Banned!

Well folks. Now I've done it. I've gone and gotten myself banned from PhotoSig.com (a well-known photo critique exchange site).
It may have had something to do with this letter I sent to PhotoSig admin this morning...

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To Whom it May Concern:

When I started at PhotoSig a couple of years ago, I thoroughly enjoyed posting my photos here. I wrote a few critiques, but didn't feel particularly qualified to do so at the time. My ratio of posts to critiques was about 1/1. At some point, admin started asking posters to critique three photos for every post. I immediately started posting at least three critiques for every image I posted here on PhotoSig. Soon, I was posting a critique for every person who critiqued my images... often ten or more critiques for each image I posted.

And yet - despite my efforts to give back - I still received rude comments from [a moderator at PhotoSig... I won't use names as I'd prefer not to get personal here]. It seems that no matter the effort one puts into this site, no one is exempt from this kind of treatment.

Once, I was accused of stealing the work of another member of PhotoSig - and although the accusation was withdrawn when [the moderator] realized she'd made a mistake, the negative feeling about PhotoSig remained.

On another occasion, I was told quite rudely to post more critiques - despite the fact that I had already posted eight critiques that day. Again, I received an apology - but the negative feeling doesn't go away.

After that most recent episode, I took a break from PhotoSig. Why spend time here when I end up feeling frustrated and angry? Seems a waste of valuable time.

But the other day, I came back and posted another shot because I felt that PhotoSig has much to offer - and here we are again. My first post in months and I get another nasty comment.

After my husband responded to the rude post, he got an email accusing us of sharing accounts (we each have an account and we post separately), using PhotoSig to drive traffic to our sites (does [the moderator] really think PhotoSig gives us enough traffic to our sites to justify the time we've spent here over the past couple of years?), and not giving back. Really? After the seven critiques I wrote in the past two days... after posting a single image of my own?

I don't object to being reminded of the rules – like critiquing regularly or not posting photos with a link to our individual websites (oops). I object to rude and condescending comments like the ones I regularly receive from [a moderator] here at PhotoSig.

I will no longer post images on PhotoSig. I’ve also pulled all my images from the site. Enough is enough. Why waste my time on PhotoSig when there are so many other critique sites that offer the same services - and a positive experience as well?

I do wish I could thank all of the contributors who took the time to critique my photos over the years. Contributors here are a great collection of people. I've enjoyed being a part of this community… and I regret that my time on PhotoSig is over. I’ll spend my time on FredMiranda, NPN, and other communities which offer a fantastic experience alongside the critiques and comments.

I do hope that PhotoSig will find a way to return to its former glory. It was a fantastic site once – but I’m hearing more and more negative comments about the experience as time passes. I know that the problems PhotoSig is having with [this moderator] are not a secret – and I know it must be politically difficult to handle a situation like this one. I do hope it will be resolved in the near future. I wish PhotoSig the best of luck.

Respectfully,
Varina Patel

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My mother would say, "OH, Varina...."

And she's probably right. But there it is. Now I've gone and done it.

Now - please don't think I'm asking all of you to remove your own accounts on PhotoSig. I still believe that PhotoSig is a great site - and that the community there is excellent. My problem is with a single moderator/administrator - and I hope that they will resolve the issue eventually. I know my experience has not been unique.

I do want to thank all those of you who reviewed my work while I was a member of PhotoSig. I'm a better photographer because of all of you. So Thanks! And I'll miss you all over there! :)

Travel Plans...

We have some exciting travel plans this year. We'll be in the Canadian Rockies at the beginning of August. I was born in Canada, and have made small trips into Canada a few times in the last several years... but never to shoot. We're both looking forward to that trip. In September, we'll head out to Montana to visit Glacier National Park again. And we've just booked flights to Hawaii in December. We weren't expecting to make it to Hawaii this year, so we're pleased to have been able to schedule this trip. With any luck, we'll get to stop in to see my Grandmother on Maui for a day or two during our stay.

Of course, in between travel, we'll be teaching another seminar in August and preparing for upcoming webinars. We have a workshop in November, too - in Utah... Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks. So if we aren't busy enough with our six kids, we should be able to find plenty to do. ;)

And last but not least - I've updated my website once again. You'll find a new Details gallery... textures, macros, and small details. I've also added images to several other galleries. Check out the Newest Photographs gallery to see all the new photos in one place.

Trillium and a busy week...

Boy, it's been a busy week! I managed to finish a run yesterday - after a few weeks of short runs on a painful knee. Much better at last. It's nice to be able to run outdoors again, too. :) We also did an upper body workout - and we'll be back at the gym tonight... biking and lower body. Boy oh boy! ;)

Last week's presentation at the Akron Camera Club went very well. Thanks very much to those of you who signed up for our seminar afterwards! We're looking forward to seeing you again! We've also been busy preparing for our June seminar in California, and our August seminar in Ohio. We've had many requests for online classes, so we're working on putting that together as well. We expect to be able to offer our first "Webinar" sometime later this year. We'll keep you posted.

I did manage to get my website updated. My latest travel information is now online, along with workshop information, news, and the like.

Playground

One of the things I love about the dunes is that they change so completely from one day to the next. They shift in the wind and are made new with every storm. It's a fascinating place - and a hard one to leave. I would love to be back on those dunes right now. :) It's snowing hard here in Northern Ohio... looks like about three inches since this morning. It's beautiful, though!

I spent some time updating my website yesterday. There are a few more images up, now - you can take a look at the Newest Photographs gallery to see my latest work.

Jay and I are working on content for our upcoming seminar in August. We'll get information about it online before long.

En route to Florida

My images are now available for sale on the Vision Light Gallery website. You can reach our collection by visiting Vision Light directly or clicking on the purchase link on my website. Jay and I have a large selection of images for sale with Vision Light - and other images can be purchased by contacting me directly. I'm glad to have this section of my site up and running at long last. Preparing large numbers of images for print is a time-consuming process, so I'm glad it's ready to go.

This is the coldest weather we've seen in Cleveland for a few years. The early morning light on the snow is absolutely beautiful this morning - the huge lake North and West of us usually provides a heavy cloud of moisture that hangs over the region all winter long. Today, that cloud is nowhere to be seen.

We'll be leaving around 9:30 this morning. There has already been a change of plans. The boats we'd intended to take to Dry Tortugas are full - so we'll be choosing other locations to shoot during this trip. We're always flexible. :) Florida has a wealth of beautiful locations. We'll be back next week - but I'll try to update my blog as much as possible while we're there. I hope those of you who are dealing with extremely cold temperatures are staying warm!

Workouts and Work

We had a couple of good workouts this week - a 60 minute run on Monday, and 30 minutes on the bike plus an upper body workout on Wednesday. We hope to get another run in tomorrow - and if we can pull that off, we'll have met our goals for the week. It's always difficult to find time to work out, but we try to stay in shape for our trips. You have to be ready for that 1.5 mile dash between car and location at 9,000 feet, you know - because you left your only charged battery in the car, and the sun is setting. :) The last time we were in Colorado, I did just that - I made the run and got the battery, but missed the sunset. I'm telling you - running at 9,000 feet is a whole lot different from running at 1000 feet here at home.

I spent a good part of the week processing stock photos and submitting them. I need to update my website and work on a couple of articles. I hope to get those done before we leave for Florida in January. We'll be heading for Dry Tortugas National Park. I haven't been to this park before, but we've been to Florida a few times. I'm looking forward to warmth and sunshine. This shot - titled "Reclaimed" - is from our last trip to Bahia Honda. The odd shape in the water is an old rope that has provided a home for all kinds of flora and fauna.

Articles

I spent the morning putting the finishing touches on the new articles section of my website. This is the largest section of my website next to the galleries - so it has been a time-consuming process. This change was designed to make accessing the articles much simpler. It is no longer necessary to download bulky PDF documents. You can click on the link to any article and you'll be taken to the special articles section of my site. I tried to make sure it was easy to navigate as well. Please let me know what you think if you have the time. I always look forward to hearing from my readers.

And speaking of my readers - visitors to my blog and website are increasing rapidly. My numbers have increased nearly five-fold from last year. That's a big deal for me. I want to thank all of you for taking time out of your busy day to check out my work. I love your comments and emails, and it means a lot to me to know that so many people are enjoying my work. I'll keep working - and I hope you'll keep stopping by to see what's new.

Back in Ohio

We photographed the grist mill at Babcock State Park in West Virginia this morning. We've been here once before, but we wanted to return when the colors were at their peak. We did get some nice color over the river. It rained all morning, so we took turns holding an umbrella over our cameras so we could both get the shots we wanted. I don't generally shoot buildings, but this one has a bit of character that makes it a bit more interesting to me... you'll find a few lighthouse shots on my website too. :)

The skies cleared very quickly around mid-day, and by sunset they were nearly cloudless. Rather than shooting, we drove to Athens Ohio and checked into our hotel early. We've been working on our websites for the past couple of hours. Tomorrow, we hope to shoot the sunrise before meeting my sister for lunch near Columbus.

West Virginia and Ohio

With any luck, we'll be shooting more fall color this weekend - in Southern Ohio and West Virginia. We expect to see colors at their peak in some of the most beautiful locations in these states. We've scouted these areas in the past, so we know where we'd like to be - but we'll be watching the skies carefully for clues to the best shooting locations. I'd love to see some color in the sky like our sunrise this morning - it was absolutely spectacular... bright reds fading to pink and taking over the sky as the morning progressed.

We're looking at overcast skies in the region for the next day or two - perfect for shooting waterfalls all day long... and there are so many falls to choose from. We hope to get a nice sunset on Saturday evening as the skies begin to clear up a bit. I'll try to keep you posted from hotel rooms along the way.

Here's a shot from our last trip to West Virginia - Left Fork Holly River - Holly River State Park, WV.
I spent a good part of the week processing, key-wording, uploading, and categorizing stock photos - and working on my website. I am working to create individual web pages for my articles, so that it is no longer necessary to download them to your computer. Jay and I generally work together on our articles, so these pages would be available from both our websites.

A Land of Extremes

Our Death Valley article has been published at Nature Photographers Online Magazine. Jay and I wrote the article a few years ago, and I recently rewrote the article and re-edited the images for Nature Photographers. The articles is available on my website as well. I hope you'll enjoy it. Death Valley is an amazing place to visit - I can't wait to get there again. I hope you'll let me know what you think of the article. I'm always looking for constructive criticism and new ideas.

Thanks for all your support.

Thank You!

I want to thank all of you who took the time to email me to let me know what you thought of my new website. I appreciate all your comments. Amazingly enough, not one person told me they'd found a bug... so either the site is perfect, or you are all just being nice. :) Thanks so much for taking the time to look over the site and send me emails. It makes a world of difference.

This shot is one of the many new images you'll find on my website. Actually, I took the photo a couple of years ago while we were living in France, but I never processed it. I can't imagine why not - in fact, it may be one of my favorite shots from the trip. This is Grand Saut - one of many Cascades du Herrison. I waded into the river to get the shot - my jeans were wet, and my legs were freezing - but I think it was worth it. I was able to get a clean shot after waiting for the wind to settle.

Jay and I are planning another trip for next weekend. We'll be photographing the coast of Maine. We're hoping for some spectacular colors out there. I'm more than ready to get back to the wilderness. That's where I'm most at home. This will be our first trip to Maine, and I'm really looking forward to adding something new to my portfolio!

Version 3.1 is LIVE!

That's it, folks. We're up and running once again. The new and improved Photography by Varina is now Live! Please tell me what you think of the new design and layout. You'll find lots of new images, updated articles, and some new information. If you find any errors, please let me know. I will take care of them as soon as they come to my attention.

I want to thank all of you for your patience with me over the past few months. The new site was built from the ground up using a series of programs I hadn't used before. I learned quite a lot, and I'm now comfortable with Adobe Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash. I hit my share of snags (not the least of which was deleting the entire free downloads section this morning - thank goodness for backups!)

I hope you will all enjoy the new site. Please tell me what you think!

Thanks for all your support and comments over the past few years. It's been great - and I'm looking forward to many more years of landscape photography and blogging!

Uploading...

If you visit my site right now, you'll find the following notice:

"I am currently uploading the new Photography by Varina. Please visit my blog for the latest information about the new website. I hope to be up and running again shortly. Thanks for your patience."

I expect to be back online within a couple of hours and I'll keep you updated. Right now, I am uploading components as quickly as possible. The main page will be the last to upload. Once the new main page is live, the entire site should be ready to go.

Wish me luck! :)

Long Weekend

Jay and I drove up to Sandusky this weekend to see if we could get a shot of the Marblehead lighthouse on Lake Erie. The shot you see here was taken a couple of years ago, and although I like it, I'd really like to see a more spectacular sky. We've visited this spot several times in the past year - it's only about two hours from our home - but the sky isn't generally very cooperative over Lake Erie. Although the sky looked fantastic further inland, the clouds thinned out as we reached the lake shore. So, we headed back home. No luck. We often visit the same location several times since cloud cover is so unpredictable. We follow weather patterns and keep track of wind direction, but our best guess isn't always good enough.

In other news - my new website will go live this week. I'm doing a little bit of last minute testing, and the site should be up and running in a few days. So, get a good last look at the existing site. You may never see it again. :)

The Earth Breathes

This is a shot from our trip to Yellowstone. Most evenings, the light was unimpressive - but when it was nice, it was VERY nice. :) I used a soft GND (graduated neutral density) filter to reduce the dynamic range, and combined two exposures to create an image as close to reality as possible. This beautiful geyser spewed steam for us all evening.

I'm finishing up my new website this week. The site is complete, but I'm hunting down bugs. I have a few issues that need to be dealt with before I'm ready to go live. But I should be able to get it up on schedule. I've made some minor updates to my existing site as well.

Jay and I are planning a trip to the East coast at the beginning of October. We want to capture the fall colors at their peak. We are feeling a little cooped up lately - we need to spend some time in the wilderness. :)

Canon 5D Mark II

DPReview has published preview specs for the new 5D Mark II from Canon. What a beautiful camera! 21.1 million effective pixels, excellent ISO capabilities, an integrated cleaning system, the excellent DIGIC 4 processor... and it will be priced around $2700. Oh, and did I mention that it has high definition video capability?

Right - so... I'm going to try not to drool too much over this one. Jay and I will likely sell our bodies (camera bodies, that is) and upgrade to the 5D Mark II and the 50D.

Meanwhile, my website is looking good. I'm still wading through the major changes... my website has evolved quite a lot in the past few years. I am adding information on our workshops, a links page, and several other useful areas. I'll also add a section where buyers can purchase my work directly... though that may go live a little further down the road.

Follow This Blog

So - Blogger has a new feature. You can now add my blog (and others) to your "Blogs I'm following" tab in the Blogger dashboard. I like the feature, since it will allow you to keep track of all the blogs you read regularly in one place. No more bouncing around all over the place. And since mine is your very FAVORITE blog of all, you'll want to add it to you list. Right? RIGHT? Well, you can't say I didn't try. :)

I've been putting lots of hours into getting my new website up and running. I'm very happy with the results so far. Dreamweaver is an excellent program, and everything is on schedule. I have a long list of updates to work on today - and over the next couple of weeks. I also have a stack of landscape photos waiting for attention.

Go Green

Today, I'm announcing a new partnership with GoGreenTube.com. I'm looking forward to working with the Go Green team to help educate the public about environmental issues. A friend of mine suggested I take a look at the GoGreenTube website a few months ago, and I was intrigued. The site is relatively new, but is growing very quickly. They are hosting the Chill Out competition for The National Wildlife Federation this year, and each time one of their environmentally friendly videos is viewed, Go Green Tube offsets one pound of carbon dioxide though CarbonFund.org. I contacted the president of the company and asked if they could use my images and website to help promote their cause - which I obviously believe in pretty strongly. :)

You'll notice a new link to GoGreenTube.com on my website, and I'll let you all know what changes you'll be seeing as they come about. I'm working hard on my new site design, and I'm still on schedule to have it online by October 1st. Meanwhile, take a look at GoGreenTube if you have a chance. They are looking for new members - and new videos as well.

Website Updates...

I just finished my short run - in the rain. :) It was a great day for running... nice and cool, and not wet enough to soak me through. I also took a different route than I usually do, which makes the run much more interesting. Now I'm starving. But I thought I'd put up a quick post before I eat.I put some time into updating my website today. The second part of my Following the Light article is now available on Outback photo. You can also download it from the articles page at www.PhotographyByVarina.com. I hope to be able to update my image galleries tomorrow.
I processed and uploaded several stock photographs today as well. This is a shot of our friend Anna - the one we were visiting in Italy last month. The last time she was in the US, Jay took this shot at a rose garden in Oregon. I processed the image today - removing four people who were standing in the path behind her, cleaning up rose petals that were littering the path, and removing product logos from her bag, chair, and shirt. It always takes quite a while to make changes like these to a photo - but for stock, it's necessary. Of course, I wouldn't change Anna. She's lovely just as she is. :) I love the challenge of doing this kind of stock work, so I won't complain. I have finished uploading, so tomorrow I'll be able to focus on my website.

What I have to do just to get a little work done!

I'm in California today. That's what it takes. I have to fly across the country just to find a few hours to work. :) I managed to catch a couple of earlier flights, so rather than arriving in CA at midnight, I was here by 8pm. I had a fantastic dinner at Banana Leaf in Milpitas, and then went straight to bed. I'm still on Cleveland time. This morning, I drove back to the airport to get my bag - which was on the plane I was originally scheduled to take, and now I've holed up in my hotel room to try and get some work done.

The plan is to get some web design work out of the way. I'm learning Dreamweaver this morning and I should have some time to see what Adobe Fireworks can do, too.

I can tell you right now - if I were at home, I would not be able to sit down and work. I have far too many responsibilities there. Even when I'm supposed to have a free day, something always comes up. Unless I leave the state. :)