Well there are just some photos that have legs. A little reminder of that 70's show railfan wise.

Bob

Just for fun (of course!) I made a horizontally-compressed version of that photo. The result is almost square and looks surprisingly good.

The conversations were always better with you in them. Your vocabulary is superior to a WV mud eater like myself. :D I'm better looking, and taller though.

Loyd L.

Geez, 10 Screeners choices near Lombard Canyon in the past 3 years. Is that the only scenic place on earth?

Same place and ...... same photographer !!! :smile:

West coast = easy to capture impressive scenes. I'm not shocked at that number, and I bet there's plenty of other areas on the West side with as many or more SCs. It's like shooting fish in a barrel...or trains out West. :D

Loyd L.

Agreed. I have a dozen or so shots I want to capture here on the CW but with one train a day, factor in all the RP do's and dont's, sun and the weather, there's not much opportunity to get "the perfect shot" let alone hope for a screeners choice. (I still shoot when I can though, just for the practice)

You are all jealous.
Look at what I have found: 5 pictures of the same location, with same light, same photographer = a total of 5 screener choices and 1 photo of the week = 6 RPNet prizes (only one people's choice though!). Isn't that fully justified?

To make a fair comparison, let's take another exceptionnally scenic place, Switzerland (oops! this is not in the USA! ... but if the RPNet team is fair, that doesn't matter). So, Switzerland has 15036 pictures in the database, is a truly scenic railroad place - nobody will discuss that -, and has a total of 25 SC and POTW. Relative to 15036 pictures that is a ratio of 1.66 per thousand.

Now Montana where Lombard Canyon is located has "only" 5883 pictures in the database, and 106 SC+POTW prizes. That is a ratio of 18.02 per thousand. No pro-USA bias, I can assure you. Just a matter of jealousy.

You could do again the same calculations for many other truly scenic places of the World, like the Andes, with about the same results. No, there is no screener preference, no bias at all. As Donald would say: this is all fake news!

No bias at all!

I have made the effort of doing calculations for the entire database. Here are some factual results (oops ... Sorry, I should say "here are some fake news"):

- USA: 494,519 pictures in the Railpictures database (as of June 2 2020) ==> 1758 SC+POTW ==> 3.56 prizes per thousand pictures
- Canada: 47,626 pictures; 154 SC+POTW ==> 3.23 prizes per thousand pictures
- Rest of the World: 132,327 pictures; 243 SC+POTW ==> 1.84 prizes per thousand pictures.

USA = 1.94 times better than rest of the world
Canada = 1.76 times better than rest of the world

You know what? American & Canadian photographers are undoubtedly the best in the World! You should truly be proud.

And also, US & Canada has the most scenic railroad places in the World!

I have no further comments Your Honour

The numbers are not surprising, I think. But I am just guessing, cuz I haven't done the research, that the US probably also dominates the hit-count on the site.....which may at least help explain some of the perceived bias. ;)

Mike is good guy and provides a lot of great stuff. I can't believe how he gets around and where, not like he just shoots off the bridge at Winslow, so I have no problem.

My problem is look at current SC and photo of the week. I know Lloyd disagrees(best should be there) but this becomes a self fulfilling process. The three are all great but "is that all there is."

I am interested that there are so few photos from Mexico(413 total). I have a bunch from 73 and 94. Got a few in and then rejections CH-P(lots of those right), so I get the message, move on, end of that. Not going to fight a losing battle that relatively rare subject I shot in Mexico in 73 is not perfect.

We see here is what people learn gets accepted and what gets awards.

Bob

I wasn’t going to respond to recent posts in this thread since they refer to my photos. But…

I have always enjoyed railroads in scenic settings for my photography, but everyone has different tastes. Because the Class I railroads today are so large, and many locomotive fleets are very homogenous, to me, scenery and a scenic location is more important than ever for a good photograph.

Loyd’s surely tongue-in-cheek remark about doing western railroad photography is “like shooting fish in a barrel” is not really true… or fair. There a lot of lines in the west that see very few trains and it can require a fair amount of time and effort to get good light and a train at the right time and place. Union Pacific’s Moffat Tunnel Subdivision gets a lot of SC awards, but train counts today can be 4-5 trains per 24 hours, with counts as low as 2, both being Amtrak’s California Zephyr! Getting good photos of trains on this line is challenging and definitely not “like shooting fish in a barrel.”

J-M Frybourg illustrated one of his points with five of my photos of Sheep Canyon on BNSF’s Casper Sub in Wyoming. Photos at this place requires 4WD and/or hiking to do any photography. And you’d be lucky to photograph three trains in daylight on a long June day, with two of them a local. “Shooting fish in a barrel,” I think not.

Mr. Frybourg also compares the inequities of U.S. and Canada photos in SC and POTW awards compared to the rest of the world. Yes, there is a U.S. bias, but the RailPictures is a U.S.-based website! If a similar railroad photo website was located in Switzerland or Germany, or somewhere else, I would NOT expect U.S. photography to have majority of the SC or POTW images.

I appreciate the “awards” like SC, POTW and PC that my photos get on this website. But what I really enjoy is sharing my photos with everyone here, maybe showing them a new location, or a different way of looking at a familiar place, or perhaps presenting a railroad or locomotive that doesn’t exist anymore. I think that no matter where railroad photography is done, it could be a challenge and some work, but hopefully in the end, the results are something worth sharing.

Mike Danneman

I'm wanting to return to a time when you could incite a lively EARP vs WARP firefight on obscar with the mere mention of an advantage to either side in regards to scenery or effort. The truth is.. trains suck and I have no idea why anyone fools with them... :D

Loyd L.

Well yeah because we have Burkholder.. duh :D

Loyd L.

Hi Mike, I do sincerely appreciate your photos a lot, they are truly great, no doubt at all about that. I even wish I could visit some of these great locations together with you one day!

My comments were certainly not directed at your work. I was just taking one example (apologies if it fell on your work) to illustrate what the RP.net team does not want to recognize:
- Despite what the site claims, this is not a truly worldwide repository of "the best RR pictures on the net". There is a long way to go, and many changes to do, before RP.net is fully aligned with the claim. This is not impossible; it can be done. But the objective deserves more open mindedness, "inclusiveness", and dialogue with non-US stakeholders.
- There is a real North American bias, with subsequent inequities. Part of the solution lies in incorporating non-US people in the RP.net team, including non-US screeners. This is what worldwide aviation pictures web sites are successful doing. They are truly international in nature, to a degree far beyond RP.net.

The benefits would be great, reducing frustrations for non-US contributors, and attracting more of them, hence making RP.net a true worldwide reference, growing the audience, etc. Difficult to understand why the RP.net team does not take this route.

My motivations are positive: the growth potential for RP.net is big. Beyond the frustrations generated, today's limitations are a barrier to growing internationally.

PS: Note that I have already suggested incorporating non-US screeners in the past.

Mike,

I enjoy seeing your shots, and appreciate the effort that you put into finding locations (I still haven't figured out how you get to those locations between Plainview and Crescent). You have shown me quite a few locations that i have visited or intend to visit as a result.

With regard to JMF's repeated whining about the pro-American bias, you hit the nail on the head. By and large, the majority of American railfans don't have an interest in unfamiliar-looking trains like most of those in Europe, and I agree that most RP viewers are North American. I have posted a few foreign photos here, and they usually tank on views.

Jean-Marc should look at his own success rate at RP. Of his twelve SC's, two are from Iran and one is from France. The other nine are all taken in the western hemisphere, where trains look like those the US and Canada. It's not a persecution of foreign photographers, rather a preference for railroads that look and feel like those in the U.S.

Doug, basically, what you say is: this site is America - "majority" -, let’s keep it American, the rest is negligible (i.e. minority) and does not matter so much to the majority.

The problem is, the non-US audience, contributors, and number of pictures has grown in proportion, and the declared ambition “best on the net” is international.
I have calculated some other statistics in the past, that showed that the proportion of non-US pictures was steadily and significantly growing over the years.

So, there are 2 paths forward from here: either keep it American, or truly grow internationally. The America-only (or “America first”) version can’t satisfy non-US stakeholders in the long term (contributors, audience). And it will probably be without me.

The success of global aviation pictures web sites shows that the international route is a truly successful one.

Jean-Marc,

I appreciate the nice comments about my photography! Please note that I did not take your remarks personally. When you used my five Sheep Canyon photos in your example, you reminded me that even with a mountain backdrop, a lot of “western photography” is not “like shooting fish in a barrel,” since the trains can be scarce and waits can be long. One of those photos (Photo ID 624446) was the only train I photographed that day!

Mike Danneman

P.S. Glad you enjoy my photos too, Doug!

Thanks Mike

I have also visited the Casper sub in the past - I have a few pictures posted here -, and I was surprised by the low traffic. The landscapes are so strikingly beautiful that not to be able to capture them all with a train is frustrating, and makes time look long waiting for trains.

You realize that the feller with his hand on the steering wheel here, is the same feller that started and owned the worlds largest aviation photography website right? It's extremely content heavy in the international department.

Loyd L.

I hope you're only playing along ala obscar and not taking any offense. There's plenty of difficult shots throughout the US and I was only being moderately silly as I usually am here.

I would trade you 2 trains a day on the Moffat for 7 trains a day here at home on the Alleghany.. :D

Loyd L.

And I'll trade all my Metra trains.... Oops we don't have that many any more.

Bob

I'll take the Metra trains if you throw in the Racetrack and Oberweis in Western Springs.

Loyd L.

Yes, I know that.
And after some years, he sold the website.
Now it is owned by other people. When you see how it is handled, the nationality of the screeners, the huge international contributions, etc., (and also the interesting evolution of the front page, site design, etc.), it should set and example for today's RP.net that remains quite unchanged. In fact there are 2 competing web sites in about the same category, worldwide aviation picture databases. Perhaps the competition is doing them good?

I've always been a bit bitter over all the excellent continuation of improvements there, while rp.net just exists. There's been plenty of people threaten to start a completing website for the choos choos, but here we are lol

Loyd L.