Shying away from commenting ?

[Ganesh H Shankar]

Dear CNP members,

When we started this group during last May one of the difficult task or us was to let users know what kind of images we are looking for here.
In my view we have made a very good progress so far. It is very satisfying to see varieties of fresh perspectives being shared here.
It is evident that everyone wants to do their own experiements and translate them into pixels rather than copying well known techniques of
others.

However one aspect which we think needs improvement is sharing our views on others images too. Needless to say we can get more quality
feedback on our own images if we write couple of lines of quality feedback on images which others post too. My sincere request to you all is
share couple of lines of your honest feedback on images others post. This will make the group more lively. While a few of us try to provide
quality feedback on as many images as possible more such critiques will really help. However, as mentioned in our rating sugegstions
we would like to emphasis again that one word comments like "wow", "I like it" etc does not really mean anything. Those who post may not
be interested in counting number of comments Please add atleast one sentence stating how your heart/mind received the image posted.
It may be difficult - but give it a try.

Love to know your thoughts on this topic..

[Vijay Mohan Raj]

I think this is a fine thread Ganesh. CNP reflects a sense of refinement of regular nature photography, where the mind of the photographer interprets the image for him/her. A small line as a way of comment will help the photographer whether he has succeeded visually to put it across. Everyone loves constructive feedback which makes us strive extra harder to bring a brand new set of images to the rapidly growing arena of Nature photography. Why shy away on commenting on something we all love to do?

[Sriharsha Ganjam]

Its a very good topic Ganesh. I can say from personnel experience how important comments are in learning new things about your own image. As the creator of the image, the photographer sometimes may get biased towards certain aspects or emotions of their image. An opinion from a set of new eyes and brain always opens new doors on how else the image can be interpreted. I have sometimes been surprised at how well certain images convey different emotions which the photographer himself had missed out. Of course you also learn a lot about the different techniques and improvements all which go towards making us a better photographer. And its this collection of "eyes" "minds" and "brains" that converge on an image which gives forums like this their ultimate power. So yes, we cant undermine the importance of commenting.

[sudheer.k.s]

Agree with ganesh, VMR & sriharsha, In my own little experience in various forums... Images that i felt to be heart touching, after few days seems less attractive to me, but from a viewers perspective when i get detailed comments on the image, I have felt that images do transfer original emotion... and once u realize that it is more or less the same emotion which came across the viewers mind... wallah.. what else can an artist expect... Expression complete...

[ramesh_adkoli]

Exactly what i felt in the last couple of months of my interaction with the forum. Many a times, i see an image viewed 50-100 times, but there is hardly any comment on it. I believe by expressing our impressions on an image not only improves our observation skills, it also helps us understand our own images better. We can carry such an understanding to the field and make better images! Can we make a rule that if you post an image, you must comment on at least 3 other images? Hopefully that might make more photographers to contribute to the critique part of the forum.

[Ganesh H Shankar]

Exactly what i felt in the last couple of months of my interaction with the forum. Many a times, i see an image viewed 50-100 times, but there is hardly any comment on it. I believe by expressing our impressions on an image not only improves our observation skills, it also helps us understand our own images better. We can carry such an understanding to the field and make better images! Can we make a rule that if you post an image, you must comment on at least 3 other images? Hopefully that might make more photographers to contribute to the critique part of the forum.

Thanks for this sharing your views Ramesh, often we would like to get views on images that we post but we make it a habit the share our views on the others images too participation and hence the learning will drastically improve. I think it is better if that thought of the need for commenting comes within than enforcing it through software. Personally I love reading all comments (after I key-in mine) on all images posted on critique forum. Often I learn a lot my reading others views on images.