Just a personal (and informal) review of a few photo sites

There's a photo-sharing world outside PN and I would recommend that PN members explore it. The few photography sites that

I regularly visit other than PN are

- 500px

- Photocrowd

- Flickr

 

I have absolutely no experience with other sites like SmugMug, Deviantart, etc. I do interact on social media..

My very personal impression is that:

- PN (with no disrespect) has a very active forum that is knowledgeable and helpful but tends to be 'old school' (old camera, film, Members can give feedback on posted portfolio photos by means of applauding, favoriting and/or admiring and commenting on them. It's unclear what effect this thas. The prolific 'No Words' forum is used to post (non-searchable) photos on a specific topic/theme

 

- The main focus of 500px is on the on the popularity of photos. Members rate new or upcoming photos whereby the photo's gain points. The higher the points, the higher the status. There are 'point thresholds' that determine whether a photo has the status 'fresh', 'upcoming' popular'. 500px also a number of photo-categories. So members can view (and rate) photos bases on category

 

- owm

Hi Mike... Hey, what do you mean NWF is non-searchable? The Forum has a very nice search function, maybe not as good some other sites but still very nice. Regards.. Edited August 5, 2020 by WJT

I personally am a bit over seeing amazing digital photos. No disrespect to any of those photographers, but the general "look" of a well shot & well (however heavily) edited digital image seems to carry across the genre. After a bit, to my eye, it all becomes just a little too amazing. I do however, fully acknowledge that a great photo remains great, even if it's been manipulated to a degree which is beyond the bounds of my own tastes.

 

I took a quick run around 500px & Photocrowd. I made an effort in both to search for "film photography" with no real satisfying result. Are there amazing photographs there? Sure! (refer to my statement above).

 

I do know some film photographers who post on Flickr, but without searching by name, I couldn't turn up much and their adverts every few seconds were killing me.

 

Instagram began as a great idea but has been bought by f@ceb00k, who enforce their own (sometimes unfortunate) rules upon the platform. There is a huge community of film shooters there, with some folks who are doing pretty amazing work. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of people shooting a lot of stuff that looks much the same. That said, the community is fun and although the algorithms tend to take over, there is a lot of support at IG, person to person, and among the various groups, once you crack into whichever community. The "whitewashing" or homogenization of the internet is pervasive and un-fun however, so for me it's a bit of a kill joy. As with FB, you have instances of fake accounts, fake followers, etc etc. There are folks who manipulate the system for their own purposes too, so there's that level of cross-over from FB to IG as well, unfortunately. That said, one can gain some dynamic and positive results from interacting with others with similar interests on the platform however, so the positivity does sometimes outweigh, or at least balance the negatives there.

 

F@c3b00k also has numerous photography groups and they are niched to the nth degree- making it easy to find and join a group for just about any camera type, even down to lenses, with splinter and micro-niche groups etc. While there is a lot of cross-over, in terms of membership, and a lot of discussion, many of these groups aren't quite a s supportive as one might think they would be, of one another. I think the problems with FB are well enough documented and understood that'll I'll not go into them here.

 

In the game of "likes" etc, I think I like the idea of the sort of feedback system that some of the sites you mentioned have- but of course it becomes a competition between literally millions. And again, algorithms & manipulation? Of course it's fun and encouraging think that our "peers" appreciate what we're doing, but are internet "likes" really a truthful acknowledgement that what we are doing is actually worthy? (resisting the opportunity to spin off onto that whole subject)

 

At the end of the day, as out of vogue as it may be, a good "old fashioned" internet forum such as this, is as or more satisfying as any other group format, strictly for my interests.

Since any film photographs posted here are in some way digitized, I personally can’t usually tell the difference between film and digital photos online, especially at the level I generally see film being dealt with in online forums. I can, however, usually tell the difference between the photos of someone with vision as opposed to someone to whom process is paramount.

I just started uploading my old slides to my Flickr account, and am enjoying the process no end. Flickr arranges them beautifully, and I get a sense of satisfaction that something meaningful has come out of those hours peering through viewfinders However, I feel one shouldn't do it for likes and favs- I found a few people starting to fav evry post of mine in the beginning, but was puzzled as to the protocol to be followed. I think there are people, or programs, that troll around faving and starring for who knows what purposes.

 

In my present understanding, a platform like Flickr enable me to collect my work, and group and display to great effect (even if I'm my only audience). The caveat here is that the more effort I put into describing my images, putting in key-words, entering technical info, etc., the better the whole collection makes sense. The actual act of uploading is a trivial exercise. If some day Flickr folds up, I will be none the worse, as i maintain my own archive of original files. I upload 1000-pixel images (just as on PN) to make uploading fast and easy. Once uploaded, Flickr does all the rest of the work. Amazing, and what a service to us!

 

It's free up to a 1000 images and videos (of any size), and that's quite a generous allowance. But I don't hink I will be thrusting them down the throats of friends and family... especially. If some stranger comes by during a search of some location or subject, hopefully they will leave a comment. And I second the thumbs up to the special interest groups- retro, film, camera models, subject, mood, technique, everything has group to join. Of course, Flickr is not the only platform there is, but it's the one that appealed most design-wise and free allowance-wise. If I have enough to upload, I may even start subscribing. I'm really puzzled why so many people just dismiss it as a useful platform for amateurs.