Should we just take 'pretty' pics of England ?

Interesting question for the members to answer Edward so thanks for starting this thread.

For me, as one of the Mods who has to decide whether to approve or not, I don't see the point of pictures that don't actually give any value to the visitor, who in fact is looking for pictures of England rather than some truck, bus, pet, scaffolding, overly re-sized messed up HD, black and white pictures that really are sometimes quite negative (no pun intended) much as they are loved by their owner.

Apart from the above comments POE surely doesn't need to be cluttered with pictures that are nothing short of advertising 'on the cheap' when in fact Chris and Sarah are struggling to keep the site running. With hosting costs going through the roof it would be nice to know that members consider what they submit each and every time, and therefore do not submit several pictures of the same item or location from a different angle.

Remember also that a simple sponsorship would keep everybody happy so why don't more go for it?

  I think Edward has a good point, POE is a window on Britain and should portray our land warts and all, although too much doom and gloom will have a negative impact on our good friends from overseas wanting to visit here. That will not do POE good with accomodation bookings but yes a little more realism must be a good thing.

         Re Ron's comments the photos do need to have some substance to them and not dreary repetative shots of nothing in particular. I must admit some of my shots could have been more selective in the past but as Dave John has said before- Quality not Quantity. Since I have begun to learn my way around all this techno stuff nearly all my shots are now resized to a much lower level, this makes loading a lot more quicker and does I hope reduce the storage requirements re hosting.

         Keep taking the pics folks but look twice through the viewfinder and make it count.

If it were possible to show the pictures that I delete (and obviously it's not) members would be surprised at shall I say 'the assortment' of pictures that don't make it, for very obvious reasons. This is after all a family friendly site!

I take the view that a picture with a description, explaining the situation/location/item/subject matter, and showing various buildings/cottages/trees/gardens is of great value to the visitor and POE - whereas a picture that is submitted to a location say 'Wheatley' for example, showing the local pizza store boarded up, with scaffolding around it, no description, comment, or suggestion of date is of no interest to anybody.

My thinking is that unless somebody was looking specifically for a picture of a boarded up pizza store in Wheatley, with scaffolding around it, then whats the point of having to pay to host it, when in fact it is very rare, and is unlikely to appeal to the majority.

Anyway, I do have to delete a lot of pictures for various reasons. Interesting sometimes....lol

To keep costs down, pictures of the less pretty parts of towns and cities could be deleted.We want photos that appeal to visitors and everybody likes beauty.

I don't think there should be any photos of meerkats as they are from  Botswana,Namibia,Angola and South Africa. I don't think we should post photos of pets, birds,lions,tigers,owls,elephants,etc.Web hosting costs are expensive.

 I like to see photos of gardens that are open to the public.I don't think a photo of a flower on its own should be accepted as we can see these in other countries.People can post a photo of a single flower on websites such as webshots.com. flickr.com and picasaweb.

As hosting costs are high,I don't think we should post photos of a truck, car or bus. On the left side of this page,Chris and Sarah have posted a list of interesting categories we should post in.

From  my point of view, I am more likely to approve a picture which is say 'borderline' if it has a description with it. Thats the point of searching for something in say Google, and if there is no description it is unlikely to be found anyway.

So please don't forget to add a description.

Well, I can see my thread has thrown up lots of interesting comments and thanks to everyone for their views. As I suspected, there are mixed feelings about what are acceptable images to upload. (BTW Ron, I wonder what your deleted folder contains, but thats for Ron's eyes only, I guess, lol).

I agree with the general view that PoE should present England in a favourable light, but then beauty is a such a subjective thing. I am thinking of a recent forum thread on Electricity Pylon Design. Some people think they are things of geometric beauty, others hate them. 

I think that generally we need a good balance of 'record shots' of England on PoE. Not 'arty' shots, since there are plenty of other sites more suited to the Artists, but we need well composed properly exposed images of the English towns and countryside. And I will sometimes submit a not so pretty picture to keep the balance.