Swans, River Avon

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Love the colors and tones and the purity of the swans against the murkiness of the water. 41 people have viewed this and I am the first to leave a comment. We seemed to have come down a long ways from the days when p.net was a vibrant community of photo enthusiasts and we encourages each other in our many exchanges. How did this site get so old and tired? Anyway, good to see some new work from you, Graham.

I’ve only been here for a little over a year and I share your lament Jack!

But you’ve noticed how on PN as well as in most like sites, photographs are no more than momentary props for marketers. Corporations and their salesman understands that any image you upload is framed by ads competing with the photograph for the viewer’s attention. I’m sure Milo never imagined his picture was going to be fodder for a 10 day free trial to World of Warcraft, or background enticement to Cartoon Yourself With Webb Tatoos, and how about the bank that provides a better rate?... This companies should be paying him, Milo, for the privilege.

But they know photographs are cheap! Millions of images are daily replaced by millions more and the marketer’s mission remains sweet and unchanged – the game is totally rigged and photography has become a banal phenomenon fed by countless new (and old) adherents . Digital cameras are by far the biggest electronic sales hit of all time and anyone who buys a camera – just about everyone that is – is a potential visionary on their way to being an artist/photographer. With everyone’s a photographer today I may be right in thinking most ‘photographers’ are unconnected to what came before them. Sad? Perhaps! I don’t have enough distance to truly understand how the culture of photography today, the way we ‘see’ photography, affects photography as an art. Remains for us old farts to lament what once was – f*&^@ing depressing, I guess – but also funny in a twisted sort of way.

Gentlemen I am a little late reading your comments, and Jack thanks again for your positive critique. I was surprised by how this turned it since it was a quick shot over the bridge in Stratford UK. Fortuitously, everything came together and the Swans displayed this delightful creamy quality. Perhaps PN has become a little huge and the volume of work overwhelming for the casual viewer. I still love to browse the galleries and find treasures on a regular basis. The quality of work is phenomenal and perhaps the barrier has been raised excessively high, but often my pleasure here comes from the most subtle of images and I respond more to photographs for the emotion they elicit rather than the visual dynamics. I took my full gallery off quite a while ago Jack as you noticed. I was actually a little tired of my own stuff and wanted to start from fresh sorting the chaff from the wheat so to speak. One of the dangers of PN, is that we may tend to use it like Flikr or Picasweb albums using it as a repository for our work good or bad. It can become a snapshot archive, which I think goes against what the founders originally intended. I had posted a while back seeking opinions on what people considered an appropriate number for a portfolio of a photographers favorite work. One reader thought 20 the best number to avoid gallery fatigue.

There are some contributors with over a 1000 images and often as not I find myself quick scrolling until something catches my eye. Overall, a word of appreciation from talented peers such as yourselves is enough accolade to keep me happy.