Update:
Can only upload 2 a day, thats fine.
Am not allowed to appeal.
Am not allowed to register for the forums.
Am not allowed to email the administrators questions. Luckily I knew how to get around this.
Boy did I hit the hate jackpot or what?
It’s just you, and anyone else who gets a ton of rejects. Frankly, I’m suprised I’m still at 10.
Thats ridiculous! How are we suppsoed to get any better.
Somehow photographers got better before railpictures.net existed.
Screening submissions takes time, no matter if the submission is accepted or rejected and it probably takes more time and effort for them the reject photos than accept them. Having demonstrated by continual rejects with few if any acceptances they are telling you that their time is important and for you to use more thought, care and self critiquing in the photos you are submitting. I would suspect, that if your art improves to the point that most every submission is accepted, the limit will be raised. With all the submissions that have to be reviewed, the screeners time is valuable to both the screener and railpictures.net.
Youth always believe they know everything about a craft long before they really know ANYTHING about the craft. Been there and done that through many forms of activity.
Heck, take picture for fun. Don’t live or die based on railpictures.net
It’ll force you to focus on your best, I guess. Then take it from there.
My style of photography isn’t always on good terms with them, but hey, I know that I’ve got some damn good stuff off that site.
On your rejects - did you keep a count of reject reasons? By this I mean how many times did you get the same reason for a reject? If you did keep a record of how many times a particular reason was offered do a bean count of the reasons, note the one or two most common, and then revisit those pictures and think about what you could have done differently to eliminate the problem. Armed with this information - find your favorite rail spot (perhaps even the same spot that earned you a reject) - look it over before the train comes to see if when you take the picture this time at least that problem won’t be present.
For example - I had a string of pictures that were rejected because of high sun angle. In that case I just had to wait for a different time of the year because there wasn’t any rail traffic on that particular stretch of railroad during the summer months when the sun was low enough to give the shadows they were looking for.
None for the same reason. The most one ever got rejected was twice. I use the screeners comments as a tool to review my photos and find the flaws.
I lost patience a long time ago with Railpictures.net for various reasons. I got a photo rejected along with the comments “Standard angle shots of standard power lashups are not accepted” (the shot rejecte was taken from a bridge, so it really wasn’t a “standard angle”…it was 4 locomotives (2 SD40-2, an SD-70 and GE) pulling a manifest freight… Anyway, I went through their database, and guess what I found??? Tons of “standard angle shots” with “standard power lashups” Honestly, what the heck else is there? I feel strongly that they favor certain photographers over others, and newbies are not really welcome. I have seen photos from other photographers there, that clearly break the submission rules that they have (or, at least had) posted on their site, but the photos wind up accepted anyway, but, when I have tried to post the same type of photo, mine gets rejected. I don’t have time for that.
I don’t mind having my work criticized, because it is that criticism over the years that has helped me get better. I have 23 photos on their site, which, when I get around to it I plan on taking down. I haven’t attempted to post a photo there in quite some time. I have had photos win “awards” on other photo sites I belong to, that were rejected by Railpictures.net…
FInd another site (check my signature) that allows all types of photography, and where you will be able to post photos, without worrying about it getting rejected.
Coborn35,
I think we all have told you the same thing…FORGET RR.NET and try other sites… www.LocoPhotos.net
for instance…
You misunderstand my angst. Im not mad because im not getting things in, which I am, its just that I can only upload 2 at a time.
Odd, because they allow me to upload up to 10 for them to reject a day.
Probably because I rarely, if ever submit everything there - considering that out of the 20 or so photos I’ve submitted there, they have taken exactly one - but then, I only try with stuff which I think might meet their standards which is especially difficult for me because I know almost nothing about photography (I’m a married attorney with a Jack Russell Terrier and a point and shoot camera (and I often am holding the Jack Russell in one arm when I am taking the photo with the other hand), so I hardly have much time to play around taking photos of trains - and I don’t think that holding a hyperactive dog is exactly the best way to get a good photo) and have no idea what half the stuff they reject even mean. Still, the only thing that I’ve been able to figure out for certain is that if you submit two very similar photos (similar light conditions, similar composition) but one is of an obscure shortline and the other is off a Class 1 or Amtrak, the odds of them taking the obscure short line are much higher). Plus, they seem to reject any photo you take when you are holding an hyperactive terrier in one hand.
I wonder if there isn’t some preset default built into their system? For example, maybe it’s set up, that if you receive a set number of rejections in a set period of time, it defaults to limit how often you can upload? It’s probably just some arbitrary parameters they set, in order to keep someone from flooding the system.
Verrrrry Interesting ,You may very well have something there,and again maybe not…It is interesting tho that Coborn35 has these problems with them,then telling him he can only post 2 pix at a time…
My understanding is Murphy Siding has it exactly right; the 2 picture upload limit is based upon your ratio of rejects to accepted pictures. If you start getting a higher rate of accepted pictures, or you get more than 20 or 25 photos into the database (I forget which), then your upload max goes back to 10. The idea is to make people who just upload every picture they take, no matter how bad it is, to stop and think about what they upload and only send in their best stuff.
I do love how quickly people are always so quick to criticize rp.net. And I’ll admit, I was one who used to do it as well. But I’ve come to realize that about 9 times out of 10 they were really right, the photo of mine they rejected could have been improved in some way to make it much better. I truly believe their criticism helped me to develop a better eye for photography. They are out to have some of the best railroad photos on the net, and they certainly have achieved that. Sure, a few mediocre photo slip through the cracks every now and then, but they are screened by humans so of course that is going to happen.
Many people are quick to suggest that people find other places to post photos as well, like rrpicturearchives or locophotos. And if you aren’t interested in sharing only your best photos and sometimes just excepting your photo isn’t what somebody else wants to put on their website, then that it a good idea. But if you compare sites like rrpicturearchives to rail pictures, I’d much rather flip through the rail pictures database than rrpicturearchives and the like. In my opinion anyway, Rail Pictures has a bunch of high quality photos with just a few lesser photos thrown in. rrpicturearchives is primarily a bunch of lesser quality photos with just a few high quality photos thrown in. There’s quite a difference.
Just my 2 cents.
Noah
I just checked it out :
Your current 24 hour upload limit is 10.
You have uploaded photos so far today.
You have 10 upload slots remaining.
Oh, so I guess I’m safe, then. I was wondering why I hadn’t been cut off last month after all those cloudy/backlit pics I tried to sneak in…
Here is the latest RPNet newbie photographer. http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?userid=33955 Doesn’t look like he is having a problem with his first shot getting a screeners choice and also has a POTW.
Awesome. Thanks for contributing to this thread.