Lately I've been pretty active on a photo-criticism site called photoSIG. Thousands of photographers submitting thousands of images 24-7 makes for a wonderful, active, constantly changing and stimulating venue for viewing other's photos, and displaying yours, with the opportunity to comment (and vote) on all the images. Getting on the "front page" can mean that hundreds of people see you image, and you can read what other's think of your "style" as well as say what you think about theirs!
Anyway, this post to my faithful, original photo forum (always to be known to me as "Pekka's forum" ) is not intended to promote photoSIG, but to share some thoughts with my "old friends" on Pekka's forum that photoSIG has spurred in me.
For starters, I used to be active on Photo.net, another site for sharing and viewing other's photos. But photoSIG is by far more active, more controversial, and more inspiring (I'm sure there's quite a bit of cross-posting by photographers between these two sites.) You'll see a lot more naked women on the latter than the former (and I've never seen one on this forum!- maybe that's a good thing.) So to my first comment and question: why are photos of naked women so popular and appealing? Is it because most photographers are men? And photos of naked men get "porno" warnings and abuse when posted on these sites. Is this due to the homophobia of the same guys who lavish praise on the photos of naked women?
Next, it seems that the photo forum world is divided into two types of sites: technical, gadget, information sites like this one, and Fred Miranda's, that contain many active conversations and lots of questions are asked and answered. And image, critique and sharing sites like photoSIG, with lots of images, but very little conversation. I can't even search the archives of posts there to find topics, so follow up on critiques and comments is almost nill. Maybe this division is natural and just the way the world is, and should be.
Another point: as a forum gets bigger it gets more impersonal, which is both obvious and inevitable, I guess. Once it gets impersonal, it becomes more of a perfect example of the two types: all technical questions are answered the same way, and could be replaced with a FAQ, and all images become thumbnails that one glosses over until that 1 in 100 image jumps from the screen and demands that you click on it--usually a naked lady (ha!), or something controversial. Flowers, bees and sunsets, no matter how wonderful, just flash past like lots of little postage stamps on envelopes that get torn and tossed away on the walk from letter box to front door.
This is not a rant, or a cry for change (as was a post I made almost a year ago to this forum), but just a volley of comment, launched toward you all. I await its return.
cheers,
philip
