Perhaps somebody who is concentrating on making a great image, rather than concentrating on how it's made. Somebody who is after expressing a thought, a feeling, or perhaps even trying to get that bit extra out of a mundane project.

There's probably no single, simple answer.

How can you tell if someone has put the amount of thought into something that you think they should?

Maybe they haven't, but maybe they have and it hasn't been successful. Guidance might be helpful.

Showing people our pictures is not inflicting them on others, it's sharing something we wanted to share. If people don't want to look, or don't want to comment, nobody can or should try to force them.

All pictures are welcome on PU, it's a place for sharing images and ideas. I have a feeling that I saw a forum somewhere that specified that anyone posting images must comment on other images. My feeling was that many people would simply not bother having read that stipulation.

You know what it means in this context, surely? I don't literally mean pity them, I mean "have a thought for them".

And yes, I think the mood has been that self-editing and therefore the application of standards should be applied. Hence the reference about snobbery above. However, that's my opinion and you might have another one.

You might be asking your competitors to tell you which images to enter....but I really do think it's your choice. Which ones do you really like the best?

We have to make sure that all levels of photography are catered for, so demanding certain standards for posting pictures doesn't really seem to fit in with that aim.

Pity the poor beginner, who puts a lot of effort and thought into their hobby, but they may still benefit from friendly guidance.

Let's see some more pictures from everybody?

The front of the Pentax waterproof compacts are treated to repel water, but even so any droplets of running water will do what water does, and that is have a bending effect on light.

I just keep a microfibre cloth handy to keep it clear, or accept the water droplets will be there. It can add to the effect sometimes.

I agree it would be better to use the full link, rather than just Link or a word or two, and hopefully anyone posting anything too greedy in resources will take note and give a warning accordingly!

Nature in the sense that we look out at the world and see what we see. That applies in this context to anything we look at and recognise as having seen before.

If you think it's a poor choice of words, then maybe so, but we've seen stone church interiors before and stained glass windows as well.

We have eyes Nigel and we know what we see when we look at nature, so we can all judge whether a photo looks realistic or not.

I'm afraid your HDR shots don't look realistic. If that's what you want, that's fine of course.

If you hover over the word "link" at the bottom of screen it should give you the intended website address.

I don't see anything in this link that's likely to overload an internet connection?