Where we go from here

I think that qualifications can affect the odds of whether the person "knows the stuff". I spent 6 years working as a color scientist as an IBM Fellow at the IBM Almaden Research Center. I never took an academic course in color science; I was trained as an EE. But I spent a lot of time with people who taught me color science and color engineering. RIT PhD color scientists from Kodak R&D. PhD experimental psychologists from IBM and elsewhere. Asking questions of the PhD mathematicians at ARC. Lots of reading of technical journals. Being on panels with Jim King, Efi Arazi and Alvy Ray Smith. The academic and professional qualifications of these people didn't mean that they were infallible, but influenced who I sought out and who I believed.

Right. I never took linear algebra in college, and I regretted that deeply when I got into color work. The kind of color science I was doing was really engineering, and there's a lot of commonality of approach, tools, and techniques across engineering disciplines.

One big issue with the experimental psychology piece of color science is that the experiments are so expensive to run and the human visual system is so complex.

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Art and craft... it is hard to tease the craft out of the tech, sometimes...

I guess I lean toward Ansel Adams' perspective on doing photography: understand the medium to control it in making the art. I've done lot of digging into the tech, but only when I came up wanting in a particular aspect of making a decent image. Gee, came home with some images from a theater with blue LED lighting one day, got cartoonish gradations of that, so two years later I've got custom camera profiles from data I measured myself, a bit of a rabbit-hole there, no? But that's the thing: I feel the need to understand the digital imaging medium to reliably bend it to my need.

I'll continue to insert the tech I know in my discourse here, and I'll try hard to make it relevant and understandable to the question. Oh, and I'll happily take corrections in anything I've mangled, that's learning too. But, not for tech's sake, because I think you're right: "...this should be a place to discuss the end results: photographs."

There weren't in the early 90's. But I had books and ARC mathematicians to help me.

That is it.

I have searched and searched, for a place were I can talk about the actual photographs, and how they were made and why they were made. It would be nice to have an exchange of ideas about composition too.

But almost every forum I have found is gear, gear, gear. There are a few small forums that deal with photography rather than gear, but they tend towards being a sort of closed club, with newcomers barely tolerated.

The weakness of DPR, was that the photo threads were mostly divided by brand. It becomes difficult if you use two brands at the same time, or change system. The M43 photo forum was open to all brands as the regulars ( including the master of ceremonies) drifted away from that system, But it became problematic for me as I fell for the temptation to comment on the fanboy ethos of that DPR forum now and again, especially when my chosen format was labelled "foolframe". This got me quite a few bans. Phrases like "creamy colour transitions" was a red rag to a bull to the delightful Mods on that forum.

Heh, I have three university degrees, last one is a doctorate in computer science, with only four math courses total. It can be done... 😆

Served me okay until I got to missiles and space with ballistics and orbital mechanics, had to dig out the calculus book and figure out all that limit/derivative stuff. Oh yeah, linear algebra and color science - still not completely sure how a matrix operation gets me sRGB gamut, will take it on faith...

The conversion of sRGB to CIELab and CIELuv is non-linear, so you can't do it all with linear algebra.

It is not only about the content but also how you present it. Maybe because I work in advertising/branding and design I care a lot about form and not only function.

I participate in forums about scuba diving, wristwatches, plus a few about cameras. This is the only one without dark mode, flat/thread view, and a simple notifications bell to keep track of posts. The lack of those features here take a lot of the experience (to me).

Nobody is going to invent anything; what is the difference between Matt Granger, Fro Knows Photo, Tony Northrup etc? They are talking about the exact same cameras, is just the way they present their content that makes their channel different between each other. That is why Ken Rockwell's content look spartan and uninspiring (even though might be of better technical value).

Bob, why don't you give us this view of all threads and the possibility to choose by ourselves? One click and I am where I want to be.
Technically it should not to be too hard to do. I don't want any "My menu" idiotism. Full menu to everybody!

You indeed missed the point - but that was probably due to my writing. 🤪 My point was/and is that you have many highly knowledgable people who have been trying to participate here only to be rebuked off the site. Luckily my qualifications and career have been top-rate, and successful. But once again, while trying to impart some 40+ years of experience towards this forum, you have again made a point to diminish the input. I wish you well with your forum. I like the others, while trying to help - have been turned away. Adios.

I know exactly where your comming from, I have a good friend. worked for Vogue as the head photographer for 35 years world class food photographer. now has 4000 students worldwide and writen very comprehensive photograhy courses. He teaches PHOTOGRAHY not science. his portfolios are nothing less than spectacular. (he doesnt post test charts his own images speak volumes )

Welcome, and goodbye, from the Bob and Danno show. Lol.