In the wise words of the fictional Sheldon Cooper:
"There's a tribe in Papua New Guinea where, when a hunter flaunts his success to the rest of the village, they kill him and drive away evil spirits with a drum made of his skin. Superstitious nonsense, of course - but one can see their point."
This is the only recent comment I am going to bother responding to because I feel like you at least explained yourself and made a few valid points as well, IMO, as a few misguided ones. In any case, Cindy is not psycho. She isn't crazy. She does, however wear her heart on her sleeve, so to speak. For me, personally, I make a comfortable living running an engineering department for a Fortune 50 company. Photography is something I enjoy and want to get better at, but it's not my profession. If somebody questioned how I did my job or questioned my competency at it, I would be extremely upset. You have to understand that it's a bit different when you are critiquing somebody's job vs their hobby. Many, if not, most times, you are not privy to why things are done the way they are. Often, the client, or the circumstances dictate how much time is available, what type of editing they want, what style they want, etc. It's their money, their day, and most of the times, photography isn't one of their main priorities, even if years down the road, they may wish it had been.
Honestly, Schwetty did not provide a good, honest critique(and fwiw, it was this thread and not another one). He nitpicked every photo based on his perception of what his 'best of 2011' would look like. He also freely admitted that. I also freely admitted that perhaps I should have titled this thread something different to avoid that argument altogether. I believe he said that he felt I should have showed more 'steak' and less of the 'trimmings'...Well, that's all up to personal choices, but criticizing the merit of certain photos because he believes they are more trimmings than steak, isn't exactly valid criticism. I think Schwetty and I are on the same page on this one and, honestly, I believe if he were to do the critique over again knowing what he knows now, this thread would have taken a different turn.
This sort of follows up with my last point. You are working towards a hobby that pays for itself. She works towards a job that pays her mortgage. Again, what TPF members think of that work is less important than what her market will bare or what her clients want.
I agree.
I don't need defending. As I said in Schwetty's thread, there is no reason for the drama. Obviously, it would be best if we could all just get along, but in the cases where it is not possible, it's better to just avoid each other. Either voluntarily, or through the use of the ignore feature.
