Norbert Woehnl (nwoehnl)

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Points: 122

Name: Norbert Woehnl Contact
Country: ドイツ
Intro: August 19, 2009

It is with great sadness and pain that after a long time of thinking, I have decided to remove my photos from TrekEarth. This was one of the toughest decisions I ever made, considering the immense amount of time that I spent over more than 5 years contributing to this community with 1,143 uploads - and, moreover, considering the equally immense effort that everybody invested to offer comments, criticism and suggestions on my photos -- something for which I will forever be sincerely grateful, as it helped me to see my photography in a different way, to evolve and improve, and to become confident about my creative abilities.

I have no different reason than some other friends who decided to take a similar step -- I have lost the trust and faith in the attitude and underlying purpose pursued by those who are running this website these days. We have come a long way from the almost innocent and playful days when Adam (whom I met in 2006 in San Francisco, and whom I got to know as a modest and sincere person) initiated this place as a friendly and constructive platform for like-minded enthusiasts. In a fascinating way, TE has been like a (mostly friendly) micro-cosmos - we have seen some folks evolve from beginner's skills to a level of professionalism and stardom (Manny, Maciek and Mark Gong come to my mind), we have seen outspoken professionals testing and experiencing the boundaries of a moderated community, we have seen crazy creatives and their followers clashing with traditional and descriptive photographers, and so on, and so on.

But during recent time, the TE experience was more and more marred by the lack of meaningful moderation and communication from the site ownership, and particularly by a temporary (?) "glitch" about sales rights in the Terms of Service -- a surprisingly haphazard "mistake" to be made by a company that professionalizes in marketing Internet brands, and generating revenue from doing such. As I am currently proceeding into a more serious stage of marketing my photography, I cannot be exposed to such an undefined situation, nor do I care to have questionable blinking advertisements placed around my (and everybody else's) photos.

My most treasured outcome of spending time on TE has been to get to know many of you "virtually", and moreover some of you in person. This is something that I wish and I know will continue in future, and I look forward to joining future TE meetings whenever possible - as well as to keeping in touch with you folks.

For keeping in touch, I will leave the 'contact me' link open. You can also find me on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
Lastly, you are invited to directly visit my personal photography site, www.norbertwoehnl.com, which is updated on an ongoing basis.

Thanks, see you around, and best wishes to everyone -
Norbert
Member Since: 2003-10-27
Equipment: Casio Exilim, Fujifilm FinePix F10 Zoom, HP Photosmart 850, HP Photosmart R707, HP Photosmart R817, Nikon D200, Nikon D70, Nikon F-301
Note: Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Workshop Editor (122)
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