What is the overall view on the gallery

I stopped posting any images to the RFF Gallery for two years. Then I returned to posting some. I can stop posting images there. It is not that important to me. There is a limit of 5 images per day. This is reasonable. Would it be better if the limit is one image per day? Is it then too restrictive? I feel that our RFF Gallery is not really there just for artistic wonders of images. It is a healthy documentation place of ongoing photography of RFF members. No harm is done.
 
raid said:
I stopped posting any images to the RFF Gallery for two years. Then I returned to posting some. I can stop posting images there. It is not that important to me. There is a limit of 5 images per day. This is reasonable. Would it be better if the limit is one image per day? Is it then too restrictive? I feel that our RFF Gallery is not really there just for artistic wonders of images. It is a healthy documentation place of ongoing photography of RFF members. No harm is done.
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I think you have reached the heart of the issue, @raid. What is the purpose of the Gallery? Is it an exhibition space with an already interested audience; or a place to invite constructive criticism or other feedback; or simply a storage place for ongoing photography? No harm is done if it tries to be all three, but can it serve all three purposes usefully?
 
I don't visit the gallery very often. Occasionally I'll click on a random photo from the gallery, otherwise it's not a place i go.
 
I only have one tiny fuss about the gallery: I like to look at pix full size, and all of them, so I'd want a system to page through the pix without returning to the home page, similar to what Flickr does. In a system like that I can spend quite a bit of time just flipping through pix!
 
When I retired It coincided with the gallery becoming easier to use, I shut down my website, blog and closed my Flickr account and now Rff is the only place I have photos online. But I have to say it's not really to have them in the gallery, it's because it is so easy to post images to threads from the gallery.
I still struggle to upload photos to the gallery, generally I cannot upload more than one at a time, but that's OK, it's free...
As for Mike I have always been in awe of his ability to photograph seemingly every day, upload daily for year after year. If only I had that level of persistence. I wish he would not leave but I get why he would. This was always the most civilised forum I knew, maybe less so today.
I do appreciate all the work that goes into making this site work so well, thank you.
 
Oh and the other day I got an email to say that I had a photo put into the Hall of Fame. Quite flattering I suppose.
But at the time I didn't even know there was a Hall of Fame! And I still don't know who makes the selection or what the criteria are.
 
In the current RFF setup, the Gallery is but an appendix to the main body of the forums. Considering the low level of member participation, it is sickly as well. As suggested by Darthfeeble, this can be fixed by automatically integrating forum photos into the Gallery. Cheers, OtL Ps. - If members are uncomfortable with it they could opt out. I am an IT consumer and have no idea whether this would be easy or feasible.
 
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I like the gallery and do view the other members photos. Sometimes it's slow to upload photos but that may be my own broadband connection issue.
 
Been a while responding to this but feel I should. Not least to acknowledge @mpGuy’s work.

In my first period with RFF I really valued the gallery and, particularly, the discussion generated around it. I’d like to see some of that come back, both within the gallery itself and (as now) in threads. Some things I enjoy:

- looking at different people’s work
- discussion around individual and groups of photographs/photography (I know we’re RFF but the work matters too!)
- gallery pics of the week thread, which I used to really enjoy and always tried to run through the last 7 days and pick a few to bring out

I’m quite happy with the new format, even though it opens as a sort of separate place. The look is good and, this week, my uploads went fine.

I do think that to make the discussion and pics of the week stuff work we probably need to limit the number of pictures we upload. Whether by forum software or self-control. It’s a shame Mike’s taken umbrage and I have no issue with him posting as many pics as he likes in his thread. However, the gallery doesn’t work as a community place if it’s dominated by one or two high volume posters.

This takes us back to Raid’s question of what we want it to be - a community place for sharing or something else (and if the latter what?)

Anyway, thanks MPGuy, I’ll continue adding the odd one here and there. Sometimes because I’m pleased with them and sometimes to share and discuss for other reasons.

Mike
 
Jonathan R said:
I like the idea that the Gallery addresses an audience that is already interested. And as audience, I have found some wonderful images there. But I don’t very often browse it because it is so very large. Generally I go there because of a passing reference in a forum thread, or because of one of Today’s Picks.

I already have a website for my own photos. To be frank I prefer to ‘curate’ them there, and don’t see much sense in duplicating them in the Gallery. An illustrated catalogue of RFF members’ websites would be nice. Perhaps it already exists?
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I looked again at the Gallery. What is interesting to me is how few members posted in or even visited the Gallery in its form ten years ago. Even very talented members. They would often say they never go there. Perhaps they preferred threads, for the discussion. Now it seems even fewer participate.

The talent and wonder of so many posters to the Gallery then was amazing. The activity was evident as soon as you arrived. Five thumbnails in a column of the same image. This meant there had been five comments. This drew you in. The Gallery was linked with the Weekly Gallery Picks, drawn from the previous fortnight. Robert Blu revived this in recent years but then it fell away again. As soon as you arrived in the old Gallery was like walking in to your favourite wine bar, the chatter, the cigarette smoke and the clinking of glasses. Or that small corner shop where its existence seemed half fueled by the chat at the counter of the proprietor and an endless series of raconteurs who seemed to have no need to be anywhere else, and were always welcome. That little store always seemed to have just what you wanted.

The current Gallery is more like a large department store. It has everything. The store is spotless, the elevators efficient. The staff are very courteous and well trained. The wares on offer are abundant and well made but somehow just not what was wanted.

Is a direct line to the recent posts, on entry, made obvious by dates next to each post, an option? Limiting to four posts in 24 hours and any comment evident on the landing page would draw us in.

Maybe I’m nostalgic and too resistant to change. The mechanics of the new Gallery are good, the ease of posting. But nearly everyone walks past the front door, or never goes down that street. Just opening the door and entering has to have something to hook them in further.
 
Richard G said:
I looked again at the Gallery. What is interesting to me is how few members posted in or even visited the Gallery in its form ten years ago. Even very talented members. They would often say they never go there. Perhaps they preferred threads, for the discussion. Now it seems even fewer participate.

The talent and wonder of so many posters to the Gallery then was amazing. The activity was evident as soon as you arrived. Five thumbnails in a column of the same image. This meant there had been five comments. This drew you in. The Gallery was linked with the Weekly Gallery Picks, drawn from the previous fortnight. Robert Blu revived this in recent years but then it fell away again. As soon as you arrived in the old Gallery was like walking in to your favourite wine bar, the chatter, the cigarette smoke and the clinking of glasses. Or that small corner shop where its existence seemed half fueled by the chat at the counter of the proprietor and an endless series of raconteurs who seemed to have no need to be anywhere else, and were always welcome. That little store always seemed to have just what you wanted.

The current Gallery is more like a large department store. It has everything. The store is spotless, the elevators efficient. The staff are very courteous and well trained. The wares on offer are abundant and well made but somehow just not what was wanted.

Is a direct line to the recent posts, on entry, made obvious by dates next to each post, an option? Limiting to four posts in 24 hours and any comment evident on the landing page would draw us in.

Maybe I’m nostalgic and too resistant to change. The mechanics of the new Gallery are good, the ease of posting. But nearly everyone walks past the front door, or never goes down that street. Just opening the door and entering has to have something to hook them in further.
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Very well put Richard. I agree that just like discussion threads, the gallery has to be of interest/engaging....in order to get a person to click it. The less context, the stronger the image has to be for engagement. In a discussion, there may be interest generated by the camera, lens, development, printing process or the context in which the photo was taken.
In the gallery context, a single image has to compete for attention with thousands of images that pop up on one's computer on a given day.
In contrast to the gallery here, I often check out Peter Turnley's page on Facebook. His images (no surprise) are strongly composed....& then he interacts with the people in the frame.....he knows their names & something of their personal story. & that's a major difference from the majority of street images.
 
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Mike, I for one value your membership here and your contribution to RFF camaraderie and fellowship. I personally don't care what people think you've done to the gallery since I never visit it. On the other hand I avidly view all the picture threads, even those habituated by known cross-posters. For me RFF is the perfect balance of great photographs and great knowledge, filled with kind and generous folk, apart from the grumpy bums in this thread.
Since you can now post pictures directly into threads instead of the previous protocol of having to use a host site or the gallery as a conduit, there's no reason for you to add to the gallery and upset these fragile temperaments.
Please stay.
 
I think we’re all sorry that Mike decided to leave and hope he changes his mind. However, I don’t think anyone said anything as harsh as he interpreted it. MPGuy asked for views and it’s OK for these to be different and to be contextualised - it’s just part of the discussion about what we would like the gallery to be and how to make it work. Ultimately, it’s then MPGuy’s decision on what and how to support.
 
Yokosuka Mike said:
I came back here to see if my account had been deleted (per my request). I had changed my user name from Yokosuka_Mike to "Not_A_Member" and said that I really didn't want to be a member anymore. I come back and found that my user name was changed back to "Yokosuka Mike" by some admin or mod. What the hell!

I also see that someone is still moaning and groaning about how I ruined the gallery. Jesus Christ, I deleted my pictures and said I quit, what more do people want?

What does it take to get out of being a member here? Must I confess to singlehandedly turning the gallery into a shit-hole? Okay, I confess, it was me... I did it all by myself; I ruined it for everyone.

Do I have to pay some money to to get my membership terminated? How much does it cost, I'll pay it.

Folks, I'm sorry I spoiled the gallery for for you. Now, please, leave me alone. All I want now is to put RFF in my rearview mirror and have my membership terminated. Is that to much to ask for?

Sayonara,
Mike
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I am sorry to see you leave RFF for a few remarks by some people here. Take care.
 
I wonder if having a thread about your favorite own few images (maybe 3-5) in your gallery would be something that RFF members would like to see or not.
It would be our own "Not-Hall-of-Fame". Not almost all images are B&W. Color is forgiveable. You could add a comment about how/when/where your images were taken. Could be a useful thread that adds more traffic to the RFF Gellery too.
 
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I feel pretty bad about Mike leaving, since I instigated this mess with my comment about posting frequency. It's obvious to me that Mike has valued his membership and this community. I apologized privately and offer the same to MP Guy for sending his thread in such an unfortunate direction. I'm glad the issue of posting quantity came up, and I feel an objective discussion of it would be useful some other time. But I regret citing Mike as an example. Again, very sorry, Mike.

John
 
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Mike will hopefully return to RFF.
Here is maybe a good start for us to share our own favorite images without being judged by anyone whether it is a great image or just an image we happen to like a lot.

Post your images here

I will post here today one of my favorite own images. I took it many years ago in the Everglades National Park in the southern part of Florida. I was then using a Canon FD camera outfit with a Canon F1N (for robustness and strength) or T90 to hold the large Canon 500mm/4.5L. For stability I was...
www.rangefinderforum.com www.rangefinderforum.com
 
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