The ABC's of Photography - Letter A (Completed)
 

To view the content for Letter A, click on the icon from the menu. Anyone is welcome to offer constructive criticism and/or advice.

Anyone in the future who wishes to join this group, follow these steps:

• Go to http://www.maverickmarks.com/abcphoto.
• Click the "Login" link and register from there.
• Once registered, login and click the Upload file(s) button to begin uploading your pictures.

Ant - Would you prefer that any discussion regarding the photos wait until Thursday? The reason I ask is that I would love to explain what I was trying to do with my photo that I posted, vs. what I ended up with. I personally like the photo I ended up with, (from a creativity standpoint), but I'd like to explain what I was really trying to do and see if someone could give some advice on how to make it happen on my particular camera (Nikon D80).

Al

Nope. Gotta wait until Thursday and you can then talk about then. I should actually call it Discussion Phase, instead of Critique Phase, so I will rephrase the wording in the first post. That will give you the freedom of what you were trying to accomplish. In fact, I will add one more phase (the Reveal Phase so that everyone can get help on the pictures that they had taken and can get advice.

Cool! Sounds good!

Okay, I updated it. I just want it to remain anonymous for as long as possible so that the comments on the photos are honest.

Did somebody change their picture? I could have sworn that the first picture I saw of arches/an archway was NOT the one that's there now.

/tk

Looks like someone deleted one and added another, which is fine during the upload phase. You may notice that you have the ability to delete your own pictures. During this phase anyone can add/delete as many pictures as they desire (as long as you stay within the 3 upload limit).

If anyone can get a picture of an aardvark juggling an avocado, apple, and artichoke, they win the thread :D

SI

Interesting - so you're saying we can do more than one photo to submit for each letter?

Yep. This is so you can get experimental and try different types of shots.

I'm itching to critique... some really cool pics have been uploaded. I can hardly wait to see them all!!

You mean we will have a discussion on how to improve the images. ;)

Just a quick question based on some of the conversation..

The idea was to give feedback before having a "reveal" where folks can talk about their photo, what they were going for, etc.. right?

Correct....the reveal is for those that want direct feedback for the pictures he/she has taken.

I'm VERY impressed with the images so far. I'm very confidant that I'll be able to learn a lot from you guys... I'm very excited about the discussion starting...

This is one of the better ideas I have seen on this joint.

I HATE MUSIC IN WEBSITES WHEN I'M ONLINE.

Is there any way to set a preference so that the music NEVER comes on? Otherwise I'm never visiting this thread again. It's nice music, don't get me wrong, but I don't want it. When I'm online I'm probably listening to my own music, and this stuff takes over my speakers.

/tk

I didn't realize this had music (my work speakers are off), but I would have to agree with tk on music in sites.

LOL- hadn't realized there was music either! I agree, would be nice if it was off by default.

Wow. Who peed in your Wheaties?

Damn lady, take several midols to relieve your menstrual cramps will ya? You could have been nicer about it.

Music off.

While I understand that you may not like the default settings of the player, I don't understand why it had to take this tone. I hope this is not going to be a hint to how things are going to go in the future of this process, because you are really going to cause unneccessary tension when there doesn't have to be. And that kind of attitude is really going to be a downer for those wishing to share their piece of knowledge.

I don't expect people to agree with anything we are doing, but if you have already noticed, I have made a number of changes due to user requests that seemed to do well for the overall. So if you want to use threats to try to force someone to do something, that was definitely not necessary.

Wow, those responses, particularly the first two, were called for...

SI

Dodgerchick - Your username may not be my favorite, but I luv ya!! ;)

I don't have any cool A's :(

Glad I didn't say anything about the music :)

I do feel it's a little intrusive for websites to include music/sound automatically, but that's just me.

My main issue with the music is there seemed to be no consistent way to turn it off. Yesterday it turned off when I hit pause and today it wouldn't turn off at all! :)

Either way I just want to be able to turn it off if I need to... Things are looking good though! And I don't think TK meant to sound so demanding.

I have to agree with Terpkristin here. I'm not a photographer, and some of these pics are GORGEOUS, and I love to look at them, but I can't look at them if the music supercedes what's coming through my speakers now. Glad to see it's an optional thing.

I also agree I generally avoid websites that have music that pops up automatically when I go into them. It's annoying as heck.

Having said that, these are some great pics. I wish I had the talent to take some of these.

Asking for the music to be turned off by default was a perfectly legitimate request.

The delivery of that request was what was uncalled for.

Uh...there has been no music since yesterday evening.

He wrote that at 1:00 AM EST, I'm guessing he meant yesterday during the day when he said "today"...

I thought a few pictures seemed much more powerful with the music in the background, but that's just me. I figured having the music would put us (or me at least) in a certain mood so I gave it a try. Some things are gonna work, and some wont.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to more submissions as today is the last day.

Weird I could have swore it was playing yesterday when I looked at the pictures. Maybe I'm crazy :)

It was playing up until 5:30PM yesterday (your time). Now if you heard anything after that, you may be crazy or it is possible that somehow it was cached on your system until the browser was closed. Either way, it is gone now and all is right with the world. :D

Maybe I'll find a way to stay up until midnight to start seeing comments ;).

GAWD DANG IT, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FRICKIN' MUSIC????

Whenever I visit a site with pictures, I fully expect a musical soundtrack to accompany said slideshow!


;)

I know what I want to get a picture of, but haven't been able to spot one so far...

No lewd photos!

I'm still keepin' an eye out for an Armadillo...

There don't seem to be too many in VA ;)...

I missed my opportunity... http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Sm...darmadillo.cfm

I've seen plenty of dead ones. I usually haves couple hanging around my back yard, but they've been MIA lately.

Less than 5 hours to go!

So far, so good. You guys have uploaded more photos than I had anticipated and they are all great shots. Bravo!

Agreed on all accounts - very happy with the showing! When DC originally hatched this idea it was her and I both doing this in our dynasties - I'm so excited about what it has evolved into!

Big thanks to Ant for setting up and coordinating all of this!

+1

This is a lot of fun and I'm already thinking ahead when I go out... Just need to remember to keep my camera in the car because I keep missing great shots!

With all the great photos that have been uploaded, I feel like I have to step my game up :)

Yeah, I'm with you guys... everytime I go out I'm constantly looking at things and thinking ahead to other assignments.

Same here.. unfortunately for me you're really not supposed to take a camera on a military base (i'm a contractor on a Naval Base) so I certainly can't take it into the office and it's too damned hot (unless someone tells me that cameras are safe in a blazing hot car) in the car... so, I miss stuff also.. I really have to dedicate a trip to going and taking pictures which can be hard sometimes..

The pics are not only good, but they give me ideas of ways to stretch my spectrum of things i think of for the letters.

Oh, and yeah... this thread has made me rethink what I think my talent level is at.. which is good, it will force me to improve.

Uploading no longer active. Discussion can begin in the morning.

The Discussion Phase... awesome! As we move forward with this project, I'm hoping we all come out of it being better photographers and I'm looking forward to learning from each of you... you've all posted some very cool pics that made me think outside of the box.

The following pictures were posted:

1 – Airplane
2 – America
3 – Ant
4 – ArabiaMt
5 – Arches
6 – Arches 2
7 – Alcatraz
8 – Andrew2
9 – Arrow01
10 – Aggression
11 – ApartmentFire
12 – A1
13 – Appleclock
14 – Aviators
15 – AutomobileRainbow
16 – Anthony
17 – AmericasCup12Meter
18 – AlphabetPillow
19 – Anthony2

Let the discussion begin :)

I really want to make a ton of comments but work is crazy today. So I may start making individual posts, etc, etc...

But keep in mind - anything I say is meant to be my opinion on ways to improve. I am FAR from an expert and when I do so I'm not trying to be mean, but constructive like this was meant to be.

If someone doesn't want criticism, they should probably speak up btw ;).

My Favorite: A1

Comments: Mundane objects can make very creative pictures, and that's something I often forget when taking my own pictures. I tend to gravitate towards a photo where the key image(s) are in focus and everything else is fuzzy, but still has a lot of color. Also, I think there was a really interesting angle on this photo.