did, the tree would block my view. I knew I was too close. I might have been able to get it from the middle of the street, and get hit by a car. I might have been able to get it from across the street with a better zoom lens. What I'm saying is, I knew it was not the perfect shot, but it was all I had. I was just glad that I was able to do it. I shot in RAW. I developed it out. I knew what I would have liked it to look like. I entered it because I wanted to take part and bring up the number of entries. I didn't think it was a bad shot, it just was not my best.

Now here's the rub. Andy wants us to only enter our best (or suffer the harsh criticism). But, he also wants lots of entries. In view of the "tough love" attitude, I probably would not enter that theater shot today. That's why I don't enter at FM. I know I can't compete, so I don't even enter. That's how I may be feeling here in the future. That's too bad, because I feel encouraged by the honest criticism I get here. It's really tough when you worked very hard on a shot and think it's good, then get harsh criticism. But, that's why we have the critique and comments threads. We should have had some feedback on our shots before entering them. If they are not well received, and we enter anyway, we have to be aware that we may not make the finals. We can enter in the spirit of good sportsmanship, giving the winner someone to run against, or we can decline to enter - our choice. In some of the past challenges I have had two good shots and had to chose one to enter. Ginger, so have you. If I don't have time for a lot of shooting in the future, there may be times when I have to skip the challenge. I'll have to ask myself if I have a picture that is really my best work. If not, I won't enter. We can still post our shots in the various other threads for comments and to share with others. We can still keep on learning and sharing and having fun. But, don't worry about the "tough love" thing. Andy is a nice guy, and would never be mean to you. You do want him to be honest though, don't you? We're all friends here and you would want your friends to be honest, huh? :lust

[ginger_55]

We're all friends here and you would want your friends to be honest, huh

G: "I will have to think on that"

But I was struck, haha, by the concept that you declined to be hit by a car, when you knew it would probably make a better shot, lol.

No, I am not sure how to answer that about my friends being honest. Like that boy and the birds.................... You were honest, and it was not yesterday so I don't remember the exact words, but you did say that the birds were too dark in the one with more color depth that Lynn liked. So I had a dilemma, but figured out how to fix it. Then someone must have said something about the boy being centered, because Sid said that he didn't mind the centered boy, that it was a great shot, except the contrasty noon day sun bothered him, which was too bad as it was such a good shot or something like that.

So, here I have Lynn loves it, you love it, I love it, Sid had one minor complaint, otherwise he liked it. Then someone came along and cropped all my photos, after my decision, but that was OK. Then Pathfinder came along, and he did help me by pointing out an editing error. It was too late to "fix" it, IMO, so I started over. And over and over and over, and I finally got it right by me, etc.

Then the comments had/were coming back on the Shem Creek picture that we all knew I spent hours on. But, Snappy, I did not shoot anymore, or not much more. I tried, places were closed. Alhambra, the bride, etc, that didn't pan out. I went out at midnight and the card crashed. But that really was not enough, it certainly did not give me a better result that looked like night. People were giving me good feedback on Shem Creek. Really. One person, maybe Pathfinder even showed me some tricks which I did myself. So way back at the beginning, Andy had said that it should be reshot because of the noise, but that was just about the only bad feedback I got. I honestly liked it in the version I finally submitted. And others said they did too. Some even said the noise didn't bother them.

And it didn't get chosen, because of the noise and the focus and it should be reshot. (I couldn't have at the time, my camera was not here, I couldn't get the elph on the tripod, the weather was grey,and where would I get the small boat. I can get prettier shots, but not reshoot that one, and it will be some months from now.)

But here I am now with the boy and the birds, and I think back to the statement Sid made about how it was too bad about the contrast, because otherwise it was a very nice shot. And that whole statement is taking on more importance as I type this.

Snappy, I do not expect perfection. Never, ever, do I expect to turn out a perfect shot, at the perfect time. But I like them, I mean I really like them.

So, how do I evaluate except to wait for nuances. And I guess I got that from Sid.

You know I have been getting more and more confused just writing this.

I think that is one thing, I am confused, and I am now expecting stuff out of myself and others are, too. And I can't tell by the feedback, because I don't know which feedback is important..............

I am impressed that you put that much energy into thinking re the theater shot. I liked it, but I did think about Andy's and how he showed us his with the old film titles showing.

I am not good at openly criticizing people's work, I am not. And I am not going to say anything now.

But this is more confusing than ever considering the feedback and how unrliable and conflicting it is. And I can't trust myself anymore.

I guess this whole thing just started because I don't like the word snapshot used in a derogatory sense, and you did that, too. And I am afraid, I don't want to criticize you, I just don't want some beginner, or even me, told that my photo looks like a snapshot. Not in a way that makes me think I should never have had the nerve to put it up there.

And I do like snapshots, I do.

I just can't say anymore, but I don't think, I know the critique is not working for me at this point. The only thing that works is not to care what happens with my pictures.

That is great that you shot in RAW Snappy. And thanks for coming on here to try to explain things. And thanks, just thanks.

ginger

[mercphoto]

But this is more confusing than ever considering the feedback and how unrliable and conflicting it is. And I can't trust myself anymore.

Feedback will be conflicting because this isn't mathematics, its art. Ask 100 people what 1 plus 1 is you will get the same answer. Ask 100 people what is good or bad about this photo and all bets are off.

I guess this whole thing just started because I don't like the word snapshot used in a derogatory sense, and you did that, too. And I am afraid, I don't want to criticize you, I just don't want some beginner, or even me, told that my photo looks like a snapshot. Not in a way that makes me think I should never have had the nerve to put it up there.

You seem to believe that a criticism of a photograph is a criticism of the person behind the camera. Why is that so?

[lynnma]

Ginger... some people will love your pictures some will not. I'ts a fact. YOU however should enter them into the challenge because you like or love them.. or not. Maybe just cos you want to. My last entry was not good.. I knew it, Andy knew it.. so what? I'll do better next time. If you feel so hurt by the comments then I guess you have to make a choice.. it IS only a critique... if you can only tolerate positive critiques it's a problem is'nt it. You are a good photographer in my opinion Ginger.. better than me.. but when I don't get chosen or have a negative critique I don't get all bent out of shape and upset.. I just think.. hmmm, you're right.. it's too dark, or too bright or what ever and learn by it.

Is'nt that why we are here to learn? Just because someone says "I love it" does'nt make it good or what YOU want it to be. Look at Damons work.. sometimes i'ts brillient!! other times I tilt my head and think.. "Damon what is that" but it's what he wants that counts.

Time to stand tall girl, get the purple hat out Ginger and toughen up babe. We all love you and your photographs but we all have to take it and dish it out.
Relax.
:lust :encore :bad :deal :nod Lynn

[ginger_55]

And, Andy was out of town and unreachable when I asked for instructions, before I went to Shem Creek.

It wouldn't have changed the outcome, I don't think. I have shot at 400 ISO before, I think it might have been underexposed. One thing, some of us were total beginners at this night photography thing. I have done stuff before, like at the concert, but I did use a tripod, different entirely. Just saying there were a lot of people who had never done this stuff before, there was a lot we didn't know. It was an awkward time period, took in about an hour or two a day, so if we didn't get it right, I think it is understandable.

I don't want everyone blamed for not asking questions at the beginning when there was no one to ask them of.

I know I am saying more than I should, but this stuff is all true.

Now with the boy and the birds, I am really alone with it. I can't start another thread. I have PMd someone and asked for an opinion, gotten no response. It is my decision, and I don't know what to do.

I had a lot of photos on there to choose from, but I have taken them off. I can have that much control, I can take my own stuff off, if it is not the first one in a thread. It was just too long and confusing.

Snappy, I am just tired, but I didn't want you thinking all my questions are still there, they aren't.

ginger