Hi, we are Syyd and Colm Jackson, and we are the new Moderators of Rendorosity's Photography Forum. As you may or may not have known, this forum does not generate a lot of activity, and this is about to change. As of this date, there are 634 images in the Photography Gallery. This just goes to show there is a lot of activity in the photographic medium on Renderosity as a whole. At present, we would like to bring everybody interested in photography together to share and communicate their images, ideas, techniques, tips and information, from beginner to experienced professional. Here are some ideas we've been tossing around: To begin a bi-monthly photographic project, in which we all set a subject, and then go click away. We then would post our images to the forum, and to the gallery. We can then begin to interact with each other about our work, and further our photographically creative expression and knowledge. Some of the subjects we want to include are portraits, landscapes, close ups , seasonal, abstract and the strange, animals and nature, digital post-production and a whole host of others. An "Image of the Month". This would be a selection from the two bi-monthly categories. There could be a web award given for this image. Something like, "Renderosity Photo of the Month". To gather as much information on tutorials, tips, how to's, and impressive galleries and links found on the web. From surfing the web, one thing we noticed is photographic images tend to be posted in very small sizes. We want to encourage you to break down these barriers, and post your images at least 640 x 480. We want to see and enjoy your work, not have to get a magnifying glass and reading glasses to interpret the pixels, LOL. This Forum will be about all aspects of photography, not just digital, but encompassing traditional methods and more experimental methods as well. As we are working in a digital environment , this involves subjects such as software, printers, and scanners, as well as lenses, different kinds of cameras, printing paper, you name it, lets talk about it! We are not an extensive knowledge base ourselves, although Colm worked as a professional photographer for years, and we want to learn and grow ourselves, along with everyone who participates. I myself am simply a great experimenter, and have much to learn here. Lets start off with saying hello, introducing ourselves, and spreading the word about the hopes and plans we have for the forum. Hopefully in about two weeks time, we will be able to start out with our first photographic project, after we have enough people in place to make it interesting. So please introduce yourself, please please please post one of your photos on the forum with your introduction, and begin sharing. Please give us your ideas as well, after all it is your input that makes it important. The only way to learn is to share, listen, and participate. Yours, Syyd and Colm

Well said and welcome Syyd and Colm :) Looking forward to the forum changes and learning some new photography hint and tips and of course sharing what I know as well :) I am a photography hobbiest , started when I was 10 with my own b/w darkroom and have done it ever since :) In the last year I have gone exclusivly digital with my Nikon Coolpix 950 and I must say I love it!! I am currently working on merging 2 of my favorite things together , computers and photography with a new series of software called KoolKam that will be available here very soon. It mixes the use of your digital capture devices and real time special effects to allow you to make what I think of as real time artwork. No need for post production to get kool effects any more :) Well thats all I have to say for now, except to wish Syyd and Colm the best of luck in making this forum and great community grow and flourish :) Peace and Creativity Chris

Thanks Chris. Can't wait for 'KoolKam'... It really ROCKS!!!

NOw that's the spirit! Let's stir this place up.

Attached Link: http://murk.itgo.com/

Trying this once more...I guess I took too long with the last post that it never made it. Oh well here goes Hi my name is Leigh. I love photography, though I have to admit I am not that good. I don't have a great camera yet...I say yet because I am praying that my dad finds another camera that he falls in love with and sends me his digital one....LOL..gotta love them hammy downs... I love restoring old photos. I have posted one photo of my dad from when he was young. I am posting this image of me, when I was a little baby. I fixed up the picture but can not find the original black and white, but here is an example of what I like doing, colorizing and restoring. I am trying to talk my father into coming to this site to check out this forum. I believe he is an awesome photographer, he does it for hobby...If you would like, you can see some of his images he has taken at his website, and maybe if you have any comments, post them and I will send them to him maybe that will encourage him to visit. Hope to learn and I can't wait to see all the photographs!!

Welcome Leigh. Great to have you here. Restoring old photo's is an artform all by itself. With computers though it has become a much faster process..IMHO. Good camera's are of course a great benifit to photography but not always essential to creating 'good' photography. Take for instance all the great photography that has been done with low resolution webcams. It is the eye and the mind that produces the art. The camera is the tool that we use to record it. Usually the better the camera, the better the technical quality. Your dad is a very good photographer and he is more than welcome here. Please persuade him to join in... Colm...

Great to have this new forum! Thanks, Syyd and Colm! Well, here goes .. probably more than you want to know about me but ... I'm Lisa and I'm new (again) to Photography. I had started studying Photography about 20 years ago with a Canon AE1, but life, motherhood and other things kept my interest to purely "event" photography. About 10 years ago I accidentally smashed my Canon beyond repair and wasn't able to replace it until the past few years when I got a Minolta. This new camera and seeing what I can do with it has reignited my desire to learn. My son had expressed an interest in learning Photography so for Christmas 1999 we bought him a fully manual Canon. I thought I'd start at the basics and learn with him. He was really excited about learning but didn't have a chance to begin. He passed away on Easter Sunday of last year after an auto accident. Just recently I've found myself seeing the world around me again with new eyes and am wanting to capture that view on film. I plan to learn the basics using my son's camera as well as my own. I'm interested in learning everything I can about both traditional and digital photography. I've posted two of my photos in my Gallery here but am dissappointed at the lack of constructive crticism. (Yes, I can take criticism, good, bad and ugly) As a beginner, I think they look good but don't know what I can improve or how they look from a professional point of view. I love art, being creative and learning new things and look forward to this forum becoming a place to do just that and more. The attached photo is one taken with the Minolta very early in the morning on the beach. The sky had just started to glow with the sunrise and I caught Lucki sniffing around in a pile of seaweed. Lisa

Hey, all, Glad to see some people showing up here in the Photography forum! I hope to see more showing up as time goes on. Welcome, all! Malenchite

hi, i'm Gary Gantney and would like to join the forum. i've been taking pictures since i was eight. started with B&W and use to develop and print my own pictures. in the last 20yrs i've expanded my photo work into forensic and work related photography. lately i've expanded into digital photography. i have found a whole new set of challenges and opportunities. i have several thousand pictures that i've taken over the past 40 years. i'm posting one of my personal favorite pictures because of the colors and composition. i took the picture with my SLR Mamiya-Sekor-DL1000 with a 55mm lens and flash. you are welcome to comment on picture.

Fantastic photos I am seeing here. I am so glad I came here to see everything. Now maybe I can learn some great things from you and I can do better at photography...

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Y&Artist=stefbois

Hi all i am interrested to join this newsgroup... First of all forget my sometime poor written anglish being french it is quit not ovious to translate my thougth.... I could say that photography did prevent me from dropping out school...start in b&w when i whas 15, participate to the school journal and 3 year in a row made with my partner Laurent the picture of the high school graduate album for the student activity...since that i did merely did special event like friend wedding familly christmas... know that i move in my new house change my use of my free time i am reviving my lost love... Currently have 2 x-700 with multiple lens and filter... My interrest is nature in all her wonder....i am not pro but whish to expand my knowlege...i am in a big mind buggin maze...do i install my darkroom or go digital...i am a fan of photo retouching! Work with photoshop,paint shop and ulead photo impact...so lets go i m in! Lead the way ill follow...

Hello all, wonderful to see all of your work here......I feel so happy that everyone is interested, and am absolutely overwhelmed at the responses. Gary, your picture has some amazing color, and the angle its taken at is so different, it has a very sci fi, almost outerspace feel to it. Lisa, I love the dog....! The first question out of my mouth was what is he standing in?????? Leigh your restorations are amazing, it almost made me cry because it looks like a childhood picture of mine, in fact I might send you one and ask you to color it for me, the vividness of the newer one is like a color dream. StefBois, may I ask where you live? You have some amazing, amazing nature pictures, and I fell in love with many posted here. Well, it looks like the number of posts here have grown, and I am so looking forward to this. Syyd

Syyd....You just go right ahead and send me a copy of your picture and I would be more than willing to do what I can with it...And thanks for the compliment..You really don't know how that makes me feel.....I really thank you!!! Leigh

Syyd--do you see a problem with posting both with the forum and the our regular gallery?

Oh No....Gar, thats the whole idea...please post your work as many places as you can......This forum, when we begin the bi monthlies, I hope, will take their work and post it in the galleries too..... I hope you enjoy being here, you are a good friend, and I am glad we have something we can do together, since you first piqued my curiosity about this stuff! Syyd

Well, my digital camera SUCKS (LOL), but I might even have one or two to toss in here from time to time. Congratulations again, Colm and Syyd...looking forward to seeing what you do with this place. :)

Mike, you just keep popping in here and tossin em in. I used to have this Kodak disc camera, years ago, and my Mom and I would go to the horticulture gardens in Niagara Falls Canada, and I would take picture after picture of these flowers. Now we all know the lens capability of a disc camera, is like a pair of reading glasses, but I would waste disc after disc on these flowers, and in my head, I was taking these amazing pictures. And I would remember after I looked at each photo, what I thought about that moment, that flower, and I could feel the sun. So, photography is anything we want it to be, and this forum, is a place for anybody who wants to just share a bit about it, and their interest at any level. Syyd

Attached Link: http://http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Y&Artist=stefbois

for syyd i am from Joliette,Qc,Canada and picture shown are in around my place or town near by....flower where from my home garden and colorfull tree are maybe less than a kilometer from my house....the cascade are from a small parc call Mont A Peine 25 to 30 km from my home....

Welcome Sefbois, It is great that you have joined us. I like your photographs in the gallery. Looking forward to seeing much more from you... Colm...

beautiful photographs of a very beautiful region. Where is Joliette in relation to Montreal? What does Mont a Peine mean translated? I speak only a little french, as I am of french descent. Welcome Stef, and glad you are here! I am enjoying going through your gallery very much....the blade of grass or wheat with the water bubbles is a great photograph.

Guess I'm a bit late in here...but here I am. And I'm brand new really. I've only been doing photography for about 3 months, and I'll be doing it as long as I can borrow a camera (probably another 3 months or so..) and I am very much an amateur. I hadn't used an SLR camera before until I got hold of one right before Christmas. But I do find a lot of pleasure in taking photos, even though at this stage I am just playing around with different lenses and f-stops to teach myself what works and what doesn't. I've been doing a bit of macro photography, some results are in my gallery... Here is a pic I took during Christmas in New Plymouth, New Zealand... Compared to most other people in the Photography section I feel like a very helpless amateur, but I hope I'll learn. I've been quite lucky so far - managed to sell a copy of one of the photos similar to the one I'm uploading here, just a couple of days ago. Quite thrilled about that. I really don't deserve it considering I haven't been doing this for long! :-) Oh..and I'm 18, female, a poor Norwegian student living in NZ, I occasionally do my own developing/printing in B/W but I don't really have too much spare time so I spend too much money on developing instead. Anyways, nice to see this Forum up and running! ~Marshmallowpie

And I guess my picture doesn't show. Oh well.

Marshmallowpie, I know next to nothing about photography, but that picture is gorgeous! I don't know why you say it "doesn't show", because I can see it just fine. :) --Mike

Welcome Marshmallowpie, I've seen your work! This is quite beautiful, for Christmas then, everyone puts up colored torches? How did you take this, where were you? I am a rank amateur myself, but I love fiddling with photographs. Congrats on your sell, its very exciting and does point you in a direction! Thats fantastic. Welcome, and hoping to see much more of your work. syyd

Hey Syyd and Mike. Mike - the photo didn't show after I uploaded but it does now.. Must have been my browser! Syyd - Yes they were taken for Christmas, during something called the Festival of Lights in a park in New Plymouth, New Zealand. I took them over a 5 minute exposure, the light trails you see on the water are from people rowing boats with torches on them. I wasn't expecting the result to be anywhere near this good, but I guess I was lucky. I've had a few lucky shots since I started out...most of the time I've had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but now I think I'm more in control. I love just playing around with the camera, experimenting to see what happens, that's how I learn. I've tried to read photography books and all kinds of things, but I have to see results to actually learn something...too bad developing is so expensive!! Wish I had a digital camera but the old Pentax Spotmatic 2 I'm using now will have to do. It's a very reliable camera...and I wish it was mine! :-)) Anyways, thanks for your compliments. I'll go check out the rest of the forum now! ~M~

first welcome to ~M~ to help you my great shot never did come directly from a recipies already made.... it come from guessing and testing doing also a lots of reading.... But your picture is really fine.... Syyd my place is only 45 min east of Mtl in between Mtl and Quebec near Three Rivers. And for chute mont a peine probably because ive been there mean that you are sick tired to walk after your ride.....lol It is down a valley and there is a lots of staire to do up and down... realy it is just a name no translation available....lol

Welcome MarshmalloPie, Im so glad you are here, I've seen your work and loved it.....Good luck with what you are doing, because its great! Again welcome all, you have been so great, each and every one of you for taking the time to come see us! Syyd

Okay Stef, I know the mountain, my dad had a heart attack climbing it LOL...it is a beautiful area, and Im looking forward to seeing more of your work. Syyd

My name is Niko R. and I'm healthy human being. I am! Honestly! ...I'm From small northern county called Finland, between Sweden and Russia. I've been doing photography for about three years now. I used to have old, manual Canon AE-1, but I was idiot and sold it. Now, I have Minolta AF7000 and Sony Cyber-Shot P1 digital cam. I like to watch pics, I really do. Try to think what the artist tought and felt when she/he took that pic. What she/he ment and why? How to improve pic, and I usually try to tell it to the artist too. I'm sucker for all the information about visual things. And slave to the RR too. Like you do. I'm really glad to see this forum here. And I'm really glad, that we have such a fine pair of moderators here. Yours; -N

One of my favorite pictures.....LOL. Welcome to a good, good, good friend, one I mention, in value to the truth, cause he always gives it, always calls it as he sees it, and is a true and honorable human being. Slave to RR? Oh my, I guess you called us on that! Thanks for being here, I believe your contribution to this forum will be amazing. Syyd

I find (long) articles white on black unpleasant to read. ( I have reading (computer glasses)) Pictures should start with an overall small (fast) thumbnail. Use the width of the screen to display choices. I wish you succes.. Rob

aak to much who cares if your a beginner or not just post the darn photo and give good critisum (misspelled) Have a look boss. p.s. who was the wise nut that jacked my pants