Is M&N completely dead?

I am trying to put some life to it by commenting this image and that one, but after a while they may ban me from the forum for commenting too much.
M&N should be by far more interesting than ESS. There is nothing more beautiful than rural landscapes composed into the beauty of nature. Fields among mountains, villages among forests and lakes, churches and huts among deserts. Somehow, however, M&N doesn't get the traffic it fully deserves. To the point that the forum is becoming completely useless.
It is very, very frustrating and to be honest it gets on my nerve.
Well, good side of it is that images on ESS go down immediately if nobody bothers to comment, while images on M&N stay there forever.

Can the guys responsible for the site put that to an end and merge M&N and ESS together? They represent the same category to begin with.
Why does the same image belong to M&N if it has a horse on it, and to ESS without the horse but with a deer? Or why does it belong to ESS if the lake has no boat, but if you put a boat in it's immediately kicked to M&N? It makes no sense at all.

Well, that's my opinion. I love rural images, thousands times more than themes of streams leading to mountains, or waves leading to rocks, or something leading to something, you name it.
Sorry for the tone, I don't know how to put life to M&N. Any ideas?

I second your motion, I've been thinking along the same lines for some time now...

It used to be alot more active but as of late, it seems, like you said has been very inactive. You could always send your thoughs about to Jim E.

Cezar - I think my sentiments align pretty well with your sentiments. However, most photography forums I've seen (perhaps all) tend to separate the categories of ESS/Landscapes from that of Man&Nature/Elements of Humankind. I think that desire stems from the attitudes of those for which anything that is man made tends to spoil the pristine and natural qualities of the scene. Although I am not of that purist vein, I can see why others might hold to that view.

I wish I had some recent M&N material as I would definitely be posting.

But if you merge the two, by your own words you would like it less, for you like rural images a thousand times more that themes of streams..etc. Maybe we are looking for more exposure and the only forums we can get that in is the popular ones so we want to change them for our benefit. Maybe people shoot stock photography and the M&N shots, be it the rural village, the couple walking on the beach... etc, are the ones that may sell and they would be wise not to post those pictures in a tough stock market that others can work off of. Who knows. Its a guess. You look in 90% of magazines and you see....people, people in nature, people reading these mags. think, hey, thats nice, lets travel their and vacation, eat, what ever, the one taking the M&N shot that the mag. printed isnt going to cut his profits by posting in a photographers web site the specifics of the shot.

Cezar - I understand your frustrations with the lack of participation on Man and Nature but all we can do is continue to submit and comment until things turn around. One of my goals being a moderator was to boost the level of participants and I will do everything I can to encourage more people to post in this forum and I know that in due time things will turn around.

It's funny, ESS posts are supposed to be all nature with no sign of man, yet 12 inches from the lens is a man/woman taking the shot.


Cezar, on a serious note, I do see your point, and at first glance someone might say 'Hey, regardless if human artifacts exist, I'm posting a shot involving nature in some way, so view it and comment please'. And it does simplify things to just have one forum to post. But the focus (no pun!) on NPN is conservation moreso than photography I think, so a 'nature-only' category makes more sense here than at a site like, say, BetterPhoto.com.

So here's the big question: does the separate category matter? Meaning, will merging categories generate more M&N type shots? Maybe we just better get out there and shoot, and start POSTING. It's WAY easier to get images with human evidence, so let's start hammering away at bandwith in M&N! And that includes me, I'll be sure to post AND comment this week. The commenting is so important, I get so much from others' honest feedback, regardless of who took the image. We have a great resource here, let's use it. YOU WATCH, 3 or 4 of us start hammering away at M&N, and it will snowball.

I love to shoot the rural images too Cezar and post in M & N, and I share your frustration about the lack of feedback. I look forward to Kevin's and Kah Kit's vision toward this section and I also look forward to the growth they both will bring from their added posts and points of view. Keep commenting and so will I, and watch this section grow and evolve in the coming years.

David M. Cobb

Maybe they read our PNW forum because since my yesterday post the activity suddenly have accelerated...

I second the motion to merge the two forums. I actually hesitate to post anything in M&N simply because it gets little viewership. A pity too, I think some of my better images have some tiny element of man in it. In fact, I remember last year I posted a night shot of bryce canyon in ESS, but there were calls to move it to M&N because once could see a pair of artifical lights (they would have been about 10 pixels in diameter!) in the canyon! Recently, I posted a snap of Denali with the only sign of man in it being a narrow strip of dirt road swallowed in the frame of a huge natural landscape. It seemed weird to classify it as an M&N shot, the focus was completely on the landscape. But wotcha gonna do?

> But wotcha gonna do?

I agree that it's very frustrating that you make an image you are proud of, and you have to post it in a place with no activity at all just because it happened to have a tiny human element in it.

They are inconsistent in my opinion. Once M&N weekly pick was won by a clearly urban image - a night city skyline shot. I don't know what it had to do with any kind of nature. How can you classify a city skyline in the same category as a canyon with a hiking trail? I understand they have a separate category for urban images and another for nature, including rural views. But to have clearly city images in the same category as clearly nature images makes no sense to me at all. And the rural photography IS a nature photography.
OK, so you have a place for city images, as the one with a city skyline, and another place for pristine nature images, so then where is the place for rural images? Should we have a separate category for images with cows, and another with barns? How about image that has both a barn and a cow? Yet another category?
I wonder if some people have some agenda in keeping it that way. I don't know.
What am going to do? Nothing. I don't think I am in a position to have any voice in this discussion....

I think the problem with the M&N forum is that there are too many images that fall way outside of the category's posting guidelines. It's turned into a place to post any picture that doesn't belong somewhere else. Pictures of cats and dogs, urban images, architectural images, images that are almost entirely hand-of-man as opposed to "limited evidence of hand-of-man" as stated in the posting guidelines.

A quick glance at the M&N page this morning reveals numerous images that really don't belong. If people perceive it as a dumping ground for orphaned images, it'll chase off more people than it attracts.

The challenge for Kah and Kevin is how to keep the forum focused on its stated mission. With respect to Kevin's reply above, if I were trying to boost the level of participants, I'd be removing images that don't belong and politely writing to those who posted them explaning why and encouraging them to post images that do meet the guidelines.

The only way to make that forum successful again is to (re)focus it on its intended purpose.

My opinion is that the phrase "Man and Nature" is redundant. We're all familiar with where this argument leads.

If it were up to me, there would be an "Outdoor" forum, and an "Wilderness" forum. Wilderness would be places where the "hand of man" is not obvious.

The reality is that there are very few places in this world that have not been affected by human activity.

I agree that your proposed categories, Curtis, make good sense. And by wilderness I understand not only untouched wilderness, but also images where human impact may exist, but is composed into the wilderness without violating it's harmony and integrity. For example - hiking trail, a wooden fence, a log cabin.
The other category should be rural images. Rural images is a huge and beautiful category. But I repeat - a city image is not a rural image, so city landscapes should not be published here on NPN at all. Especially they should not be winning weekly picks.

yes, that's even better Cezar.

personally I don't mind cityscapes, and wouldn't mind seeing them in the Outdoor category, but we also have the "off-topic" category, so maybe it would be better to put them there.

anyway, I just get a little frustrated with the attitude that everything man does is evil and damaging to the planet. But that's not really the topic here so I'll stop while I'm a behind

Thanks to all for taking the time to broach the subject and discuss it. I agree, there are photos posted in the M&N gallery that do not really fit, or at least fit only marginally. But FWIW, this has been an ongoing struggle from the very beginning of the gallery and many take exception if their photos are deleted for not following subjective guidelines. In many ways, the M&N gallery is the most difficult to moderate because of this.

We'll do our best to enforce the posting guidelines without becoming obessive about it.

Edit - I have updated the M&N Gallery description to read as follows:

"The Man & Nature photo critique gallery is intended for photos that depict landscapes, seascapes, or rural scenes that contain limited evidence of hand-of-man (HOM) such as a path, fence, man-made structure or people within an overall nature theme. The HOM element of the photo may not occupy more than 25% of the frame."

Hopefully the "25% rule" will make the meaning a bit less subjective.

Thanks Jim I think that will help with people trying to figure whether the image should be in Man and Nature or not.

The 25% limitation is a bit puzzling. If a rural scene shows a barn with sunflower fields around then the whole composition, 100% of it, is man made. The sunflower field is fully man made, so is the barn. Then according to the definition it disqualifies the image. Am I right?
So basically this definition shuts the door before rural images. Is it correct?

Cezar, in your example only the barn would be considered "man made." In other words, it's only the depiction of people and man-made objects that can occupy no more than 25% of the frame. This will allow the rural scenes we all enjoy and that IMO are entirely appropriate of the M&N gallery.

There will always be some subjectivity to this so we'll need to remain flexible in what fits the gallery and what does not.

OK, it explains. Makes sense. Thank you :)