This is during a walk to the city center in Santander, which is at a much lower sea level than the surrounding residential area - so you usually have to walk down. The street are small, reminiscent of old European cities (hey - it IS an old European city :P).... the architecture and the mood have a character of their own that you can feel when you walk there...

I was pleasantly suprised to see all the comments on my previous post about onexposure. I was glad to see that I was not the only one thinking about all the rejections there, and what it means. I really believe that the rejections can be taken in a positive way to improve your photography, and use it as learning tool. Even after the last picture, I've already had two pictures rejected, and I knew that they wouldn't be accepted even before I submitted them. It still remains a good place to garner critique from fellow photogs - as Sebastian mentioned, personal photo blogs I think aren't the right place for constructive criticism - it would be like going to someones house and telling them their sofa is terrible..

There is however the situation where you think a shot has been executed perfectly and you absolutely love it, and the stars seemed to have aligned to make that magical shot happen, but STILL gets rejected - well, in cases like that, I would notch it up to a situation of extreme subjectivity. Remember, there is still only about 5/7 screeners who still pick the images before they get into member screening.

I think the thing to remember is why you do photography, and what it does for you. Photography is an art field that is very, VERY subjective and people are going to differ in their opinions by a very wide margin, so if you are doing this strictly to garner compliments from your peers and viewers, sites like 1x.com seem paramount to your success. But myself and most of the people I know from the photoblog community and fellow photographer friends and peers are not in that bucket, so these sites aren't really the point. (Commercial/Professional photogs are a different story, and I don't consider myself in the same bucket as them, as I'm strictly amateur). I personally get satisfaction from the 'journey' of self-expression itself, and so do all the other photographers I know, and that in itself is the reward. Anything beyoond that is just icing on the cake.....

A Drive through Switzerland

A drive through Switzerland is everything that I thought it would be. Mountains, lakes and the requisite chocolate stops makes this one of the more memorable road trips in Europe.

Cliché

Aside from the pristine beaches, there is another side of Jamaica landscape that I noticed when I ventured out from the sheltered resort area. When you venture inland, there is a plethora of other scenery that is very different than the tourism posters of Jamaica. I happened to walk off the hotel property, and stumbled upon the edge of golf course which was not really part of it, but still was very well taken care of. Either way, anybody would be more than ecstatic to have it as their backyard.

On a different note, I wanted to mention something about photographic cliches. Photographic cliches are images that are created with motifs that are very common, such as sunrise/sunset beaches, mountaineous landscapes, rocks in water, autumn leaves, white fences - and lone trees. I've probably rattled off about 70% of the recent pictures you've seen on the web (and possibly on my blog). The truth is that in the current digital age, and the easy access to camera equipment/technology, its pretty hard to be original, especially for amateurs like myself. All this is a little depressing unless you're a creative genius, and so the philosophy has to change. So if you're not going to create the next original masterpiece, then I guess the thing to take note off is whether you're having fun, and whether you believe in what you created (or are creating) - IMHO, its all worthwhile as long as that requirement is met. Also, I strongly believe that once you are having fun and believe in what you're doing, you will end up creating that masterpiece at some point. Yes, the lone tree motif has been done many times before, but I'm fairly confident its not that rampant in landscapes of Jamaica (I hope). This is my thought process in the ever changing, saturated world of photography of today. What is your approach?