Getting knocked back

ancient_mariner said:
And this is also very true. Tell me what you like, what you don't and why you think that.

It's nice to get praise, but it needs to be deserved too.
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The "Why" is, in many respects, the most important bit - for both elements you like than those you feel don't work (or could be improved).
I also try to start with something like "For me..." on anything that is at all subjective, which is often the case with photography.
 
In my first job as an assistant, my Cockney boss put me right about criticism: "The customer's the only critic you need to worry about. If he puts his monica on the gregory that's the best praise there is."
 
Cockney slang has always changed and often has several meanings. That's what my dad told me and he was born and brought up in the Old Kent Road. It was originally a thieves' cant so making it easy to understand wasn't ever its intent.
 
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AndrewFlannigan said:
Cockney slang has always changed and often has several meanings. That's what my dad told me and he was born and brought up in the Old Kent Road. It was originally a thieves' cant so making it easy to understand wasn't ever its intent.
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I‘ve never thought monicker (the spelling I’m familiar with) was rhyming, I cant see how it would rhyme with name/signature.
 
OK I have not posted on this thread for some time to try and find out where I have been going wrong. First of all I forgot all about shutter speed being more than lens mm. Second I failed by using mostly an f2.8 setting instead of using something like f9 as a start point. Third my wife pointed out and I didn't notice was how my head was in relation to camera causing un-horizontal horizons. Fourth checking out usual working distance and having the camera/lens fine tuned to that. Just got to practise all that now, like starting all over again
 
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sphexx said:
I‘ve never thought monicker (the spelling I’m familiar with) was rhyming, I cant see how it would rhyme with name/signature.
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Monica James apparently.

realspeed said:
OK I have not posted on this thread for some time to try and find out where I have been going wrong. First of all I forgot all about shutter speed being more than lens mm. Second I failed by using mostly an f2.8 setting instead of using something like f9 as a start point. Third my wife pointed out and I didn't notice was how my head was in relation to camera causing un-horizontal horizons. Fourth checking out usual working distance and having the camera/lens fine tuned to that. Just got to practise all that now, like starting all over again
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Do you do a lot of telephoto work, or could you use a shorter focal length lens to reduce the need for a high shutter speed. Not that I'm suggesting you should get one, but something *like* the Sony A7III has in body stabilisation and also a live level finder in the viewfinder to make getting things straight a bit easier. If you shoot M43 those facilities should be available too.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Monica James apparently.
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Never heard of her, Monica Vitti on the other hand ... . If it’s really Monica it’s odd the spelling should be changed. Personally, I would suspect that’s a “back formation“ :). More research needed.

Edit. Still don’t believe it, supposed be author Monica James but only one that turns up is modern and moniker (various spellings) goes back at least to 1850. Lots of Cockney/London slang is not rhyming and often comes from Yiddish and other languages. Where my family lived in London around 1900 was almost entirely French speaking (they were anarchist exiles mostly, the French that is) to the extent that they sent my grandfather to school in France to learn the language for their business.Stood him in good stead in 1914, didn’t help with the other sort of gassing though :mad:.
 
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sphexx said:
Never heard of her, Monica Vitti on the other hand ... . If it’s really Monica it’s odd the spelling should be changed. Personally, I would suspect that’s a “back formation“ :). More research needed.
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I suspect moniker may have come from monogram - possibly the 2 meanings collided or else it IS back formation as you suggest.
 
ancient_mariner said:
I suspect moniker may have come from monogram - possibly the 2 meanings collided or else it IS back formation as you suggest.
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(crossed in the post) One claim is that it came from ‘monk’ because they changed their names but I think that’s wrong. It originally just meant name not nickname, as indeed it was used in the post that set this off — you wouldn’t put your nickname on a cheque.
 
Don't think any of the above sound very probable, have to agree and say I can't believe it was ever Monica.
More likely it's the old spelling of something similar, definitely not rhyming slang either.
 
realspeed said:
OK I have not posted on this thread for some time to try and find out where I have been going wrong. First of all I forgot all about shutter speed being more than lens mm. Second I failed by using mostly an f2.8 setting instead of using something like f9 as a start point. Third my wife pointed out and I didn't notice was how my head was in relation to camera causing un-horizontal horizons. Fourth checking out usual working distance and having the camera/lens fine tuned to that. Just got to practise all that now, like starting all over again
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cockney rhyming slang is more interesting. :D
 
realspeed said:
Please explain as can't see any relevance to the posting you quoted of mine
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I think he’s referring to the way we’ve gone off-topic here, hence the smiley, it’s not aimed at you! Sorry for my part in going OT though it could be argued you left the thread to develop that way :D. Sometime people come into a thread from a link and just don’t notice what the real subject is. As they say shīt happens.
 
Brazo said:
95% I’d wager;) Just look at the number of threads/posts in each forum.

To be fair it is difficult to separate the two!
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Yes, it's not that easy to take a photo without a camera of some sort. ;)

Now why do I know the next 5 posts or so will be about some obscure way of doing just that! :rolleyes: :giggle:
 
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Mr Badger said:
Yes, it's not that easy to take a photo without a camera of some sort. ;)

Now why do I know the next 5 posts or so will be about some obscure way of doing just that! :rolleyes:
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You’re right of course, that was my first thought, but I’m going to resist the temptation.:D
 
Mr Badger said:
Yes, it's not that easy to take a photo without a camera of some sort. ;)

Now why do I know the next 5 posts or so will be about some obscure way of doing just that! :rolleyes: :giggle:
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It’s not that easy to make a painting without a brush but I doubt people discuss brushes with as much passion as they do cameras.
 
Brazo said:
It’s not that easy to make a painting without a brush but I doubt people discuss brushes with as much passion as they do cameras.
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Actually, I think you’d be surprised. And there’s the pigments ... etc etc.
 
Brazo said:
It’s not that easy to make a painting without a brush but I doubt people discuss brushes with as much passion as they do cameras.
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Ah, but a stick with some hairs on the end is hardly as visually appealing... I doubt wearing an artist's paintbrush round my neck would generate unsolicited comments from members of the public such as 'That's beautiful' - which was a comment I received the other weekend whilst taking a landscape photo with a 1950s folding Ensign Selfix 820 camera. :)
 
You know something? I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times people have commented on my camera in more than 50 years.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
You know something? I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times people have commented on my camera in more than 50 years.
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It's happened to me a few times, but then again I do use old film cameras fairly regularly, so law of averages I suppose. It's usually a folding camera, a box camera or one of my Yashica Twin Lens Reflex that attract comments, often followed by "Can you still get film?". I've never yet had a stranger comment on my camera when I'm using a Canon EOS-3 or EOS 30 type 35mm SLR, presumably as they look so much like a modern DSLR (except for not having a screen on the back)... fair play to Canon for being so far ahead in the design stakes in the late 90s.

Amusing story with a TLR and the public a few years ago... I'd just bought it and wanted to try it out so nipped down to the local lake in my lunch hour. The lake is beside a roadside verge and I was standing there in a dark blue coat (it was March) looking down into the camera's viewfinder, framing a shot of the lake, verge and road. After a couple of minutes I noticed that the traffic on the road seemed to be going past quite slowly... then I realised what it was, they though my camera was a speed trap! How quickly they forget! It made me chuckle though.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
Criticism is not about the superiority, or otherwise, of ones own work, it is about offering your own insights about what is presented for comment.
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That was very nicely put, Terry
Mr Badger said:
Crit can be very useful and helpful, particularly when first starting out and learning the basics. However, if everyone followed the same formulaic approach all the time, then everyone's photos would look the like clones. You only have to look at some landscape photos to see where that can go.
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:D
Ed Sutton said:
Peer group criticism is the best by far, from people who don't just know your pictures but know what you are trying to achieve with them - which is why forums with a wide membership base are not always the best places to get reliable comments. This to and fro discussion of work helps you to think critically about your own pictures and understand what you are trying to achieve.

Until you are capable of recognising the failings in your own pictures it's better to have them pointed out than for the pictures to be praised. The worst thing for anyone is to always have their crap pictures praised as 'stunning' as that only encourages them to make more photos with the same failings.
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Sagacity here.
 
jerry12953 said:
Hi Richard, haven't seen a post from you for ages!

I have always valued your contributions.
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Thanks Jerry. We moved house and that put a stop to everything else for months. Pretty much still does. Never again.

Not sure how valued that particular contribution was, but it's one of my favourite bits of rhyming slang - Rodney Marsh (harsh) but Lionel Blair (fair).
 
HoppyUK said:
Thanks Jerry. We moved house and that put a stop to everything else for months. Pretty much still does. Never again.

Not sure how valued that particular contribution was, but it's one of my favourite bits of rhyming slang - Rodney Marsh (harsh) but Lionel Blair (fair).
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Looking forward to hearing the pro's and con's of various tripod heads again and/or heated gloves ........... (seriously).
 
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To the OP -

I do understand where you are coming from. It can be very painful and I feel that I have suffered from it for years, despite a pretty good track record. From what you say there amy be technique issues which should be quite easy to solve. If people are failing to understand where you are coming from in your work then I don't have an answer to that (unfortunately).
 
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