With respect, it was you that raised the issue of qualifications, and implying that those qualifications meant that you knew 'the stuff'. Maybe I got it wrong, but if that wasn't the intention, I don't see why you'd raise the matter. The connection between your qualifications and your subsequent career, I find beside the point. I've known very successful photographers with zero formal qualifications and also people with top-rate qualifications that haven't had successful careers.
June 26, 2023
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It might be what you learned at college - it depends on the course you did. If your computing course was one of the many that jams you full of facts, then it was likely that most of them were out of date before you started work. If, on the other hand it developed the base principles and knowledge, which haven't really changed over 50 years or so, taught you how to use the maths that go with them, and how to problem solve, and use that knowledge to find a solution to the problem in hand, then you'd have found that you solved them a lot faster that the fact crammed people. That's one reason why getting the basics right and knowing how things work is generally important.
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While I admire the knowledge of the scientific experts, support their presence here and would forever defend their right to have their discussions freely here, I am not an engineer, and for the most part, just scroll past those threads. I understand that many people enjoy gear-centric debates or discussing details of equipment testing but I am not interested in that either. If I'm shopping for a new lens, as I am today, I know plenty of sites that have decent reviews so I don't need more of that here.
What I was looking for when I came here, and when I went to other photography forums before this one existed, is a place to discuss the end results: photographs. There may be more of us like that than you realize, since we do not call attention to ourselves. We don't argue or complain or make anyone mad enough to complain about us. We just share images and talk about them - how they were made, their composition, their artistic merit (or not), the stories they tell.
A group of us brought a critique thread here from DPR and we consistently have over 100 posts in each edition of that thread. There are similar ongoing threads that relocated here as well, because DPRev gave us a place to have shared discussions about actual photographs that are not siloed by brand. We will have even more participation when we get a threaded view. Threaded view enables deeper discussions.
So while I support the experts having their place here to conduct debates and explain their scientific findings, I hope there will still be a home for folks like us who love the art and craft of photography, and enjoy mingling with others in artistic and photo-centered discussions that are deeper and more meaningful than simple "likes" or "nice shot". (There are quite a few here who could also offer editorial content in subjects like composition, lighting, editing, critique, various genres, etc).
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To be fair to the 'scientific experts', their debates between themselves are usually quite short, polite, interesting and full of mutual respect. It's debates where others decide that what the 'scientific' folks say must be challenged that can become long and tortured, and the scientific folk attempt to explain to science deniers why their views don't accord with reality.
Firstly, thanks for your contribution. Second, I'd hope that some of the developments here will enhance that kind of activity. Editorial content about the kind of topics you discuss is exactly what we had in mind. The art and craft is what it's in the end about.
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I think that qualifications can affect the odds of whether the person "knows the stuff". I spent 6 years working as a color scientist as an IBM Fellow at the IBM Almaden Research Center. I never took an academic course in color science; I was trained as an EE. But I spent a lot of time with people who taught me color science and color engineering. RIT PhD color scientists from Kodak R&D. PhD experimental psychologists from IBM and elsewhere. Asking questions of the PhD mathematicians at ARC. Lots of reading of technical journals. Being on panels with Jim King, Efi Arazi and Alvy Ray Smith. The academic and professional qualifications of these people didn't mean that they were infallible, but influenced who I sought out and who I believed.
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I agree. I did learn the basic principles (starting with the CPU and working out from there was a great introduction), but it was the lecturers lack of industry knowledge which held us back a bit. I don't think many of them had been out of academia in their entire life. But this was back in 1972 - and computing was in its early stages.{I remember a discussion I had with a business studies lecturer who insisted that the primary goal of a business was not to make a profit - something I couldn't really understand at aged 21 - and still don't].
Having said that, what I did learn from them has stayed with me since then - and made me comfortable in my retirement.
Anyway, back to the purpose of this thread. Sorry for the diversion.
Alan
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But I would hazard a guess that a lot of the education that you received as an EE became pretty useful when it came to understanding what the colour scientists were saying - like a decent grounding in maths. And you're absolutely right - no-one is infallible. But understanding the context in which they are talking allows you to detect where a mistake has been made - and a real expert gets there by learning from mistakes, so will always discuss.
"Colour Science" is pretty tough, because it's talking about a mathematical model of an abstraction which is about human perception. Anything measurable is two stages removed from what a human thinks of as 'reality'. -
Right. I never took linear algebra in college, and I regretted that deeply when I got into color work. The kind of color science I was doing was really engineering, and there's a lot of commonality of approach, tools, and techniques across engineering disciplines.
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One big issue with the experimental psychology piece of color science is that the experiments are so expensive to run and the human visual system is so complex.
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Art and craft... it is hard to tease the craft out of the tech, sometimes...
I guess I lean toward Ansel Adams' perspective on doing photography: understand the medium to control it in making the art. I've done lot of digging into the tech, but only when I came up wanting in a particular aspect of making a decent image. Gee, came home with some images from a theater with blue LED lighting one day, got cartoonish gradations of that, so two years later I've got custom camera profiles from data I measured myself, a bit of a rabbit-hole there, no? But that's the thing: I feel the need to understand the digital imaging medium to reliably bend it to my need.
I'll continue to insert the tech I know in my discourse here, and I'll try hard to make it relevant and understandable to the question. Oh, and I'll happily take corrections in anything I've mangled, that's learning too. But, not for tech's sake, because I think you're right: "...this should be a place to discuss the end results: photographs."
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There weren't in the early 90's. But I had books and ARC mathematicians to help me.
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That is it.
I have searched and searched, for a place were I can talk about the actual photographs, and how they were made and why they were made. It would be nice to have an exchange of ideas about composition too.
But almost every forum I have found is gear, gear, gear. There are a few small forums that deal with photography rather than gear, but they tend towards being a sort of closed club, with newcomers barely tolerated.
The weakness of DPR, was that the photo threads were mostly divided by brand. It becomes difficult if you use two brands at the same time, or change system. The M43 photo forum was open to all brands as the regulars ( including the master of ceremonies) drifted away from that system, But it became problematic for me as I fell for the temptation to comment on the fanboy ethos of that DPR forum now and again, especially when my chosen format was labelled "foolframe". This got me quite a few bans. Phrases like "creamy colour transitions" was a red rag to a bull to the delightful Mods on that forum.
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Heh, I have three university degrees, last one is a doctorate in computer science, with only four math courses total. It can be done... 😆
Served me okay until I got to missiles and space with ballistics and orbital mechanics, had to dig out the calculus book and figure out all that limit/derivative stuff. Oh yeah, linear algebra and color science - still not completely sure how a matrix operation gets me sRGB gamut, will take it on faith...
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The conversion of sRGB to CIELab and CIELuv is non-linear, so you can't do it all with linear algebra.
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It is not only about the content but also how you present it. Maybe because I work in advertising/branding and design I care a lot about form and not only function.
I participate in forums about scuba diving, wristwatches, plus a few about cameras. This is the only one without dark mode, flat/thread view, and a simple notifications bell to keep track of posts. The lack of those features here take a lot of the experience (to me).
Nobody is going to invent anything; what is the difference between Matt Granger, Fro Knows Photo, Tony Northrup etc? They are talking about the exact same cameras, is just the way they present their content that makes their channel different between each other. That is why Ken Rockwell's content look spartan and uninspiring (even though might be of better technical value).
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Bob, why don't you give us this view of all threads and the possibility to choose by ourselves? One click and I am where I want to be.
Technically it should not to be too hard to do. I don't want any "My menu" idiotism. Full menu to everybody! -
You indeed missed the point - but that was probably due to my writing. 🤪 My point was/and is that you have many highly knowledgable people who have been trying to participate here only to be rebuked off the site. Luckily my qualifications and career have been top-rate, and successful. But once again, while trying to impart some 40+ years of experience towards this forum, you have again made a point to diminish the input. I wish you well with your forum. I like the others, while trying to help - have been turned away. Adios.
