To ikeharel: It's "Wandering," not "Wondering"

[Wandering_Dan]

Shalom, Ike -

First off, it's "Wandering Dan" meaning that I like to travel a lot.

But for all my travels, home base is San Francisco, and I see this bridge from my gym window every day. There's an almost infinite collection of photos of the bridge, some of them mine, posted here. The whole point of this posting was to make the spray, not the bridge, the focus.

Regards,
Dan

[ikeharel]

Hei Dan, I meant wondering , becouse your perception of TE that it is an art competition - and it is not what TE stands for.
TE was established in order to show places on our planet that most of us will never be able to visit all of them in their liftime - Not in the artistic way , nor politicaly or any of the like.
This is how I see many colleague's standpoint on TE and their work.
Keep up the good staff.
Ike

[Wandering_Dan]

TE has many purposes. It is not, as you seem to suggest, limited to travel shots to show people what another part of the planet looks like. It is also a platform for us to show each other what we think about the planet. And yes, a lot of the time there are political statements being made. Also artistic ones - there is nothing wrong with showing that photos of the planet can and often do have an aesthetic aspect.

In addition, one of the original purposes of TE was to provide a forum for critiquing the aesthetic and technical aspects of photographs. I say "original" because over time that side of TE has gotten lost in the mutual feeding frenzy for points, and a number of us have been so disappointed with that turn of affairs that we have left, or are planning to leave. (Personally, I am pretty much marking time here until a new website that some former members are working on comes up in another few weeks. Also, some of my friends are still posting - artistic, political and otherwise - so I hang around to see what they are doing.)

All that aside, you are mistaken if you think I see TE as some kind of "art competition." I no longer post my most artistic shots here, and have deleted those that I had posted, because recent management changes have raised the concern, with me as with many others, that our copyrights may not be respected. But even when I did post more aesthetic photos, it was not for competition purposes (I have real competitions for that) but to share my vision of the world with people who might be interested.

In any case, the current photo under discussion is not, and was not meant to be, artistic. It was a demonstration of the power of nature - high surf - the other morning. As I said, I live in San Francisco and I have made plenty of artistic photos of the Golden Gate bridge, some of which I have sold. As art. I know the difference.

Regards,
Dan

[jwmunro]

Well said Dan! I am with you on the changes and morphing of this site. I too have become disenchanted with the site especially since the respect of our copyrights have gone down the porcelain bowl. I too miss the constructive criticism and excellent impressions of the world that once abounded here.

Later

John