Hi all,

Some of you may have noticed that we've been making a few changes to the Photography forum recently, such as updating the title (to "Photography Tips and Techniques") and expanding the infobox to better explain how the forum is intended to be used.

First, a bit of history. In September 2014, Dave set up this forum in response to a number of requests (see The thread "Welcome to the photography forum!" in Photography Tips & Techniques forum):

dave said:By popular demand: The thread "Could we have a garden photography forum" in Photography Tips & Techniques forum

This forum is dedicated to the technical discussion of photography as it relates to gardening. It is not a gallery of photos but rather a place for helping each other become better photographers.

It proved popular quite quickly (The thread "Important: What this forum is for and what it's about" in Photography Tips & Techniques forum) and Dave added some clarifying comments:

dave said:Since launching this forum a few days ago, we have already had over 200 posts! This has been our fastest growing forum ever and that means that there is a lot of interest in the topic of becoming better photographers. That makes sense because ATP is such a photo-heavy site and we all want to take the best photos we can take.

So, I want to have a little bit of clarity on why this forum exists, and how we want to use it. This forum is to help people understand the technical aspects of photography. If you have a point and shoot camera (or treat your camera as one!) and you're happy with it, then this forum probably won't do much for you.

This forum will be used to provide education and give answers to people who want to understand all the various controls that their cameras offer. That means aperture, shutter speed, ISO, external flashes, lens types (macro, prime, zoom, etc.) Again, if you are happy to just point and shoot on auto mode then this forum isn't going to be much help for you. But if you want to know what the A, S, and M modes do, and you want to know how to get that blurry background with a perfectly focused subject, and so forth, then this is the place to be.

@greene suggested, and I agree, that if you post example photos, that it would be helpful to include some information about the photo. (Which camera you used, what lens, and if on manual mode, what were the settings.)

Due to the technical nature of the discussions, it's going to be important that we stay on topic. Off-topic posts that aren't about the subject being discussed will be deleted by me. I don't expect that we'll have any problems with that, though.

I'm really enjoying this forum and look forward to much more great threads in the future! I've already learned some new things myself, and am enjoying sharing some things that I know. Thank you to everyone who has already joined the discussion and made this forum such an early success.

Recently there have been a number of discussions, both in The thread "Tidying up the Photography Forum" in Site Talk forum and behind-the-scenes, about the state of the forum. The focus had shifted to a number of "gallery"-type threads, sometimes including photos that were copied from elsewhere on the Internet, rather than the original intention for the forum.

After much discussion, it was decided that the best approach would be to move the gallery threads to the Sandbox, as the focus of garden.org is on gardening and this forum is intended for discussions of photography as it relates to gardening. So whilst the photos of sunsets, snow and other scenic shots are nice to see, they don't fit the mission of the site and are best suited to the Sandbox.

We would also like to encourage members to use the pre-existing Garden Photos forum for gallery-type threads of your gardens, rather than posting them here.

Finally, we're adding some moderators to the forum to help keep it on-topic. To begin with, it will be myself ( @Australis ) and @William, who has kindly agreed to help out as well. We'll be here to help out if there are any issues in the forum and will also move gallery-type threads to the appropriate place.

We want this forum to be a welcoming place for the more technical discussions of photography and where members (of any skill level) can ask questions and discuss their approaches. To help us achieve this goal, please be polite and considerate when critiquing another member's work. Short, sharp and overly critical comments tend to discourage people and this isn't what we want to see - encouragement and constructive criticism are always far more effective than negativity.

Finally, this thread will be used for news and announcements specific to the photography forum. The second post (below) will have links to useful threads - please feel free to suggest specific threads to any of the mods that you think may be good to have collected here.

If you have questions/concerns over the purpose and function of the forum itself, please use The thread "Tidying up the Photography Forum" in Site Talk forum, as it is a pre-existing discussion on the topic. Please also feel free to contact myself via treemail if you don't wish to discuss something publicly. If there is an issue requiring moderator attention, please contact any of the moderators.

From time to time, the mods and admins will be seeking photos for specific projects; when one of these events is underway, you can find out about it in Trish's thread here:

The thread "Earn Acorns from your Pictures!" in Photography Tips & Techniques forum

I will add further links to useful threads here in future.

It is our pleasure to present some news:

A whole new info panel, displaying a curated view of the very best new photos the forum has to offer.

Photos are fun and great photos are also inspirational, so we want to give them more space.

Three different image critique threads

Image critique, despite its daunting name, is about inspiring others with your photographs and most importantly a splendid way for all photographers to learn from each other.
All photographers should be able to find a thread that suits their own needs and temperament. The threads are not about your skill level. Rather they are about what kind of help you prefer. Some respond better to encouragement, while others prefer to be told more directly what can be improved.

Totally RAW

Is for those that wants the most in depth image critique. It is not about raw and brutal image critique, rather it is a play with words, because RAW is considered by most to be the ultimate format to photograph in. It is also the most difficult format, because you will need to learn about post processing to get the most out of it.

Likewise you will need a particular mindset to get the most out of this thread. You need to be able to distance yourself from your photos, because this type of image critique even though it is ever so well meaning and helpful, have a tendency to hurt. So please, know your self before posting. Make sure you understand that a Photograph is not you, nor your baby. If you are new to image critique, listening to people analyzing your picture could very well be one of the most challenging things you have ever done.

Totally Smack in the Middle

Here we try to have a very helpful mix between pointing out the strong sides of a photo, and to help each other find those areas that can be improved. There are few things as valuable to a photographer as to see their own images through someone else's eyes. Even if you don't post images yourself, you can learn a lot from analyzing and commenting on images.

Totally Kind

This thread is for those that learn best from positive feedback. Here we only focus on the positive sides of an image. This thread may very well be the best choice for you, if you are totally new to image critique.

For those that comment, it is better to be precise when commenting. Rather than just saying "Great shot", it is better to say: I love the light, nice composition, wonderful color and so on. Concentrate on the elements of the picture that you really like.