Given that this was a movie stunt it was probably the part of the protective clothing ensemble covering the family jewels.

You're kidding, right? I thought I was demonstrating the virtues of the zoom-in, not zoom-out.

Bob, I agree that it is possible to wade through posts that are not written in perfect prose. And I don't/won't point out every mistake that I see. It was the put-down of someone who did point out spelling errors that got me primed (I, in fact, gave the correcting poster 2 thumbs up), and it was your words "… compulsive desire to enforce some arbitrary rules that have no bearing on communicating ideas…" that blew my fuse. As stated in my rant, I believe proper spelling and grammar have a very strong bearing on communication, to the extent that poor writing can undermine the credibility of the author. I get especially irked when the person slamming someone for being a grammar policeman is one of the biggest offenders, so to speak.

Sorry it was you I hit on, and I'm glad to see that we are probably on the same page, really.

J

Yes, Bob, the rules of spelling and grammar are arbitrary. They are, in fact, as arbitrary as the units of length, mass, time, etc, which ensure that we understand our physical world; they are as arbitrary as the standards for RAW, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, HTTP, etc, which ensure that we can communicate in cyberspace as we are now; they are as arbitrary as the rules of the road which are enforced to avoid dire consequences. Arbitrary has nothing to do with it.

But agreement on, and adherence to, a common set of rules for spelling and grammar has EVERYTHING to do with how we communicate with others. Like it or not, the rules have been agreed to, taught and implemented for centuries. Based on those rules there are "rights" and "wrongs" that are NOT subject to interpretation; they are not the whimsical result of a compulsive desire. Meanings and intent, or mis-intent, in communication are conveyed by proper use, or misuse, of those rules.

There is room for bending and even breaking the rules of spelling and grammar to creatively make a point; just be careful what point you are making. When a photographer presents a photo in which a person's skin is turned green for whatever reason you form an impression not only of the image, but also of the photographer. When a writer's words on the page are misspelled, run together or garbled so much that the reader has to struggle, then the message has probably missed its target; concomitantly those words create an impression of the writer in the reader's mind.

Incidentally, in your comment you should have:
a) put a comma after "me", although that is optional;
b) spelled "other's" which is singular-posessive as "others'" which is the correct plural-posessive; and
c) removed the comma after "spelling".

I guess I am now a member of the Grammar Police on UHH. I feel honored.

Getting onto my hobby-horse of not deleting any images, maybe Ansel is referring to "printing" 12 good images a year. From an article about Moonrise I got the impression that he reworked that negative many times over many years, so it appears he held on to it for a long time. I wonder if he ever destroyed a negative.

Thanks, I feel a bit better now. But I do also sympathize with movie stunt men -- they take a beating sometimes. I bet this one still hurt quite a bit… unless the whole thing is faked.

There are plenty of short videos that show "funny" situations or happenings (fails) that probably had a very bad outcome. Seeing how that car rocked makes me wonder if the guy even survived that kick. To say "he got what he deserved" may be a bit premature or short-sighted.

So yes, we do laugh at them, but maybe we should be shown what follows so that we can sympathize a bit more.

I love the analogy to music; and you can take that even a step further. Synthesizers now create sounds that no natural physical phenomenon can ever produce. Some are pleasing to the ear while others simply grate on the senses. I often look at TV commercials (and, of course, movies) today and wonder how they would have achieved that visual effect back in the '50s.

Hey Bob, be honest now… are you sure the second image was not SOOC and the first one you presented had the PP???

I am kidding, of course, but could you explain how you knew to take that particular exposure for the final effect? On my monitor the colors look really off in the original.

Sorry Ron, but I have to disagree with you on this one. The topic is "getting it right in the camera" with the intent of conveying to others the image the photographer imagined in his mind's eye. PP is a means of modifying what came out of the camera, but in the end it is all about COMMUNICATING a visual concept or idea.

The same principle applies to written communication. The first keystrokes on the computer are like SOOC. Some folks get it right the first time, but most writing can use proofing and editing.

Think of the message as an image. Proper spelling is akin to noise reduction; punctuation and paragraphing are like composition and cropping; the word choices themselves are like white balance; and shouting -- or SHOUTING/SHOUTING -- is like saturation/contrast adjustment. The final written message conveys an overall tone and says a lot about the creator of the text/image. The Preview button is your chance as the author of the message to see if what you have typed really conveys what you intended to say. If the message is not clear or not expressing your intent you have a chance to adjust it before presenting your work, and yourself, to the world.

I can make allowance for the odd spelling, punctuation and grammar errors; they do occasionally slip past even the best of text editors. And while folks for whom English is not their first language have more of a challenge, I read/interpret their material as having a slight accent (and it's often kind of cute!!).

But there are people on here who are REALLY bad at this. Their messages are full of splling mesteaks they don't know how to use pinktuashun or caps they create runnnnnon seeentneces etc etc etc.

Don't chastise those who point out spelling and grammar errors; they are in a manner of speaking critiquing a photo. We are here to share ideas and learn, and while there is much more latitude in what makes a photo great there is far less latitude for spelling and grammar. Our education system is at fault for no longer teaching/emphasizing these essentials, but the modern era of computers has provided us with great tools to PP our written messages. To not know they exist is ignorance; to not use them is laziness; to refuse to use them is stupidity; but to disrespect those who offer suggestions for improving one's work when the errors are truly black and white is… well… I'll just leave it at that. I got your message.

:thumbup: :thumbup: to that. And don't forget Preview before Send.

If you like the ritual and feel it enhances the experience then go for it. But it's instant for me, and drip when we have guests. The last time we had our coffee connoisseurs/grinders over they remarked on how good our coffee tasted. They were surprised it was just filter/drip coffee.

Somewhat similarly, I did a blind side-by-side taste test of scotch with friends who claimed they can tell a good one from a bad one (for me, "good" and "scotch" should never be in the same sentence!!!). Both the husband and wife chose the cheap scotch, even explaining all the attributes of it over the other. Hah!!!

Hey Marco, regarding your last statement, I don't have any bone to pick with you. In fact I see us as being in violent agreement.

One of the programs you refer to is ACDsee. I used it with my Pentax back in the mid 2000's on my PC because it came with the camera. It had some good editing features as well as organizing, sort of like an early LR. I believe it is still rated quite highly. Unfortunately I don't think what I had back then will run on my current Mac. If I can find the install disc I may give it a try, but it is about 12 years old and it may not have had a Mac version on there.

Cheers, my friend.
JF

If I were doing photography as a business the way you are I would probably use a system similar to yours because it is logical. But I may do that in a searchable database that can be viewed in any manner desired.

To relate a "file organizing" example from my past, in research we often requested reprints of research articles from other scientists to be used as reference material. This was well before desktop computers and internet. I tended to file my reprints in folders by topic. A colleague filed all his by author. A professor I worked with simply numbered each reprint as he received it and filed it in the cabinet by number. However, using carbon paper he made multiple copies of the title/author/keywords, etc on separate cards and filed them in appropriate file boxes. He would use whatever file box was appropriate for his search, and then he would simply locate the reprint via its serial number as listed on the card. Sounds like the old library catalogue system, doesn't it. In some ways I am emulating that system today and simply using the OS search capability to locate a photo by a keyword in the file name.

In the end, one has to be able to locate the particle image of interest, and I think you present a very viable organizational structure.

Another point from my original post that may have eluded some folks addresses the ease with which one can add useful information to mark/identify a photo. Programs like LR and other EXIF processors use keywords, but as I understand it some of those "indexing" approaches are particular to the program. I have chosen to add the useful information to the filename itself so that I am independent of the programs (assuming OSs will always be able to read a file name).

I don't know how familiar people on Macs are with Automator (and there may be a PC equivalent), but I find it VERY powerful for dealing with files and folders. I have been using computers for decades now, including programming right from machine code up to high level languages. There was never a question in my mind that with enough effort I could write my own code/scripts to manipulate file and folder names. But when I stumbled on Automator I was elated. Someone at Apple has put a user-friendly front end on scripting that makes it sooooo easy to use. Just as we don't have to tell the computer/printer where to put a dot to form a character, which is part of a word, which fits into a formatted paragraph in a text document, here is a way that the average person can use OS scripting to do very useful tasks.

Your last statement, of course, sums it all up. I think we are all providing helpful advice to folks who want suggestions on how to organize their photo files, and it is up to them to choose their favorite approach.

Does that mean you are an ASS (Alcohol Stabilized Senior)? :lol: