Hand of man in ES&S

Hi all

It appears to me that recently, there are quite some photographs clearly showing the "hand of man" being posted in the Earth, Sea & Sky gallery. Fence posts, tire tracks, people in the distant background. I'm not really complaining, just wondering what the standard is. Because Lon has commented on a number of those shots without any mention of the "offense", I was wondering whether the standard has changed in recent times (I remember it being enforced more strictly a few years ago), so I can post my shots accordingly.

On one hand, I feel that this might actually be benefitial for the Man & Nature gallery (where these shots would otherwise have to be posted) because those photographs containing an "accidental" small man-made element could then be posted in ES&S, so that M&N could really be focused on interaction of man and nature, and man in nature (even though I must say this is more and more the case, anyway). On the other hand, of course, there's that gut feeling that ES&S should be kept "pure". You see, I'm rather torn about this myself.

Best regards,

I hear you, Basil. M&N seems to be sometimes a forgotten gallery--there were several times in the last few weeks where i commented on several shots that had zero comments and would have soon cycled off the front page if i hadnt have added a comment. Thats a shame. Kind of ironic in a way too since probably M&N is where you can get critique on shots that are more likely to be marketable--and there are a lot of photographers posting things there who are trying to market their photos.
I don't know the answer, and i don't make the rules, but i agree that this issue of how the galleries are classified should be examined, with feedback from NPN members. Like you, part of me thinks we should just let anything go (look at all the Photo Art that ends up in ESS too) and just use the gallery guidelines as just that--guidelines. The other part of me feels that's a slippery slope and you end up spoiling the "purity" of the gallery, which in turn hurts everyone really. My inclination is to let the categories stand and give the mods some freedom of lattitude to let the marginal cases come in but move the more obvious ones. From what ive seen lately, that would require a little more action from the mods. We probably should hear from them cause they're the ones who would enforce the rules (i fortunately dont have that problem in my gallery!)

Hollywood was torn between HDDVD and Blu-Ray for almost a year. Both technologies did the same thing, yet major companies sided with one or the other. Blu-Ray won because it's simply a better name.

Keep Earth, Sea & Sky (ESS) and change Man & Nature to Earth, Sea, Sky & Us (ESSU), or some better catchy name. I think that's all it needs.

Basil,

Thanks for bringing this up and breaching the topic. I'm still the new kid on the block when it comes to being a moderator, but it's now been over 2 years so I guess I can speak from experience now. I know that you're not "complaining" and that you just want to understand and make sense of something and I for one appreciate the fair question. One of THE great things about NPN is the ability of folks to have a dialogue and be civil about.

Along those lines, Guy, Marc and myself have long agreed that one of the most important things we can do as moderators is to NOT be "heavy handed." The last thing any of the moderators want to do is become guideline police. Having said that, there are guidelines and they often are quite gray.

And since you mentioned me by name, I'll just go through some real-world examples. Since the beginning of the year, I recall off the top of my head only 3 posts in ES&S that caught my attention. Remember too, I don't think anyone opens every single post, let alone scours them for distant fence posts or tiretracks or houses on a bluff. Many times they simply get missed. But so far this year I've moved 2 images to Man & Nature. The third was a recent post on 1/10 by Alex Retzloff I wrote: "Technically, this should belong in Man & Nature, but I see you have also posted there today, so I'll leave this here and a friendly reminder about "the hand of man."" If there is a fairly obvious "hand of man" element I will usually point it out. In this particular case, Alex had also posted in Man & Nature on the same day. I didn't move the ES&S image because it would have doubled up his post in another gallery.

There have been other times when the "hand of man" is posted by a brand new member and the element is rather insignificant. I may or may not move the image. And certainly it will be the case that Marc and Guy go through the same thing. I can tell you that we do not collaborate on "hand of man" posts. They have moved images before I got to them and vice versa.

I get to wear at least 2 hats. One of them is being a member just like everyone else. My personal opinion is that I prefer not to have images with the "hand of man" in them. I came to NPN because I wanted to share images in a community about and for nature and landscape photography. I'm not here to because I want to see another image of the Seattle skyline from Queen Anne's hill (I have one myself and it's a fabulous location!) I also don't want to see images of the GG Bridge or the Eiffel Tower, etc. etc. 29 images of the Subway... you bet!!! :-)

The other hat is of course moderator. Other than a complimentary membership, we don't get paid for this. I consider this a family of like-minded photogs and we're here to enjoy and critique each others work and share our passions. As an individual member, I personally would move more images to Man&Nature than I do as a moderator. And I agree that I think it's more important to let the gallery ebb and flow and not be heavy handed than to go down rat holes defining what is or isn't the "hand of man." Should we move images that have contrails? The Colorado is damned which has altered nature, should we move images of the Grand Canyon? I only say these as rhetorical examples... a rat hole.

In summary Basil, we do our best to move images that are obvious. Some times they are obvious, but there are other reasons they don't get moved; 1. a new member, 2. duplicate posting or 3. it simply gets overlooked. On the flip side, you can go in to the M & N gallery and find images and ask yourself, where is the hand of man? We have some people so wrapped up in the guidelines that they are posting in M & N because of a contrail or a little black spec of a boat on the horizon 10 miles away.

In the end it all boils down to common sense. And part of the bigger guidelines that Jim set up is to post your image in "the most appropriate" gallery. The initial decision is ultimately up to the original poster to place in the appropriate gallery. And having said that, you know as well as I know, the folks who will most likely read this thread understand all this. The ones that don't read this.... are the ones that need to.

I hope most of this makes sense. I'll close my comments for now, but will likely return as others chime in. I will also reserve my comments on PhotoArt for another post or an entirely different thread.

Thanks,
Lon

The Colorado is damned

I knew something was up when i saw those dang contrails overhead--its a curse i tell ya, a curse!

Thanks for your comments, Lon. I agree with many of the things you said, and I think everybody managing this site is doing a great job do keep it running & enjoyable. The lack of an aggressive forum police is not a bad thing.

One thing I'm wondering about is whether members should point out if they think an image contains man made elements (or whatever they deem not appropriate for a gallery), or whether you as moderators wouldn't appreciate that because it's your job to make that judgement (members are not moderators, and much less are they the forum police ).

And finally, just to put that clear - I didn't want to single you out, or point fingers at you. I just mentioned you because I had noticed that you had posted comments to a couple of those photographs. If it would've been Marc or Guy, I would've mentioned them. Maybe I should've said "one of the moderators" instead of your name. Will be noted for future postings.

Basil,

No problem mentioning my name and no offense taken what so ever.

I think your statement of "lack of aggressive forum police" kinda sums it all up...

whether members should point out if they think an image contains man made elements

Absolutely. At a minimum, if one (or all) of the moderators happen to miss the hand of man, having somebody else call it out most certainly will alert the original poster and any member who views the post to take pause and consider their own future posts. Of course, there's no need to crucify anyone... most of us simply want to post an image that we want to share and honestly don't think about it. In the end, this is a "Nature" forum and not Flickr... and I think most folks understand and appreciate that.

Thanks for bringing up the subject.

Lon

Lon, excellent summation!

Ok this is a pet peeve of mine. I take most of my nature photographs in Westford, the New England town I live in. There is no place in my town without the hand of man. Of course I can avoid obvious elements like tires in the wetlands (how do you tell if an area is a wetland? Look for the tires).

But I am not alone. Most of us (Marc is an exception at least sometimes) rarely if ever are in a place without the hand of man. Of course there is the matter of degree. The first reference I know of to the hand of man concept is an extreme one and I think the term is only useful when used in an extreme case. Alfred Stieglitz's photo from 1902 entitled "The Hand of Man" can be seen here on Artnet: Hand of Man

That's the heavy hand of man. A canoe or fence post is man in nature. Same for a hiker. In fact if you take a photo in the wilderness after pitching a tent your photo is clear evidence of the hand of man.

I think these distinctions aren't worth the time it takes to discuss them. Is a farm natural or the hand of man? More natural than Stieglitz photo for sure. If Marc takes a photo deep in the mountains that includes his tent that's the hand of man. But so is any photo he takes because he is there. A bird on a fence post shows the hand of man but on a tree branch it doesn't? But in many cases who planted the tree?

I guess we need some separate categories so we can manage the photos on this site but let's not be overly concerned with the degree of man handedness in our photos -- they virtually all show the hand of man.

As another relatively new member of NPN, I also have questioned where some photos are posted. But, I don't let it bother me if I see a photo in one gallery which maybe should have been in another. I simply look at it for the content and not try to reclassify it. Of course if a bird is in the fauna gallery that is another issue best handled by the moderators. The only ones that bother me are those which have been some manipulated they should be in photo art instead of where they are posted. In my opinon that is more important. Just by 2 cents worth. I enjoy seeing everyones photos and appricate the job the moderators are doing.

Frank,

I understand and appreciate what you're trying to say. But with the same logic we could also say that ever image ever taken is a nature image because it was taken either on the earth, of the earth or from the earth (yes, lets include images from Hubble, etc. etc.) But that's the rathole I didn't really want to go down, but I started it with examples....

IMHO, the intent of the guidelines is to simply categorize subject matter to keep the content related to nature and landscape photography AND avoid the content that you might find on other sites. As I mentioned, I come here for nature and landscape photography. Without the simple guidelines we would start seeing the examples I cited above. I don't want to see images of people's pets, city skylines, street photography, PJ, etc. etc.

So folks can argue down to dna and atoms if they want defining the "hand of man" just like we can discuss "digital manipulation." There will never be an agreement.

So, we try and keep things simple.

Lon

Lon,

Of course you are correct. -- Thing is we can't avoid our own influence on earth so we shouldn't be too picky about hand of man. That doesn't mean that the designation has no merit -- but it too often is abused in a way that can easily become absurd. (I'm a refugee from a photography club)

Keep it simple is the best approach.
Frank

Thanks Frank.

I'd like to think I'm a graduate of a camera club.... rather than a refugee... But I know exactly what you mean.

Lon

I think I'm in strong disagreement with you, Frank. I think your examples are not very well chosen (or then, I'm missing the point) because they are mostly things that clearly don't belong in ES&S. A tent, a canoe, a hiker, a farm - I think that's clear M&N. That's not what I was referring to in my initial post. Also, I think your argument that any photo shows the hand of man because it was a human being that took it is absurd. Of course, it involved the hand of man, but it doesn't show it (at least not in the sense in which I understand showing).

I think there are borderline cases where debating is really pointless. For example this photograph that has cow poop in it. Is that hand of man because the cow was evidently brought to the pasture by man? But, of course, I was not referrint to things like this one in my initial post either. That really would have been pointless.

Hi Basil,

The point is to most people (not photographers necessarily) what could be more natural (whatever that means) than a farm?

Hand of Man is a distinction with many shades of gray and one that very few non-photographers will care about. Now birds and flowers -- yep -- those are useful distinctions. But Hand of Man -- is not -- not to me anyway. Of course if we want to be a cabal we can have whatever categories we want. But in fact the only one I find problematic is Hand of Man....

Frank

P.S. I love Cape Cod bay -- one of my favorite "natural" places. But every single inch shows the Hand of Us.

Just merge the ESS and M&N into one forum. Who cares about a fence post? Often a barn enhances a landscape image. Make it easy on us!