Many thanks for including me too, it's an honour to be seen amongst such talented photographers as my usual focus here is 2D and so it was a great surprise :-)

Okay, I had a look at that earlier thread, thanks for that (and sorry for the misunderstanding above). Anyway, Joe was given some suggestions, even a link to the Comics section, where he could make inquiries. But five days later he's coming back saying his images have been pulled - having been pursuing his original route instead. This is nothing to do with him being a "newbie" or otherwise; upon having an image pulled for the first time the mod didn't descend on him like a ton of bricks but just pointed out his mistake and offered an alternative route. If he took it he'd be able to keep creating and posting, instead of deciding to stop posting altogether which is a shame. This isn't about elitism, just accepting that some things are off limits. I do agree though that the site should maybe have these issues covered in text somewhere (or at least more prominently - I went hunting but couldn't find anything, maybe that's my crappy hunting skills though!). Maybe there could be a forum specifically for newbies that covers these bases? :-)

Attached Link: stock.xchng

Colouring in flower scans from Dover's out-of-copyright designs would be fine and I can't imagine you'd get your work pulled for doing this, as you'd be working with sanctioned sources. jbeauvais on the other hand has been trying to use other people's non-sanctioned works, permission was neither sought nor given, regardless of him giving acknowledgement. There are plenty of people around who provide free stock material (www.sxc.hu and www.deviantart.com are two fine examples, thousands of images to be found there and in high resolution!) so why use copyrighted works when there are so many legitimate alternatives? If speaking in favour of protecting artists' intellectual property is considered elitism then it's become a pretty sad state of affairs. I agree with crrunchyfrog that an artist has a great emotional connection with their output and to see someone else appropriate it (especially after being asked not to - how respectful is that?) could be most distressing and frustrating. I cast my mind back to an incident where someone I know here made a drawing based closely on a photo by a professional photographer. He sought permission *after* posting it, and even though his intention was basically one of flattery the photographer felt insulted at not being asked first and came down on him like a ton of bricks, demanding that he delete the post or there would be legal action. This is the way of things. You have to see it from the side of the artist as well, creative people are typically sensitive about the fruits of their labour.

Message edited on: 02/26/2005 11:54

Way to go Cam! And a really cute capture of this little girl, your daughter I presume? :-)
Reminds me of the National Space Centre that's about half an hour away from me... it has fun models so much like that in your shot (and part of the building even looks rather like a giant ribbed condom) :-D Message edited on: 11/01/2004 18:22

I agree. For me a good threshold of "suitability" for the Photography gallery is this: Could it also be done in the darkroom?

Contrasting should be allowed. Find any professional photographer (even the big names) and chances are that their finished prints will look quite different from the images on their contact sheet, having undergone selective contrasting to bring out the tonal range. In some lighting conditions (whether natural or artificial) it is just not possible to exact the full range of tones in a shot, and many famous photographs have undergone such "postwork" in the darkroom - no one would dream of calling their creators "not true photographers".

Tinting... again, this has been done for years and years. I remember at art college there was a chemical you could buy to turn your black and white prints into sepia tones. I'm not "clued up" enough to know much about these things but as far as I'm aware shots can be tinted in any number of ways in the darkroom.

Touch-ups... remember the good old airbrush? It's now over a century old, having been invented in the early 1890s. While it's been done to death at times (particularly in the 1950s and round about that period) generally photographs have not been considered "no longer photographs" if they've had corrections (particularly for spots, skin blemishes and other flaws). Really this stuff should be kept tasteful and minor and shouldn't detract far from the source.

But when things are manipulated beyond what can be done in the darkroom... really, why not just post in the 2D gallery? When 3D elements are involved, then okay, Mixed Media. I guess there are a few people out there who can do unbelievable things in the darkroom without ever going near Photoshop (check out J.K.Potter for example) but really, this sort of thing is pretty exceptional and is another form of illustration. For the purposes of keeping confusion minimal, I do think postworking should be minimal for Photography gallery pieces.

As for stock photography, I agree with Cass above, definitely not! People's uploads in the Photography gallery should be their own ;-)

2 pence from me, seeing as I'm English LOL ;-) Message edited on: 10/26/2004 13:07

Yeah, Anna's talent for writing is quite rare, her style is particularly evocative, even cinematic at times. Thanks for linking to her pic, she was really pleased :-)

Good point ;-)

Actually I don't think the sheer amount of data being stored is the REAL issue here. More xxxGB hard drives can be added to the stack and this is happening already when 'Rosity goes into downtime; the capacity is being expanded. Okay we're not talking infinity but how long is a piece of string? What definitely ISN'T infinite is bandwidth. The number of members is growing by the day, and the issue will simply be: how many people are trying to access Renderosity at any given point? The internet is an exchange of information, and every individual who is either uploading OR downloading will be adding to the strain borne by 'Rosity's servers. Sure, the two aspects are not wholly unrelated, and yes, two more images uploaded per day does constitute some more drive access. But in the scheme of things this just won't compare with the sheer numbers who all contribute to the strain just by going about their business surfing the galleries. So, to allude to nature once more, the issue is one of overpopulation, not so much about what each person does with their acre of land (after all, many people here are members simply to surf and comment, without posting any works of their own). Think of 'Rosity as being a building, and any surfing members being inside that building: you can only fit so many people into any one building before it's so jam-packed no one can move and everything grinds to a halt. The issue must be one of actively exchanged or "moving" data - bandwidth usage - not saved data. Not that I'm an expert or anything LOL but that's what springs to mind... I'm just not convinced that limiting uploads to one a day is gonna make a whole world of difference to the smooth (or otherwise) running of the site ;-D

What a debate this is turning out to be! sits back from a safe distance to watch the sparks

I'll second that ;-)

I don't see anything really wrong with this limit. In some ways Renderosity has become a victim of its own success on the technical side, so it is having to adapt in order to help itself survive. And maybe it'll encourage people to be a bit less "trigger happy" with posting pretty much anything just because they can (been guilty of that myself now and then) and concentrate on working on their own artistic development. Is one image a day really so bad? And about constructive criticism, yeah, it's a pretty shit state of affairs when people take things personally... good grief I mean one of the prime functions of this place is to help us all evolve, and how can we do that when people are just telling us how awesome we are all the time, no matter what we post? Result? We sit on our laurels. And that's a shame. Sure, we tend to invest a deep emotional attachment in our work, but provided criticism is given the right way it should be seen as help not an insult. I mean, we're supposed to be adults aren't we? ;-)

...and in response to sleiqu, we say "yeah" instead of "yes" a lot over here, probably as much as you guys... but again it depends a lot on class and region ;-) Fascinating really, it must be a minefield for Americans... we're so used to it all over here, but for Yanks it must be such a culture shock :-) Conversely, Americans seem to be able to identify their own local dialects whereas we can only differentiate between the "standard" American accent and the obvious Southern drawl... a friend in San Clemente was telling me about the "New York accent" only the other night, and I had to confess to her I didn't know there was one ;-D

Wise words from pdblake there :-) Yorkshire does vary a lot, he's right. And yes, Cockney does not resemble Australian in any way, I've no idea where that came from ;-) Of all our indigenous accents, the most baffling must be Glaswegian (natives of Glasgow, Scotland)... at its strongest, this dialect is almost incomprehensible to anyone living outside that area, and even many Scottish people have a lot of trouble understanding it!! For a good demonstration of the Glaswegian accent, there was a Scottish comedy show on TV called "Rab C.Nesbitt", no idea if it's been exported, maybe it's been repeated on UK Gold, I dunno. Anyway I remember an episode where the phrase "commit suicide" is pronounced "camat sooiseed", and they even used to spell episode titles phonetically, for example "fitba" (translation: football) :-D Okay, guess I should say at this point that I'm not taking the piss, it's just light-hearted observation (just in case any Glaswegian members hang out here) ;-D

As I tilt my head sonic chaos is buffeting around. A lighter cast of orange is in top left but only diffuse veins remain. Suddenly the scene shifts but the place is the same. A fake marriage of Faust and Stockhausen erupts, about to collapse. Cut-off and fade, and attention shifts to distant engines. A beatific nightmare enters as a non-actor snores. (And I probably haven't even posted in the right thread. Feel free to point and laugh)

Ewan McGregor playing Obi-Wan Kenobi too... god I could stick his light sabre where the sun won't shine ;-) It's so fake :-)