Selling Photography

[railohio]

Sorry, dude, this one's finished. Misunderstanding taking care of. Next crisis, please.

[conrailmike]

The last time I checked, no one was being forced to submit their images there only to be told they weren't good enough to meet their standards. That's a photographer's CHOICE. And if your images don't fall in the the standards that THEY have set for THEIR site, then post your pictures elsewhere. It's really that simple.

Gee, what would this world be like if we weren't faced with challenges and tried to improve the quality of our work?

In the 2+ years I've been a member of the RP forums, I've seen quite a few "newbie" photographers (including myself) make leeps and bounds in the quality of their railroad photography. Like many who got initial rejections, I came in swinging at RP with the bad attitude, but once I stepped back and saw how weak my images were compared to those in their database and how much room I had to improve, I approached it from a different attitude. I'm very self-competitive, and to be told my images weren't up to par didn't push me away, it only made me want to work harder to increase the quality and creativity. A few of those photographers I've seen improve are even members on this forum, and I can look at their work today and compare it with a few years ago and see a MAJOR difference. Yet, RP is a bad thing to people like you who can't see it for what it's worth. And I highly doubt rrarchives has had the same effect on the improvement of one's photography like RP has.

It's not surprising that a website that pushes people to work harder to improve would draw negativity from those who are unwilling to progress.

And for what it's worth, there is a member of this forum who I've heard use the "railpicky" term several times over the last year or two, and guess what...he continues to submit his images there and the quality of his photography has INCREASED immensely. Gee, I wonder why?

JT, you hit the nail on the head. If we had a "smiley" with clapping hands I'd give it to you. In the end though, people will continue to complain about RP's standards and still submit photos to them. I think a lot of railfans would benefit from a couple of basic photography courses or books on lighting, exposure, and composition.

[sd70accsxt700]

What we need is a field day. Lets say at the Deshler meet? I dont know who all is going, but there are quite a few good photogs, here, that can teach some basics, if the others want to listen. While I am no where near as good as JT, Railohio, SW, and other, I do know a few things about it. But in order to teach the other has to be able to listen, also.

[MDH]

What we need is a field day. Lets say at the Deshler meet? I dont know who all is going, but there are quite a few good photogs, here, that can teach some basics, if the others want to listen. While I am no where near as good as JT, Railohio, SW, and other, I do know a few things about it. But in order to teach the other has to be able to listen, also.

What about the internationally famous MDH?!? Kidding aside, seeing Matt's Toledo area shots on rp.net helped inspire me to go out and do it myself though.

I know I'm really just starting to figure it out and wouldn't mind taking a photography class sometime to really learn the "photography" side better. I'd be happy to both offer what advice I can and receive advice from the more experience if we set up something like that. We could do a little 'workshop' and even plan out a shot or two in the Deshler area where we could set up a mini-photoline to show how to get a basic well-lit wedgie and maybe another for a more 'artistic' composition. Could even do a dusk/night photo workshop and take shots of CPL's in the night or something (some of this obviously weather dependent!) Anyway, this threads' taken a more productive turn and I'd support an idea along those lines...