Such sad news, like Derek Sands said I too have had my disagreements with Ken, some resolved some we never resolved.

Ken put a huge effort into this site and at times its a wonder this site survived and has become what it is today with out all the work did with Tomas and later Andre behind the scenes.

My thoughts are with Ken's family as he will truly be missed.

RIP Ken

Her days might of been numbered anyway with MSC putting larger vessels on the Kangaroo service, wonder what they will replace her with?

I suppose with all the complicated security regulations, procedures, guidelines, protocols etc these days they are something that we are all at risk of breaching these days Seawalker. 

I sought advice about this from a family friend who was a former Queens Counsel Lawyer and politician here in Australia and he advised me there was nothing a port authority could do about you taking photos of ships or port infrastructure from a public place that is out side of the control of the port authority and even if you was picked up by the Police would need to prove your intentions were other than just a hobby or personal and it would be very hard for them to do so.

There was a car carrier that used to visit Hobart where the pilot hopped off the pilot launch into a man cage that was lowered by a crew member in it to the deck level of the pilot launch before being
lifted 15 decks.  Where he then had a short walk up to the bridge only have to climb 1 set of stairs.

Obstructions at times can't be avoided, whether you are taking the shot from the off side or wharf side, a container ship is hard to take shots of from the wharf side with out a container crane in it, a ship berthing is hard not get tugs or lines boats in the shot, some times you can't avoid light towers, if there is obstructions and the are minor and don't dominate the shot and you can still clearly see the ship and it is clear the obstruction could not be avoided, we hats wrong with that?

What is wrong with a bit of enhancement ie, cropping a bit off the images, adjusting the light/colour as long as it does not make the image over enhanced?

I think if we look at imposing a critera on exposure we are opening up a huge nightmare for the admins, a lot of people no doubt just use the auto mode on their camera's, some just us a point and shoot camera and the computer onboard the camera might not produce a image that is not like the conditions at the time of the shot.  If the has a bit of focus issues but it is still clear especially scanned, low resolution images but the ship details can be made out, whats wrong with leaving it?  Obviously if a image is so clearly unsharp and blury that is different, but some of use adjust our shutter speeds and exposure for various reasons and i think to impose conditions on that is crazy when only the person who took the shot knows what the condition were like at the time

Why can't we just have the image/file size range available to either orientation?  Just seems to me to be a lot simpler and less confusing, especialy for older members who are not as it savy a nd are not have a clear understanding of pixels, kb's,  mb's etc

Tomas found me, I received an email from him promoting the site and joined from there.  Site was a lot smaller more harmonious back then, never had long drawn out debates in the forum, no acusing members.

I never thought I would see the day the fingers being pointed and accusations made and I am disappointed that you have done this but respect your decision to do so.

I too have had photos deleted from this site, some that I have felt comply with the site guidelines, I have at times been so pissed off I have stopped posting, I have on a number of times felt like just walking away from the site.

You are not alone in this boat and I urge you to just take a step back and settle down, yes some if my shots once I have had a 2nd look have agreed with the decision to delete it, but there have also been times where I have felt that maybe the admin is being a bit too picky perhaps.

I too have been a admin and it is a tough role to undertake, there was a lot of images I referred for deletion I really regreted and there was some I turned a blind eye to as I am sure many of the admins have.   I urge you to talk to the webmasters about your accusations and raise your concerns with them.  Please don't walk away from the site because if there is truth in your accusations you are letting those people win and get away with it.


Glenn

Check Walter Pless's photos

Not when she deploys to Australia for the summer is it?

This is why when I was a admin I avoided the site politics in the admin forum and purely focused of the images.  It is disappointing to see Ken stand down as the webmaster in such circumstances.  But I respect Ken's decision and I hope that even if he he does not want to take on a management role on the site that he does not walk away from the site completely and that he still contributes to the site.  Now we have our 2 previous webmasters back at the helm, Derek's I don't know how you are going to turn the site around but it is going to take a lot of work.   All the best Ken, you have done a wonderful job on a site that had just grown massively since day 1 if you decide to part ways full stop with the site I will be sorry to see you go.  Cheers Glenn

Unfortunately on a site like this these sort of things are always going to happen as some people's interpretations of the rules and guidelines are going to be different to the views of website management.  How do we address them I don't know? But I think it is a bit unfair on the webmaster to have to constantly remind us, especially the long term members who might feel that they are being targeted by these reminders.  My thoughts are if you think the group of images you want to post are borderline and feel hurt if you was to post them and they promptly get deleted is drop a message to the website management and they let you email the image to them directly and they might be able to give you an indication if they would be OK or not.  Just a thought, but there will always be one who will argue the point.

Unfortunately image theft is a common thing and no matter how much the security is applied to websites to prevent such actions people only find other ways around it.  Ken made a very good point "don't upload it".  I like many post my images to several websites, I like many have encountered my images on other sites with the poster claiming it to be theirs when I know for a fact that it is my image, but what can I do?? Nothing, but respectfully request them or the site in question to remove it.  I can't complain to ken or other sites wm's when I have no proof of which site the image was obtained from.  But I do ask that anybody looking at my images and would like to use it that I would really appreciate that you ask me or at least acknowledge me as the photographer and where you sourced the image from.