I agree with this assessment. I like all the photos but "The Race" and Squirrel are my favorites.

Why so many shots? These bee photos were taken many years ago with a point and shoot camera. My first digital camera was an Olympus 3.2 MP that I bought on Ebay for $75.00 in 2005. It had a killer sensor for its size and took great photos. Subsequent years I too a lot of bee photos with the macro setting on Point and shoots. I got good at it but this how the photo sessions went. For every 100 photos I took of the bees 20 were good enough to keep. Out of the 20, 10 were really good and nice and between 3 and 5 were fantastic. For many reasons I took so many but the main reason is that bees like to fly away or move around the flower. I took thousands of photos of the bees and deleted a lot of photos that did not make the cut. My flickr page shows the best of the bee photos I took.

I hope she liked the photos of the fussy crying baby.

I agree, a newbie area would be very nice. I see a lot of questions and the snide remarks of some people. It is a shame that people have to make newbie's feel that they are in the wrong place. You are not, and I have seen some very nice and knowledgeable people help with problems and they are to be applauded. A special newbie place would be helpful in what we hope will keep the snarky folks away. I have been around a long time and there are always a few bad apples out there that just get off on giving out bad vibes. It is not easy putting on blinders and ignoring them but we can try.

I am sure it was. But if you read the fine print of any contract, it states that it has the right to change the provision within the contract. The Post might have decided that it was not advantageous being aligned with Amazon Prime. That may have been a mutual decision between the two entities. But unfortunately the change happened. I guess it all boils down, how much value is the Post to you? Is it worth the $99.00?

That is one reason I rarely subscribe to the free trials. There are way to many websites that want to have you subscribe and in the long run becomes a very expensive proposition. But, if I really like a site and I take the bait, it is because I tried it and I liked it. But that will happen in 1 out of 1,000 sites that want me to subscribe and pay.

Stop kicking yourself, sometimes mistakes like this can be serendipitous, and make for a very lively photo and a study in contrasts. Some of my best viewed photos on Flickr came from serendipity. I posted those photos on UHH many years back and they were all caught on the fly. This is a very nice photo. I called it Serendipity Happy Accident. And it was.

Great find. Serendipity is the best way to get a photo. You never know when you will find that lucky shot. We all have stories of shots that just pop up when we least expect it.

I have done that too. In fact I inserted a canvas in my printer on the wrong side instead of the printable side and liked what I saw. It was different and if the right photo called for that effect, I would do it again. I have tried every texture on the market and had a grand ol time experimenting.

I try to experiment with effects some succeed and some don't. I like comments and I judge if one is just being to complainy just for the sake of complaing, I ignore. But if the criticism has valid points I take them into account.

My first digital camera was an Olympus 3.2 MP point and shoot that I got used on Ebay on 2006. It was a small camera but it had a sensor to die for and colors that were fantastic. I used it for 5 years and it gave up the ghost. But did I learn a lot and got tons of great photos considering I must have made millions of shots out of that used camera. It was a 5x zoom and was boatloads of fun.

This is my take after being a bit lazy to send out cards.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kitkaphotogirl/32181449936/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kitkaphotogirl/31646784016/in/dateposted-public/

I use flickr to showcase my best photographs. I also put my photos under the creative common license with attribution. In public forums it will be hard not to have someone use your photo even if you put copyright on it. I have been on flickr since 2006 and many who posted and put copyright on their photos, found someone had absconded the photo and put it to use somewhere else without permission. Any public venue has the possibility. I am not selling my photos but I can say I am quite published. Flickr is doing for me what I wanted it to do. You can put your photos on flickr as private and allow only a select few or many to view with your permission. Some sites say they are hack proof but I am very skeptical about that. You need to ask yourself what you goal is in putting your photos online and find one that meet your needs.

These series of photos show that photo opportunities come in all seasons and weather conditions. In your case you took advantage of the rain to explore black and white and they series are stunning photos. This was a great use of your time.

This photo is absolutely adorable, I love the composition.