I continue to be mystified by the official Pentax Photo Gallery and the process of reviewing submissions. I find that I am unable to predict what they will like and what they will promptly reject.
The last three or four times I had submitted images, before this month, they took a long time to review them. Then, they would promptly reject most, and keep one or two "under review" for another 2 weeks before rejecting those as well. Then, I submitted 10 images two weeks ago, and they very quickly rejected one and accepted two. One of the ones the accepted was a "pretty postcard" that had been previously submitted and rejected. The other was this one: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/home#section=ARTIST&subSection=1309043&subSubSection=10204520&language=EN While I like that image, I certainly didn't think it was the strongest I had submitted in that group, and I was shocked that it was accepted, let alone so quickly. Just as a test, I then posted that image here as a PESO, and it drew only ONE comment. I have learned here that if a PESO gets few comments, that means most of the photographers on this list considered it unworthy or worse, mundane. I now have a modest little gallery of 17 images on the Pentax Photo Gallery: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola I don't fool myself into thinking that is a measure of my skill as an artist, however, since a couple are cute little fawns that wandered into my yard and virtually forced me to take their portraits, and several others are landscapes of beautiful places that I have been lucky enough to visit on a nice day. There are only a few among the 17 that are original or artistic in any sense of those terms. In any event, one thing that bothers me is the way the size limitation is structured. The recommended image size is 600 pixels high. There is no stated limit on width, however. That means the images in portrait orientation are much smaller -- in both the thumbnail and the "full" size -- than images in landscape orientation or even square images. I think that it makes it more difficult to get a portrait image in the gallery and worse, it makes it harder to appreciate those in the gallery that are in portrait orientation and therefore quite reduced in size. Has anyone else noticed this? In any event, I am pleased that they took 2 out of my last 10, and that seven more are still "under review." More than that, I have found the process of reviewing my images and trying to pick out the ones I think are the best candidates to be interesting and educational. It can be even more educational to see what the folks at the Pentax Gallery think of them. For example, they rejected most of my favorite diner images, including one shot taken inside of a diner that I think is one of my best images ever; but, they accepted another interior image of a diner, that I personally like but didn't think was nearly as good as the one they rejected. I spent almost an hour comparing the two the other day, and finally concluded it is just another case of "different strokes for different folks." Dan -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
