FED UP WITH RAILPICTURES.NET

I have found that they will take almost any photo from people they know. When I subscribed they rejected 4 in a row with no comment. Life's too short for that klnd of BS!

They will reject photos for very arbitrary reasons. I shot the Conrail Shared Assets Hack lift bridge between Jersey City & South Kearny at the same time as another well-known rail photographer, same spot, same camera. He is a very frequent contributor to them. There was a wire in the frame in front of the train. He spent hours using PhotoShop to edit that wire out, resulting in a lousy, false image that they accepted. Mine with the wire got rejected. If they are not into reality, I've no more time for them!

If you need to have your life validated by the opinions of people you don't even know, give up now & save yourself a lot of aggravation. If you just want to try to take better & better train photographs, go ahead & please yourself!

Jack

Central New Jersey Wide-Area Stream @ http://railroadradio.net/

Jtgshu wrote:See, what drives me nuts about Railpictures is that it seems that they want you to photoshop the pics. Personally, I don't like that. Sure, photoshop can make a weak picture into a great picture, but they should have a seperate section for untouched and raw pictures.

RRPA.net, if they give you an account, will let you upload any pics, raw or competely photoshopped/chopped. And you also get more of a variety of pics there, becuase more novice photographers can post, and post interesting subjects and pics. And its also for those of us who don't have photoshop, or can't use it well!!!!!!!

IMO, railpictures becomes more of a photoshop skills contest then anything else.

hsr, i agree with you 100 percent - some of those pics i bet if taken by anyone else, would be rejected - it doesn't matter the number of views, its the fact that its up there. Of course, its their website, they can do anything they want, and thats how life is, but still..................

You people just don't get it. If you knew ANYTHING about the site instead of what you believe is true you would know that back in 2003 when there were'nt as many photos being uploaded everyday they were less strict. In about May of 2005 they boosted their "standards" because they didn't have space to accept 200-300 photos a day. Every digital image needs sharpening or tweaking because it is not as high quality as prints or slides. Again yea rrpicturearchives accepts everything therefore you are competing with 1000+ photos added at the same time as yours not 100 something.

Hudson Terminus wrote:I don't have photoshop, and that hasn't slowed me down.....

Hahaha thank you for your input/help here. PM me I wanna know what your real name is if you don't mind.

Railfaninnj wrote:I have found that they will take almost any photo from people they know. When I subscribed they rejected 4 in a row with no comment. Life's too short for that klnd of BS!

4 in a row big deal...I have had 20+ rejected on a single day and I still ahve 560 pics on there. They don't know me and they still accept them! Thats because I understand how to take acceptable photographs. Care to share your rejects you think are "BS"?

They will reject photos for very arbitrary reasons. I shot the Conrail Shared Assets Hack lift bridge between Jersey City & South Kearny at the same time as another well-known rail photographer, same spot, same camera. He is a very frequent contributor to them. There was a wire in the frame in front of the train. He spent hours using PhotoShop to edit that wire out, resulting in a lousy, false image that they accepted. Mine with the wire got rejected. If they are not into reality, I've no more time for them!

They couldn't tell it was photoshopped at first glance because they don't nit-pick. If someone brings it up it would be booted off the site. The wire was probably very prominant in your photo and was given the rejection "foreground clutter" because it is.

If you need to have your life validated by the opinions of people you don't even know, give up now & save yourself a lot of aggravation. If you just want to try to take better & better train photographs, go ahead & please yourself!

Jack

Central New Jersey Wide-Area Stream @ http://railroadradio.net/

Its not aggravation if you suck it up and learn from it. Instead of getting mad that they didn't think yours was good enough to show tens of thousands of people all over the world...try to find out what to do differently next time instea dof bitching about it. You live and you learn otherwise your photos will never improve!

Andrew Blaszczyk (2) wrote:[Its not aggravation if you suck it up and learn from it. Instead of getting mad that they didn't think yours was good enough to show tens of thousands of people all over the world...try to find out what to do differently next time instea dof bitching about it. You live and you learn otherwise your photos will never improve!

Thanks but I don't care for their clique-oriented acceptance policies where certain people get EVERYTHING accepted & others don't even get a constructive response. And by EVERYTHING I'm referring to junk that I wouldn't save if I took it!

If you want to live your life striving for the acceptance of others, go for it! I frankly don't see the point of even going to the effort of submitting a photo to them. Why bother? I know when I shoot a great photo & when l don't. They didn't bother to provide me feedback, so what's the point? Having a URL for denonstrating your status as having a photo accepted by them? Who needs that?

Jack

Central New Jersey Wide-Area Stream @ http://railroadradio.net/

Every digital image needs sharpening or tweaking because it is not as high quality as prints or slides.

Uh, isn't that proving my point?

Anyway, there are great pics on both sites - however, I prefer RRPA because there are simply more pictures there and more variety. Also, there are many more series photographs there that show a whole incident/scenario, whatever.

IMO, not every day is everything perfect (hardly ever!!), ESPECIALLY in railroading!!!!!!!!!!! What better way to see railroading and how it really is than to see some shadows, buildings, foregrounds, backgrounds, etc.

Every pic shouldn't be a "roster shot" and it seems more often then not, that that is what RP wants.

BTW, when I go to the sites, I go to look at pictures of trains and railroad stuff, I don't go to see the "top pic" or the "top ten" or whatever - I go to see pictures of trains, and search for a certain model, location, object, railroad, etc...... - and i think most people who go there do the same thing.

Andrew come on, they know you, im sure they have seen Railpace - its like every month one of your pics is in there, and wasn't it you who wrote the article on the FH"s? Give yourself a little credit!!

Bad day Andrew?

Seriously, you do have good points and I personally identify with your situations. I don't upload to that site too often, but when I do, I get a fair amount in and a lot of them rejected for various reasons. And perhaps I'm a better photographer because of it.

That being said, it can be very frustrating especially early on in your picture taking and you have every right to feel so. Stick with it, learn from your photos and you will get better.

Geez Andrew, a little edgy are we?? Lighten up dude.....

Wow....

I guess complaining is contagious.

I glanced at this website, some good photos here and there.

But way too many photos however for Ridgefield Park, NJ location. A ton of foam as i call it.

Just about the same number of photos from Rochelle, IL.

But there's over 400 pictures from Fostoria OH, over 500 from Tehachapi, and over 900 from Chicago.

BlockLine_4111 wrote:I glanced at this website, some good photos here and there.

But way too many photos however for Ridgefield Park, NJ location. A ton of foam as i call it.

for which site? i take some shots from ridgefield park as its less then a 1/4 mile from my house. But it can get old shooting there.

I feel Railpictures.net is a website where "photographers" can display
their best pics of rail related material. I think the website is more
geared toward people whose hobby or maybe even lively hood is
photography 1st and railfan 2nd. I think the screeners are also well
schooled in the art of photography and that is why pictures submitted
go through such harsh scrutiny. And there's nothing wrong with that.
There are some fantastic pics on the site and as a railfan i enjoy looking
at them very much. The photographers do quality work. You can see
they enjoy what they do.That's why the site says "Best railroad photos
on the net!"

Railroad Picture Archives on the other hand is a website where "Railfans"
can display their rail related material no matter how amatuerish the
photography may be. Because I feel it's more about the train in the
picture then the picture of the train. When I take pictures of trains
I'm not wondering what another photog is going to think of them
but what another railfan is. I'm not saying I or anyone else for that
matter is not trying to take a good photo, I just think it's not always
the priority. I'm happy if I can just get the whole locomotive in the
frame! It's 2 different perspectives of the same subject.

The following is not a quote, but...

Andy Blaszczyk may as well have wrote:Railpictures.net can do no wrong

As a non-photographer, I hate perusing that site. Plenty of spyware on the prowl over there. And if the pics on there have been run through the Adobe Photoshop wringer, its credibility is kaput. Never mind the aforementioned regional bias in regards to photos.

Irish Chieftain wrote:

And if the pics on there have been run through the Adobe Photoshop wringer, its credibility is kaput.

I can't say I really agree with that statement. While taking things out, like wires, etc., changes what was actually witnessed and does not reflect the real world, some adjustments are probably needed. Now that I am using a digital camera, I have found the image out of the camera is very flat and is not what I witnessed. I find I need to adjust the contrast some to bring the image up to what my eyes saw. Does it change the photo, yes, but the technology is not perfect in replicating reality so the change, at least in my mind, is needed.

Just my own opinion that everyone else may choose to disagree with.