@Lamborarri For me, I'm staying just because of the amount of effort I've put into my posts over the approximate year I've been here. Over the past year or so, I've uploaded about 620 photos (about half of them being rather poor quality, but oh well) and I don't really want to leave them that quickly. Yes, of course I could just re-upload the better ones onto another site such as AG, but, I don't have near as much time to upload that many photos. And from here out, the amount of time that I will have to edit/upload will only decrease, unfortunately. I'm staying hopeful, but it is certainly looking rather bleak regarding the update "coming soon." I guess it's just that I'm finally starting to feel at home here, and I don't want to leave the home that I just moved into.

Great spot and shot Daniel, L/F for sure! I'd love to start lightpainting but that will have to wait until next year. Also, I do really appreciate the compliments from @waddle2gracious and @Mazdafreak. I am back but I don't know if it will be for very long. Likes and favorites don't matter to me - never have, never will. But the activity has decreased exponentially over the past few months, even just from last September since I last logged on. Part of my absence was simply a lack of time, but when I joined this site a little under 2.5 years ago, there were lots of members representing a good chunk of the countries and towns in the world, and now there are some days where we only get spots from California, London, and Monaco. People have gotten tired of waiting for this update, me included if I am being completely honest. The promise of it sounds good, but to me it's like what Alfa Romeo kept doing when they pushed their launch back. It was years until they finally returned to America, and I'm seeing that trend starting to occur here. In the days leading up to his final time logging onto ES, West said that one of his biggest philosophies was "is the juice worth the squeeze", and he decided there wasn't enough juice coming from the proverbial fruit that he spent spotting then posting here every day. If you want to see his shots, he does post daily to Autogespot, which is a site that we need to catch up to in my honest opinion.

I agree, AutoGSpot is more appealing to visit and much better quality photos. Better quality spotter as well

The format of the site does not really bug me, but as a beginner photographer, perhaps there are features that I am not aware of that this site could take advantage of implementing to keep more and add more members. But, I do think a site format that works better with mobile devices would be beneficial. Right now, I can log into the site from my mobile devices, but it's rather shaky and requires a lot of zooming in, which can make navigation of the site rather cumbersome. The ability to upload from mobile devices could open up a new aspect of this site, where descriptions reading the likes of "Saw this a few minutes ago" could actually be applicable.

Will I switch to a new site any time soon? Depends. Right now, no, as I have not been uploading much (haven't had much to upload- exotic drought). But, as spotting picks up and I get more photos, if the lack of enforcement of the vague rules coupled with the ever-decreasing community continues, I cannot rule out at least switching to another site for my regular sign-ins. Others have done so, and it would be nice to try out something new, see how it goes.

Afterthought: Although, I have noticed a bit of an increase in ES users in the past two or so weeks. Just seen some usernames I do not recognize/have not seen in a while.

@Morgan535 thanks! @fasteppy it's just a very simple lightpainting technique, one flashlight, 20 second exposure, complete darkness. Walked around the car with the flashlight illuminating primarily the driver's side and voila

i think it might but the issue is, is that this site runs on an old style web architecture, which is why its not particularly great on mobile, to update the website would be more building a new one from scratch and keeping all the original spots on here wouldn't be the easiest thing. Hopefully it makes a comeback but it does need a few more things for sure

I think the site was really put on life support when West stopped posting here. He always took a lot of time to check out other users' photos and posted great exotics daily. No one has picked up where he left off, and other users like Lamborarri don't seem to be posting here anymore either (although he hasn't posted anything on AG in a while, so he may be busy).

This site desperately needs an update to rejuvenate it, but at this point I don't think that will be enough to save it.

Another issue may be that, comment threads like this, if the admins even read them, contributes to the delay of the update "coming soon." The admins may see these threads as rebellious, and therefore delay updates on purpose (that we may not be worth the effort of updating the site). Now, am I saying that we should stop these rants and keep our complaints to ourselves? Absolutely not! These comment threads are just becoming more and more heated towards the admins because there are no changes to the site. These comment threads should be a sign, indicating something along the line of, "We've waited long enough for the updates to come along, and they are not here. Why should we stay on this site if the admins do not live up to their word?" The way I see it, make the changes, correct any technicalities after the updates, and the extensive comment threads like these will end. Will everybody be happy with the changes? Probably not, as there is always a few that do not agree. But, it definitely appears as though the general active population of members do not like the direction(s) this site is heading.

I am rather ashamed to see a recent consequence of this, in the absence of @Lamborarri. Ever since I joined this site, Lamborarri always commented on my shots, and upon the browising of others' shots, he actually commented on nearly every photo! I am unaware if the reason is otherwise, but I believe his absence now is because of the lack of these changes to the site and the inconsistent enforcement of the rules (what rules?). Could it be something else causing him to no longer be active? Sure. But, nonetheless, it's sad to see such a regular, active member quit this site.

thing is i have perfectly legal shots that don't get featured then i see loads of photoshoots being featured, we really need some proper guidelines

Lmfao soon....

@MDPhotography88, be patient young grasshopper, it's "coming soon"...

@FanOfSuperCars: Word, this site is for sure dead. It's unfortunate, and I'm still curious if this new update will even happen.

Honestly, this website seems to be unfortunately slowly dying off over the past 6 months - year or so. The most apparent being the lack of new spots uploaded. For example: Today on this fine Thursday (October 27), only around 4 photos were uploaded to the website.

Allow me to squat down upon this magical cauldron of enthusiastic discussion and fart out my own spider of thought, where it may be free to spin a perplexing web of my beliefs, feelings and hopes for ES. Allow yourselves to be caught in said web, and we may dance in the moonlight. Like a well-nippled breast, allow yourself to be encased in my silk:

I agree, two categories would be great! It upsets me that ES has continued towards becoming just another website for car pictures, instead of it's original premise of being a website for spotting cars. "To spot" is defined by dictionary.cambridge.org as "to see or notice someone or something". I highly doubt VolvoMan05 noticed or saw a Viper elegantly parked in a derelict cove bathed in perfect lighting. This is grey area, but let me use another example. If you went to a zoo and told somebody that you spotted a gorilla, they would probably surmise that you're autistic. A non-retarded person would not use the word spot, because they're not retarded.

@FoSC: Don't hold *GASP* your breath. @KA43: I don't know what a photoshoot is on ES. Seems to be a very small minority of pictures, but it's hard to tell 'cause ain't nobody saying' what one is. I am for 2 categories, though, 1) Open-no rules, & 2) Rules- rigorously enforced. I like your idea of being able to see an original un-edited file, but more for educational purposes. "Ruin" is subjective. One's Ruin could easily be another's Rinner. Editing is a process. There will always be different opinions about every aspect of editing. But I'll bet it will be a lively discussion. Good idea.

@KyleAllen43: We were suppost to have seperate sections for the photoshoots and spots, but it hasn't happened yet. I think its suppost to come in the update that (I hope) is still coming.

We do need to separate categories for Spots and Photoshoots. I would also like to see the original pictures before some of these "Creative Photographers" decide to completely ruin the photo with a Creative Edit (making pic black and white, blurring the background, etc...) A lot of people on here are guilty of ruining perfect pictures

@fasteppy No worries :)

@W2G: I apologize. I am at fault. I certainly did not intend to patronize you. I re-read your comment & though I quoted you accurately I inadvertently took the quote out of context. You stated that the ISSUES regarding your shots, not your shots, are not as significant. I retract everything that I typed up to but not including 'Thank you'. I don't want to beat a dead cavallino, but my intention was to suggest that both experience & equipment, mentioned in your opening sentence, may have little to do with the determination of photoshoot yes/no, especially with no guidelines to help with that decision. I could have said it more simply & avoided the first 8 lines of my reply. @VM5: 1) I'd like to know, just to satisfy my curiosity, if the blue Viper was posed, & if you implemented 1 or 2 lights, or it is lit by found lighting, etc., in order to make this picture. No accusations, as you could not be breaking any rules if you did since there are none. Really, I've got no dog in this fight. And '...only .3 miles from Arlington so...why not?' Because that is mis-information. Not the truth. This is my turf & you're screwing up my GPS. More importantly, VM5, Why?