Originally Posted by grandmaR I loved these, but particularly this one as I have one of a Roman re-enactment and when I looked at the photo I took it showed one of the soldiers that had his back to me had his hand up under his tunic scratching his butt. Everyone's submissions are great, and I particularly like the tailor of travelways. But tinamarie52 either you didn't get the concept, or I don't know what it is about.

grandmaR,
In most cases the subject is up to everyone's own interpretation. It can be quite varied at times. The post read "a portrait taken in the subject's usual environment". Her pics have a subject and an enviroment. It is just a little "out of the box" thinking.

The boilerplate at the top asks us to comment. I made two positive comments and one negative comment. Are only positive comments allowed?

I thought briefly of doing animals, but if I had done that, I would have wanted the natural wild environment that the animal was in as that would show something about them. A horse is a horse is a horse. Unless it is a working animal and shown working, (or shown posing in the show ring if it is that kind of horse) it doesn't show me much about the horse.

Originally Posted by grandmaR The boilerplate at the top asks us to comment. I made two positive comments and one negative comment. Are only positive comments allowed? I thought briefly of doing animals, but if I had done that, I would have wanted the natural wild environment that the animal was in as that would show something about them. A horse is a horse is a horse. Unless it is a working animal and shown working, (or shown posing in the show ring if it is that kind of horse) it doesn't show me much about the horse.

Not at all, positive and negative are how we learn. I was just giving you my thoughts on the environmental aspects. Like I said, we all see it differently, have our own personal tastes and outlooks. I wasn't saying you were wrong.

I feel bad about saying anything negative, but I really thought that those photos didn't get the concept (which I didn't at first and had I not looked at the examples, I might also have posted something like those). Mostly I meant to give a kind of nudge to look at the other entries. For this topic, you could make the argument that almost ANY photo showed a subject in its environment. Unless it is a pure landscape or seascape with nothing in it but sky and water or land, or some kind of product on a white field, there's almost always a subject and there's almost always an environment.

Originally Posted by grandmaR I feel bad about saying anything negative, but I really thought that those photos didn't get the concept (which I didn't at first and had I not looked at the examples, I might also have posted something like those). Mostly I meant to give a kind of nudge to look at the other entries. For this topic, you could make the argument that almost ANY photo showed a subject in its environment. Unless it is a pure landscape or seascape with nothing in it but sky and water or land, or some kind of product on a white field, there's almost always a subject and there's almost always an environment.

GrandmaR

Don’t worry too much, and certainly don’t worry about voicing what I would call questioning, but not “negative” destructive comments – or “troll behaviour” as they would say these days. In truth I wish there was more constructive commenting, and as dnie says … we don’t really learn from neutral or no comments. Selfishly, I would like more feedback on my efforts and generally more dialog within these competitions.

I think you are fair to say tinamarie has gone a different way to most – but to my mind these are some wonderful shots and I am grateful to have seen them. The wonderful bird shot in particular – for my tastes.

The question of "in or out of scope" will really be addressed by Syncopation during judging and I had "in our out" of scope doubts about my own submissions – each has their own interpretation / threshold.

In summary, please do not feel bad or constrained to make comments in the future – I wish there was more of it!

Alan

Thanks. I looked at a lot of photos before I submitted mine and tried to weed out those that didn't really fit the category (in my opinion anyway). I wanted photos that showed a person's face, their environment and my own criteria - that were a little unusual. I rejected the 'everyday' options (sports, police, children, musicians) because I'm not a professional and my pictures are really just candid snapshots. What I might have going for me is the length of time I've been doing it, and maybe the places I've been. I have color slides back to 1958 when my dad gave me a 35 mm camera for my 20th birthday. And a few Brownie photos from before that.