Thanks Hankwt and the same to you.

Bmac,As we know there are at least two sides to each story. It is not uncommon that some facts get distorted or twisted to fit the underlaying agenda or there is a need to demonize the party without an agenda.While I decided to ignore the "Why Alaskan Has Left UHH" topic I have been having hard time to ignore being portrayed as a rabid mental case here.So now you know the rest of the story and I appreciate you did not fall for all the nonsense about me.Thank you and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year as well.
P.S.: If you ever make it to Alaska please be sure to look me up and I will show you around.

Jenny,I was willing to let the topic "Why Alaskan Has Left UHH" ride into the sunset even when it was clear some trolls would see it as an open season to hunt down Alaskan.
That is why I did not read the comments,just did not want to be sucked into stupid fights about nothing.
To be fair I must say Nightski did apologized to me about the "Why Alaskan....." topic in a PM and even thanked me "for being the way I am".That was our last contact,now she presents me as a rabid mental case, go figure.
Merry Christmas,Ivan Alaskan.

Again you sound paranoid.It`s just the way you come across...

P.S.:If no nonsense honesty is not your cup of tea my advice for you is to stay away from Alaska. Too many no nonsense and politically incorrect people up here.

Jenny,please read my response to Nightski to have my take on the whole twisted situation.Thank you.

I have been alerted that more than a month after I left the UHH my name is still being thrown around so here is my long overdue disclaimer:
NIGHTSKI DOES NOT SPEAK UP FOR ME AND WAS NEVER AUTHORIZED OR ASKED TO DO SO.
She used my silent UHH departure to turn it into a public spectacle to pursue her agenda.I understand she is a big girl and could forward her agenda under her own name but instead she decided to hide behind my name while carefully (and repeatedly) distancing herself from what I listed in PMs and emails as my reasons for leaving the UHH.In another words she used me without my knowledge and my consent for her own purposes and also made public parts of my PMs (silly me, I thought the "P" in PM stands for private). Now she describes me as "very angry","super torqued","mad","still ticked" and "upset".
Nightski, you not only do not know the difference between private and public but obviously you are also harboring some paranoid personality when you cannot tell anger etc. from a honest matter-of-fact evaluation of the UHH culture,perceived or real.Why would I get angry,mad,torqued,ticked and upset because you post a horribly underexposed photo (End of Summer) or a photo with butchered composition (Tugboat At Twin Harbor)???? Those two photos are prime examples that you still have a long way to go to think and perform like a photographer.So why I would go ballistic because you screwed up and have no shame or judgment to delete instead of posting? Sure,you have the right to post whatever you want and those terminal praisers who commented those photos as "great" have the right to show their lack of judgment as well.None of my problems but I do not have to participate in something I see as stupid or waste of time.So I left,big deal......
Alaskans are not known for their diplomatic skills,we may be living in a bush but we do not beat around the bush.So let me assure you that the only time my pulse goes way up is when I am charged by a grizzly or a whale gets too close to the boat.To sum it up the UHH just does not matter and no my PMs or emails were/are written with a malice or anger in my heart.There is nothing I can do about your interpretation though.I guess that is what you get when I politely explained why I left instead of saying "none of your business" in response to your question "why".And I definitely decline the dubious honor of being the one who inspired you to campaign for the section.You created your own "little hell" and you deserve every bit of it.Leave me out,end of story.
(Before your interpretation of the above goes paranoid again I would like to stress I feel no anger or malice toward you or anybody else,I have much more important things to stress about).

If you ever make it to Wrangell,AK let me know.I will show you around.

That explains it!!!!The next time go to the Czech Republic to taste some real beer. :lol:

I appreciate your comment Bmac,thanks.

Thanks Wizdasher,your comment is appreciated.

Thanks Bmac for looking.

There is a way to save the crop even after straightening the verticals/horizont you end up with empty corners/missing edges.You can enlarge the canvas in the direction you need and clone the nearby area in.Of course it is always better to leave some extra room for cropping when you take the shot.When I said "panorama" I was not talking an image made up of several shots,I was talking more panoramic crop=one shot cropped lets say to 16:4 ratio,you said you had the whole tug in the photo before you cut it in half.Yes,I know you had to deal with verticals......but......

Thank you for looking.

Thanks Sailorsmom.

Yes,I am aware this area was kind of protected from the wave action and I said that.The thing is you deal with a limited body of water and wave action will influence even sheltered area where the water level will fluctuate up and down.If you pile up water in one area as waves,surge or tide where do you think the water comes from and where does it go after????The answer is even from the sheltered area and anything which floats will move at least up and down,not counting a breeze or currents which exists even in lakes. You may not see it by the naked eye but the water moves around even when it may look totaly calm.I photograph boats,tugs and ships all the time in all kinds of weather,day or night.Even when the water surface is perfectly calm and the reflections are mirror perfect any time exposure longer than a few seconds usually records a boat or ship blurry while stationary objectslike pilings are sharp.The size of the boat or tug really does not matter.Anything which floats bobs or rocks if you see it or not.Extra long exposure do not solve the motion problem, waves will not record but any floating/bobing subject will develop a fuzzy edge or turn into a blurry blob.
You ask me to use the link provided and to look at the other photo.The link took me to "All that remains", I am already familiar with it and commented as excellent.So I do not understand what are you getting to.
I did not say I hate your tug photo,I understand you are "milking" the same formula which worked so well in the Ship on lake... and All that remains.Both were textbook examples of correct composition,my opinion is the third try was not a charm because it is a textbook example of a wrong composition.I already explained why I think so,you made the photo title about a tug but you pushed your main subject to the back and to the edge and cut half of it off.Most or a major center part of the photo is practically about nothing while your main subject plays the 4th fiddle.As we know light/white areas attract eyes so I am looking at the center of the photo wondering what am I supposed to see there?This photo is about a tug yet we see only half of it so it does not quite compute.
Yes,the left half of the photo has a nice leading line but that is about it,the center and the right appears to me as a boring unfinished failure.You wanted my honest opinion so here it is.This photo cannot hold a candle to any of your previous lake photos,if you cut off half of the tug during cropping it was a mistake.If you kept it and ended up with a panorama that might be a much different story.