Hi Andrew,

Good to see that there is another Kiwi on here. First time I have come across another.
I agree, that NZ country house hunters programme is a bit of a flop. And when they got caught out over that house that the house hunters already owned, somewhere in the SI and not far from Timaru I think, that ruined it even more.

As for your point about 'having it or not' - it can be learned. Sure, for some of us it comes fairly naturally, but for most it's a learned thing and like any learning process, some folk learn some things more quickly than others learn. I am often amused when I see loads of people 'Liking' a sunset photo that is nothing more than another ordinary sunset photo. Sure, it may look quite pretty and nice, but really! Same with photos of the moon. There are millions of ordinary moon photos out there on the net. I shoot the moon sometimes, but my moon photos are not 'just a another photo of the moon'. I haven't put a moon photo of UHH yet, but I will get around to it one of these days. Or you can look at my instagram feed, there are some of my moon pics on there:
www.instagram.com/paulrobertsonphotonz/

A photo can be technically perfect but boring as hell and poorly composed, yes. And another photo may not be technical good and still be great. Some years back I went to a National Geographic photo exhibition that was held in the local public art gallery and there were a number of excellent photos in that that were not technically good.

What I often aim for is to make something that will make people stop and look for longer, and have a think about the image. I don't shoot any particular genre because I like doing everything, but I mainly like doing creative stuff where I stage the scene or the subject. Sometimes that includes a person or people in the photo, and sometimes not. About a year back the local weekly newspaper ran a weekly photo thing where people were asked to submit a photo and the theme was "Quirky" and it had to be a photo taken locally. The newspaper didn't run it for very many weeks, but I submitted one photo and they published it. I'm sure I posted that one here on UHH as well. Wait!... I just checked and here is the link:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-759562-1.html

As for abandoned and derelict buildings and cars, I like photos of those too and I have taken a lot of them over the years - houses and buildings mostly.

Finally for now, one time when I was in camera club one of my photos won 'Honours' (the top award) as well as 'Best Image' of the night, and it was not technically perfect. The judges are not club members, they get in independent judges and in this case the judge was one of the Photography degree lecturers from UCOL. And UCOL photo students often win the annual nationwide photo competition in the student category - UCOL's photo course in the best in NZ. So the judge who loved my photo was not some 'average photographer' off the street. In fact, he awarded Honours to three of my photos that night. My 'Best Image' was taken in Dunedin. And no, it was not an HDR night shot of Dunedin railway station.

Tim. You always seem to surprise me in a good way. These images of VADA I think are just an excellent example of capturing the young lady in a natural setting without just trying to pose for a camera. I really like her facial expressions and the way you captured just a natural setting of her just being herself. It is a whole new perspective about her and I really like these pictures you did so thank you for sharing with us.
And also, I love your descriptions about the postings you give also always informative.
That’s my story and I’m sticking with it buddy.
Bruce

Golden advice .

Looking at other people's efforts works well if you make the effort to evaluate their efforts and try to discern what works and what doesn't work - and why. The good stuff shows you what works well and the not so good stuff shows you what works not so well, or just plain doesn't work. Seeking out work from competent people gives you more of the good stuff to learn from, but even the bad stuff shows us something.

Taking advice and criticism without insult is essential if we want to improve, but not everybody is looking to improve and all they want is compliments. That's their choice.

When I was younger I used to wander around art galleries that displayed art work and photography. I spent a lot of time doing that and much of the time I didn't understand what I was looking at but I evaluated each one as I went and at the very least I developed clear preferences. One of the best ways for us to learn is to develop a personal style based on our own personal preferences. Later on I started to learn more about why some things work well and other things work not so well, and that enabled me to refine my learning process, but filling my head full of a load of so-called rules hasn't been a significant part of my learning process.