The thing I love about this forum is that for the most part 90% or better of the members know what they're doing. We're nearly all specialized car photographers and are aware of our abilities/talents/short comings. I don't know how many of you have posted on other photography forums but some of the stuff people say is mind boggling. There's the typical 60 year old moderator that shoots the birds and squirrels in his back yard that's mind is BLOWN by a rig shot. Then the same guy will come and tell you about how you could have made X image better when he has no idea the intricacies of lighting a car. Then he suggests you take some notes on some cars he shot at some car show in his thumbnail gallery of his poorly made site that are all cropped terribly, heavily HDR'd and poorly photoshopped. I guess I just wish there were more places like DS, where when people critique they actually know what they are talking about. It's refreshing. Viva Diesel Station!

Amen to that.

I think Richard tried setting something similar up earlier this yeat but last time I tried to login, it wasn't working.

It would be nice to have a Car photographers forum such as APN but with more active users.

Agreed... really DS is the ultimate location for Car Photographers...

Are there any kinds of new features that you would like to see implemented specifically in the photography section? What would make using DS easier for you as a photographer trying to share content and get feedback?

There is automotivephtoto.net Pretty decent site if your mainly into shooting motorsports..the old version of the site ( .com ) was one of the best car photography sites ever but something happened to the domain and then one of the members re started the site ( .net ) and its good but just not the same..

Sub fori for C&C, Gear, Business, techniques & general would be spot on. I'd never visit another site ever ever again.

Bar pornhub and maybe keezmovies.

x2

You pretty much summed up POTN perfectly

Long Live DieselStation photography section!

Agree'd, however, I've seen a major decline in this forum over the past year. Maybe we can change that around.

Hey guys, long time lurker breaking his first post haha. What better thread to put my first post in, I couldnt agree more I have been on here every day for about the past month, being a photo student this is the best place that I have found gives me tons inspiration (no homo). Great job keep it up amazing work.

^ it is homo thought...

just f'ing with ya.. in a not homo kind of way.

i agree about some sub sections, about equipment etc.....i just ordered a new lens and wanted to share but didnt really feel appropriate posting it in the photography thread

Quite a lot of respect for the photography forum on ds, which is a huge portion of the traffic. I'm not terribly photo-minded so I can only offer occasional non-technical input. If I had to guess at what would make ds better in terms of photography I would guess some sort of picture comparison and photo comment function. Instead of just saying "#15 is a bit blurry near the exhaust ports" you could put an annotation directly on the image.

well I don't know what I'm talking about half the time but that's why I come here to try and learn.. Ive never been in any Kind of Photography class or anything like it..never read any books on it.. took one Photoshop Class but Ive till Taken Some Pretty Decent pictures in My mind .. I love this forum just cause I Can see some of the most beautiful pictures of some of the most beautiful cars in the world.. and Only hope That I can do this someday

With the current trend thats been happening on DS the past 6 months, I would pay (almost literally) to have a sub-forum for beginners. I'm getting a bit tired of trawling through 10 threads entitled "I'm new here & I just bought my first P&S".

Otherwise this forum is king. I very often don't even tell people about it cos they n00bs & I don't want to contaminate the level of work we have here. As harsh as that sounds.

Out of curiosity, how did it became THE automotive photography forum in the first place?
Why did the best photographers endend up here (as I think photography was not the main topic at first right?) ?

I think it's because it's not a photography forum? As stated by the OP, photography forums can be a strange ol' place and way too general. If one 'pro' comes here, another will follow as they will see the high standards, good banter and good feedback.

I totally agree with 'seethegrim' regarding the newbies but one has to remember that it's a car site. (Not that I've ever looked at any other forums bar the 'girls' one )

I think Easton played a huge role in getting the photography forum up there. I don't know all the history, but I spent a day once going through the first threads in the photography forum from like 7 years ago. There is still stuff from back then that Easton posted when he still bought his first digital SLR!

I know exactly what you mean, maybe even a sticky'd "introduction thread" would help that. I'm not sure how we could do it but if there was some way to implement privileges to only allow certain people to create posts in a forum that would be cool too, then we could have a beginner forum, an advanced forum (that requires you have a certain user setting to make a post, but anyone can comment), a critique forum and a gear forum. Just thinking out loud. Also maybe a permanent END ALL RIG DISCUSSION sticky would be helpful too, although it's not as big a topic as it was a year or two ago I still see lots of "my first rig shot" or "how to make a rig" etc threads cluttering the forum. One of my best friends is a moderator on here and knows the owner, maybe I'll talk to him about making some changes...

Or another idea (although kinda harsh lol) would be to have two sections (again beginner and advanced) and instead of having user privileges have a moderator delete posts that don't stack up... some people might get their feelings hurt though, but it would increase the quality of the site. Like you mentioned two years ago you'd come in here and just be blown away and wouldn't even want to post lol.

I would like to see a fs camera equip sub thread. Also I second the sticky idea I was just about to post that but noticed ^ beat me there so decided to delete. The only thing about having an advanced and a beginner thread is what would the qualifications be and how would you determine whose who? Portfolio? haha

I wouldn't mind a beginner/advanced that much, as long as you guys would come into the beginner section and help us rookies out.

I tried to resist the temptation to comment but I can't hold back any more...

DO NOT make it eletist. DO NOT have a "NOOB" section and one for "GOOD" photographers. Every one starts some where but why alienate them by telling them that they can't pollute the "GOOD" photographers bandwidth with their inadequate efforts? DUDE, way to alienate people! There's nothing worse than a forum that seperates it's members regardless of the criteria. A forum is a place to be heard, not just for the elite few.

DO NOT make it eletist.

DO NOT make it another photography forum. Have you noticed that there are thousands out there already, and you want to make DS more like one of them. Think about that.

If you want to sell or buy crap then do it where that already works well, why try to do it here?

Why change some thing that seems to have worked, maybe by dumb ass luck, but worked none the less.

Look at the lost opportunity that is APN. It came from the demise of AutomotivePhoto.com and started from potential base of eager and interested users but has failed miserably (relative to the activity on AutomotivePhoto.com ). It's content is so motorsport oriented that it has virtually no relevance to car photography (as percieved here), although a few decent car guys still post there. It could have taken over from AutomotivePhoto.com but instead APN alienated all the ricers, HDR heroes and Photoshop gurus who's interest was a cross between cars, traditional and non traditional photography (ie, 5 minutes taking photo's, 3 hours Photoshopping the #ucker to make it look half decent). DS took over all of that following, although it already had it's own, and grew.

I think DS changes, as people have mentioned over a couple of other recent threads, because it seems to be a breeding ground where new or upcoming car photogs (usually editorial) seem to hang around to try to learn a bit more and improve their skills, usually through the feedback of others. It's a good place for that because there seem to be quite a few full and part time shooters here, editorial and commercial. However it seems that when they reach a high enough standard they seem to leave and rarely if ever come back. Yes, I'm still here because I still don't know how to use Photmatix or Photoshop...

JJ



So what's the chance of that? The "advanced" users want a "beginners" section so they DON'T have to see it...

JJ

dean, been meaning to fwd you more details on that...G# will go live this fall. it will do a lot for the people involved. I'll keep you posted.

This forum doesn't operate the same way as other forums as the sub forums don't show up the same, they're hard to find, wouldn't work so well.

In my short time here I've found DS to be thick with ALL KINDS of talent, and industry-wise folk, which is more than I can say for 98% of the forums out there (and refreshing).

However, there's an obvious bend towards strobists here at DS, and being a natural light (and very outspoken) photographer, I've not quite found my place here. This is probably due to the number of folks here that want to shoot for magazines or the like, and that's pretty much a strobist endeavor. However, it does kinda' leave those of us who shoot natural light in the dark, so to speak.

Still, I enjoy DS, just not as much as MyCaNikon.

Sean - I haven't read the entire thread yet (busy) - but, just from your description I assume you are talking about PhotosGuy on POTN?

If so (again, I haven't checked) - I HATE THAT OLD MAN.

lol first thing I thought about was PhotosGuy, hahahaha

"All pictures must be taken at sunset, with a heavy crop to 'accentuate' the lines of the car. Backgrounds are bad."

lmfao

Lol, he just quotes another one of his awful tutorials with no relevance to the thread.

I wouldn't mind if there was some good info behind it, but man.... wtf sometimes lol.

LMFAO you guys are good! I was just generalizing (Fred Miranda is very similar in terms of members to POTN) but ya PhotosGuy is delusional.

Excellent, keep me posted!

Aware?


Wow. Mate, just remember that at one stage in your life you were also a beginner. You didnt just happen to pick up a camera and buy a copy of Photoshop and become the expert you are now. I am assuming the way you would have achieved that is through practice and experience of others. Just try and put the shoe on the other foot and imagine how you would feel if someone you had asked for advice blatantly ignored your question on the basis that you are a beginner.


Excellent post.

This forum is a great resource for both inspiration and learning. If you create segregation between beginners and advanced members, then you will be setting this forum up for failure. Not only that, but elitism in any right is a disgusting concept.

As it is, the experienced members dont even bother commenting on beginner level photos even with basic feedback because they obviously feel that there are so many faults with the photo thats it not even worth commenting on. Now this is the only forum where you see this happening. I am an active member on several different forums and consider myself an expert in a fair fields of knowledge, i.e. project management, data analysis, excel, finance / economics / investment, LSX based cars and a few others, and consider myself very successful at what I do.

When members on those forums post 'noob' questions, I dont disregard the question because Im more advanced in my knowledge than the person asking the question. Conversley, I always answer those questions in particular because I remember what it was like starting off and trying to gain knowledge from more experienced and knowledgable people. Im not the only person either, I see a trend of certain group of people who always answer those types of questions because at the end of the day, thats the main purpose of the forum - to share knowledge.

If you dont share knowledge, then you run the risk of the forum dying. In saying that, I would love to see the traffic in this forum and this section in particular over the last year compared to that of other photography forums. I bet that it would be a lot less because other photography forums, whilst not being at the expert level this forum is at, are a lot more friendlier, more welcoming and just more helpful in general.

So I say to the more experienced guys here who feel they are too good to provide critique to 'noobs' - dismount your high horse for just a day and try helping out those less experienced than yourself. You may find that helping someone and being the main reason behind their improvement a very rewarding act.

Anywho, sorry for the rant, but I felt like I had to say something.

Most noob photography posts are usually just "here are my photos." I look at them and... well that's it. If they made posts like "I'm trying to achieve this result or have this goal and these are my photos" we could actually say something. I never know the intent or wants of most amateur posters so there's really no direction to help them along.

For me diesel station became the only one forum that i'm active.
I think that making the 2 fields for pro and nob is not a very good idea.I was thinking about myself 4 years ago. If i didn't got the critique and and have the passion to prove them wrong and to show them my capabilities probably i would get stuck somewhere and that's it.
The only thing we can hope from inexperienced photographer is that they must have a little higher censure when posting something here, not to ask disparately for comments and critiques. If the first post is not getting comments maybe is not good enough and hope that with the next one will make a difference!

If you don't like a nob post don't comment and in a couple of days the thread will get lost!

Next to FredMiranda its the only forum I check. Fred is for gear questions and all other stuff.

Don't change anything here. Maybe some more "How-To" threads.

I think the way in which this forum operates is fine 'if its not nroken dont fix it'

I often post my latest efforts and always try to include a statement where I can so that i get the CC I need to improve, but its a great palce to get inspired and look at different ways of shooting plus the standard of the images that are posted on here always blow me away

when i first signed up i litereally went through all the posts to see what images had been posted, and not to mention some of the cars you guys have access to is insaine

I love this forum. I made a post on time on APN, and a moderator got mad because I posted more than the 10 images allowed and then he edited my post. I personally thought that was stupid and don't go on there any longer.. DS 4 lyfe!

Aware of?

Long time lurker here, just joined finally. I'm not at the point to post any pictures just yet since I don't think they're good enough yet, but this site is full of amazing talent that is posted quite frequently. Some really good stuff here. There is so much to learn. I think beginners like me are cautious to post their stuff at first because the skill level of all the posts made are reallly good. Makes us beginners work harder.

hahaha OMG. So true. He is the king of SEO for POTN. Can you imagine how many internal links he has made over the years. Must be insane.

hehe.. this thread makes me proud.

anyways.. on a serious note. SHOULD we have subforums? I also don't like the idea of a noob/pro segregation, but i'm always open to other ideas.

Gear & Equipment?
Post Processing & Tutorials?
Classifieds?
Comments & Critiques?

i dont think a C&C sub forum is necessary i think usually when ppl post they get a C&C here

How about a wallpaper subforum, so we cut back on the "WALLPAPER PLZ" posts in so many threads (I'm guilty of requesting wallpapers too)?

We kinda discussed this on IRC yesterday, and figured we'd get feedback from all of the awesome photogs.

Hell if some of the pros posted their unwanted/unedited high-res images I'd use them as a wallpaper just for the simple fact that they're exclusive to DS. We could help with hosting if bandwidth is an issue, and it would be up to the photog to watermark the wallpapers, or if everyone agreed we could have a DS-exclusive watermark?

If it aint broke, don't fix it, I say. There has always been the tendency of photographers as they progress to stop posting as frequently. I don't doubt that a lot of pros skip over the beginners threads because there is so much wrong in some of them, but another likely scenario is that as you become a better photographer, you become busier and have less time to browse forums. I think when the pros do have time to visit the forums, they are looking for inspiration, just as the beginners are.

I think the real reason is what Jeff said (below). I think the reason why you DO see more comments on other boards is because, on average, the people are less skilled/knowledgeable and think they know everything. If you ever read some of the comments people say on other sites it's absurd... as a matter of fact that's what made me start this thread - THE GARBAGE FEEDBACK on other forums. To be perfectly honest I'd rather have no comments than a bunch about how "my cousin has that car" or "check out the link in my sig" or "oh here's some shots I took of one of those cars." Seriously have the shit is just thread-jacks.



There is LOTS of knowledge shared here. It's just not general critique - again this is, for the most part, a very specialized group of photographers. If someone can't figure out how to shoot a photo of a car without their shadow going across the body that's probably more common sense. If you tried to explain dynamic lighting to a person that doesn't even know what an F Stop is you're wasting your time. It's my opinion that the reason this board became so popular is the lack of fundamental photo critique, sub-par images and useless chit-chat. If you're shooting cars and you're serious about it, you came to the right place.



Yup I think this is exactly it. To be honest I always liked this forum not because it was "elitist" but because I was a small fish in a big pond. I don't like going to po-dunk-500-member-photography-forum.com and blowing everyone away. I'd rather surround myself with people who are better than I am so I can learn, analyze, come up with new ideas, get REAL CRITIQUE FROM PEOPLE WHO KNOW and be inspired. Again I think a lot of us feed off each other and I know I have learned from this forum and have also shared ideas/techniques with lots of others. If you take a look at the more frequent posters on this forum you'll see a steady increase in image production from all of us. We're growing as a group. I think this is also key to this board. Having "friends" from all around the world who are constantly improving and you can feed off one another, share ideas etc. I dunno where I am going with this so I'll stop here lmao.

Personally, I only ever look at the Photography forum on DS. I wouldn't even bother to look at any other sub forums so I think the effect of any new sub-forums would be to thin out the content in the existing Photography forum which may also make it less appealing. The way DS seems to work is that you have to look into every sub forum to see any posts in it and I know that I wouldn't do that but if there was a way for all of the Photography sub-forum posts to still be displayed under the Photography forum (without seeing everything else on DS, only the PHotography related sub-forums) then that would be fine. Not sure if that's even possible.

If it aint broke...

JJ

well.. i agree with that to a point. I think narrowing it down to find the topic you want makes life easier. I mean.. i wouldn't want to scroll through thousands of threads just to find something for sale. Or a tip on how to do something.

So.. with that said.. general photography will still go in general photography. more specialized topics like classifieds or tutorials or hardware and gear stuff should go into subforums.

Do you think the Photography section has enough traffic to justify it? POTN is an example where sub forums are MANDATORY, the traffic is phenominal.

I think that if you do go down the sub forum path then keep it to a minimum. I certainly wouldn't seperate CC requests from the general Photography forum. After all, that's what the Photography forum is. Maybe a B+S and tutorials sub forum but don't go nuts and have sub forums just for the sake of it. My .03 cents (inflation).

JJ

You can see the current subforums, it looks like Diesel just went through and added them. I don't think any of them would do harm for traffic in the main forum, but obviously they are not set in stone....if a month down the line they turn out to be underutilized, they can be merged back with the main Photography section.

I think the subforums should be for stickies and topics which should not be lost in the archive. More of thread dump, educate yourself section. The real action should stil be happening the main forum.