The Art Of Community Competition

Originally written in my journal on deviantART 5/1/2100 and updated 7/24/2011, it is geared for deviantART but can really be used on many websites that are community based photography sites.

Preface to set the stage, the lights are dim--It is honestly a rat race..(deviantART) ....and I certainly don't miss it either. In some ways I lost my focus, concentrating more on DA than photography itself. Becoming a gallery moderator, interacting with so many people, striving to have my work faved bt as many people possible and finally waking up and realizing that all of this is where I didn't want to be, and that it was indeed taking away what it was that I truely saught; to become a better photographer. All for the pursuit of what exactly? A pat on the back and seeing my image on the front page of a website? I would wake up every morning, get my coffee, sit at the pc for literally hours on end and not move. Doing nothing but concentrating on deviantART. (sad isn't it? I mean really, it is. It is even sadder to think that thousands, perhaps even millions do the zombie shuffle each and every single day as I once did too) 

Yes it is addictive for many, if not most. The thing is, it isn't really the website itself which is addictive, but rather the interaction that is. The compliments, the dicussion (and that can encompass a LOT, 98% of which is not photography related) the arguments and the real possibility of becoming famous on a very large website. It is that addiction and the way which it is done that is exploited to it's fullest extent. And then you wake up......

The art of community competition--- Have you seen it? I am sure that you have. The whole "DDs I have suggested", "I have 1732662553 pageviews", "OMG I got a thousand favs" and "I now have 20,000 watchers!". What is this all about? Honestly.  (for those of you who don't know, "DD" refers to "Daily Deviation", these are picks from gallery moderators on deviantART and are showcased on the front page of deviantART. Always shrouded in controversy it seems. Today's selection is here http://today.deviantart.com/dds/ )

There was once a time that I was of the same train of thought, where I would correlate how many favs, comments, if something made the front page of this website then it must be Godly, just like a lot do around here. I think in a lot ways we get tricked in to thinking that if something has so many favs and such, then it equates to a great image. When in actuality it simply means you have a lot of watchers and having a lot of watchers doesn't mean your work is necessarily good either, it simply means you are active on this website. 

This is why so many people think DA is addictive. However once you really start to see things as they are, presented clearly, it really isn't. The only thing anyone is addicted to is the competition itself. the whole competition of getting your ego inflated by making the front page, favs, comments, all that jazz. that little pat on the back, that says "you are doing great", but really are you? 

Take a step back for a second and examine the whole entire situation. Ask yourself if you really are doing good, or are you simply appeasing those within this realm itself, many of whom feel privileged to fav for fav, comment for comment and being a member of the "mutual admiration society"? (not all, but let's be honest here and call it for what it is, we all know how it is) The good old competition to one up those who you feel get more attention than you do and we all know, attention equals success, right? Not. 

It is like a haze that covers an otherwise perfect clear view of things. We get excited when a group features our shot, we get excited when our work appears on DA's most popular page and we get excited when people add our images to their favs. But why? To appease our ego and our self worth as artists? To seek an answer in the age old question "is my work any good?" 

Breaking The Chains--- So how do we break the cycle and see things for what they are? How do we break the train of thought of allowing the superficial ego inflating train of thought of "holy cow my work is on the DA front page, I must be really good"? How do we break the cycle of addiction & competition among fellow artists of getting more favs, comments and pageviews?

The answer to this is quite simple my friends.

If you REALLY want to better yourself as an artist and I mean REALLY learn things like technique, the medium, bettering yourself as a photographer, and not worry about the things which I mentioned above, there are a few places you can go to do this. 
Naturescapes 
PhotoMigrations 
Fred Miranda 
There are several others as well, but these 3 are 100% free and I thought of them first. Granted, a lot of you may find find these sites very intimidating but I can ensure you that you will learn, a lot. A whole lot. The people are very nice and the knowledge gained is worth it's weight in gold. I will be straight up though (and I am using this as an example) Most of those zoo shots you see on DA on the most popular page would be absolutely destroyed on sites like these. Cute Wolf = cute Wolf, it doesn't equal to a great photograph at all. (then again on said sites, zoo shots aren't considered nature photography, nor should they ever be to begin with.) 



We need to remember what DA is, a social network, and nothing more. A platform for communication. If you notice, it is getting referred to as that a lot more these days, even with it being compared to facebook by some of those in a administrative position. It is what it is.

However, if you honestly want to be good, and know where you stand, take a step forward for yourself and venture out there. Learn everything you can about photography. In the end it isn't about a competition between artists on some website for favs, comments, pageviews, it is about doing what you love, experiencing it first hand, and doing it first and foremost because you love it! 

Now go out and shoot something!

---Johnny 

Below are a few recent shots from recent outings. 

Google+ The cure all for photographers

I have been playing around on G+ the last week to 10 days or so and I have to say Google has finally done it. I have always said and basically thought "why doesn't Google do something that could rival flickr, facebook, deviantart....something...anything!!??!?" Something where artists from all walks of life could get together in an atmosphere that THEY essentially pick and choose. It isn't like Google doesn't have the power to change things up in the game after all. 

I am here today to tell you that they have. Drastically. 

I think in many ways G+ is what I have personally been longing for and seeking all along, though until recently it just never existed. Facebook is great, but it's image quality issues with photos has always bothered me, and honestly the whole interface is just dated and clunky. Flickr? Flickr rocks but I don't especially want to spend another $30 a year on a site. DA? Well....I think everyone reading this already knows what my issues are with DA, and quite frankly this isn't what this post is all about. G+ on the other hand makes it possible to network in a way that never really before existed...it is like twitter in a way but much more personal and much more intense. The only way I can really think to describe it would be similar to how the message center in DA works with the ability to communicate directly. 

The whole thing works on what are called "circles" which are very similar to twitter "lists". With one click you can switch on the fly from your "photographers circle" to "friends circle" and so forth. It is utterly streamlined like no other social site currently is today. There is also no character limit that I have seen with status updates, unlike facebook. The control is pretty amazing, too...you choose who you want to watch and assign them accordingly to whatever circle you wish to. 

However what really got me is the photography aspect. 

For photographers G+ is like the invention of electricity. The quality of the images is simply just outstanding and the way you communicate and network with other photographers is nothing short of amazing. The way photos are presented is done really well, and unlike on DA when you have to click all these different things when you wish to edit the artists description, on G+ it is one click and done, done in one single editing box under the photo itself. (similar to how flickr works in that sense) Also in the gallery view, you see a balloon on the thumbnail telling you how many comments each photo has...also you have the ability to see EXIF and Histogram information. 

Click for larger image

What Google has done with Picasa is nothing short of amazing. Once again Picasa is relevant, and the Picasa web albums...fully integrated with G+ and is now essentially unlimited

"While Picasa Web Albums offer 1GB of free storage for photos and videos, files under certain size limits won’t count towards this free storage limit. If you’re a Google+ user, photos up to 2048×2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes won’t eat up your storage space. For non-Google+ users, the photo size limit is smaller: 800×800 pixels" (videos are also under 15 minutes). http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/07/picasa-offers-virtually-unlimited-storage-brings-google-tagging/ 

How they integrated with G+ is downright silly slick. I will say that, and makes G+ a legitimate full on flickr contender. In fact, Picasa is going to be getting renamed to Google Photos.  Chrome integration...it is really neat with how you simply add a bookmark for G+ to your bookmarks bar and it notifies you live of any activity. However it goes even much farther....

Imagine for one sec, one site that has it all...social networking, portfolios, blogging, email...all. Something where you can handle every aspect of your photography. From getting critiques on your images to the ability to be emailed and contacted from someone who is interested in purchasing a print, to a place that is "family safe" to send people to see your work and not having to worry about people leaving rude comments on images. This is what is called the "Homebase" aspect of G+. Every aspect will be getting incorporated in to G+ that Google currently owns. Say you have a photoblog on Blogger for instance, you are about to be able to witness a makeover soon that integrates your blog fully in to G+. Gmail? Full on compatibility with G+. Even Google Talk itself, with being able to hold "huddles" live with other like minded individuals using G+. It is hard to say in words how much of a game changer G+ is, but for us who are artists, it really is, big time. 

There was a kind of "push the panic" button recently when photographer Scott Bourne penned an article on his very popular "PhotoFocus" blog titled "Google Plus – Read the Fine Print BEFORE You Sign Up" http://photofocus.com/2011/07/06/google-plus-read-the-fine-print-before-you-sign-up/ which lead to many other well known photographers like Jim Goldstein writing an article on his blog basically countering everything which Scott said (personally I listen to Jim a LOT more than I do Scott, Jim knows his stuff!)  with "How I Evaluate Terms of Service for Social Media Web Sites – Google+" http://www.jmg-galleries.com/blog/2011/07/08/how-i-evaluate-terms-of-service-for-social-media-web-sites-google/#ixzz1S032TlIa The PetaPixel Photoblog also took on Scott's claims too, and wrote an article on their blog titled "FUD Over Google+’s Terms of Service" http://www.petapixel.com/2011/07/12/fud-over-googles-terms-of-service/ 

There are some really excellent links I have found that basically say what I have been saying here which are very much geared for photographers ...

*GOOGLE+ VS. FLICKR VS. FACEBOOK VS. 500PX VS. TWITTER-- by Thomas Hawk http://thomashawk.com/2011/07/google-vs-flickr-vs-facebook-vs-500px-vs-twitter.html

* TOP 10 TIPS ON GOOGLE+ FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS---by Thomas Hawk  http://thomashawk.com/2011/07/top-10-tips-on-google-for-photographers.html

* Photographers, Get On Google Plus---by Craig Ferguson http://www.craigfergusonimages.com/2011/07/photographers-get-on-google-plus/

* Photographers on Google+--- by Seven By Five Photoblog http://www.sevenbyfive.net/capture/photographers-on-google/

* How to turn Google+ into an online photography portfolio--- by  Nancy Messieh http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/07/03/how-to-turn-google-into-an-online-photography-portfolio/

*Google+ May Not Kill Facebook But Flickr Should Be Worried--- by Photography @ The Photo Arcade Photoblog http://blogs.thephotoarcade.com/?p=816

All in all, G+ is the start of something new and something brilliant. I just wish it had come out 2 years ago or so instead of just now. I recently read though that G+ has been in development over the last 5 years almost. After being on here, I can understand why. Google set out to seriously change things in a very big way, and they have. Right now it is safe to say that there is no other site like it for photographers, absolutely none. 

 I can be found here on G+  http://gplus.to/jdebord Though Google+ is still in closed beta,  I have a few invites left, not many however. If you would like one, please comment in my journal and I will see what I can do, no promises however. Also you will need a Gmail account, it is required. 

---Johnny

"Your photos aren't real!"

Recently I had a rather "interesting" discussion shall we say with someone, and also came upon this blog post titled "Are your colors manipulated" (a fantastic read by the way) from photographer Jay Patel http://www.photographybyvarina.com/photography/tutorials/are-your-colors-manipulated The discussion I had was kind of heated at times, and centered around one of my photos specifically and how about this person was there with me and how this scene didn't look anything like it does in the photo itself. This is quite an interesting take on things I thought, because I have never really wanted to captured a scene "exactly" how it looks. If I wanted to do that, I would use an instamatic camera and simply point and shoot. Wildlife photography aside, when it comes to landscapes or lifestyle images of the rural and country, all that especially matters in the end is the image, not if the colors are exactly the same as they were when you were standing at the scene photographing it. 

 

It is not to say that I feel that such things are wrong and indeed there are many photographers who try to emulate and capture the scene just as how it looked. Heck, now and then I do that as well, too. It is all up to myself and how I want to portray things. Creative expression is good, and sometimes if by using a Tobacco filter in front of my lens to warm it up looks better than the actual scene, I will go for it. The same can be said for using ND filters to slow down the motion of the water to give it a more silky look and feel, or using custom white balance to bring out colors more. I often do this during Autumn to capture the vivid greens and golds and often also shoot on a white balance setting of "sunset" in camera when I am photographing them (an old trick I learned years ago). 

 

What I find really intriguing is a recent quote I came across that seems to fit things perfectly; 

 

‎"I am not interested in showing my work to photographers any more, but to people outside the photo-clique. My pictures are not escapes from reality,

but a contemplation of reality, so that I can experience life in a deeper way." - Bruce Davidson

 

Now I think that really has a tendecny to hit home on the situation here, big time. In much of my work I strive to add a deep sense of feeling and emotion in to them. I am not in this to market to other photographers but to to the general public with an image that they can relate to. Something that gives a person a sense of bonding and tie in, something that they can feel from past experience. Not other photographers. The thing is, I like my own work and I am happy with it most of the time. Isn't that what many strive to do, simply be happy in their own creative endevours? The thing is, you are only allowed to see what the photographers lets you see and that is all. So it goes, that first shouldn't we see the image for what it is and not look at it under a microscope, evaluating it on it's technical merits, and instead enjoy what the photographer is presenting us? Photography has the ability to transfer you in to a whole other world, an escapism for just a second, to see things in place you would never get to see, to feel things like you have never felt, but first we need to take off the glasses of cynicism to experience that all. 

 

Who cares if I "warm up" an image, who cares if I crop something for better composition, who cares....really. Other photographers generally care, are they buying my work and hanging it on their walls? Nope. It isn't to say that you shouldn't listen to your fellow photographers as they are a key instrument in helping you become better and grow as an artist, but just know that you being happy in your own photography is where success lays at. You acheive that and you are well on your way. Keep in mind as always, that every photograph you see has been "worked over" in some way, shape or form. Whether it is old skool burning and dodging in the wet darkroom, printed on different papers to bring more color out, or if it a newer shot of a gorgeous landscape, shot with Grad NDs and processed inside Lightroom, everything is worked over. In the end all that matters is the image, you being happy with a photo which you took and how it is presented to the viewer. From Velvia to Lightroom presets, you only see the artistic vision presented before you, for if we all shot the same, life would be rather boring, not to mention photography itself. A world would be rather vanilla flavored if we had no sense of vision or artistic style. 

 

For the record, this is the image in question, ironically one of my most popular photographs I have ever taken, a larger version can be seen on my website here http://jdebordphoto.zenfolio.com/p164385492/h1b3bb2cf#h1b3bb2cf and prints of it are available for sale on my site on redbubble http://www.redbubble.com/people/kkart/art/7058586-old-fords-and-farms-hdr

 

 

"The Feeling" of Photography

Originally written in my journal on deviantART Tue Oct 12, 2010, 4:29 PM

This is going to be deep so you have been warned.

I wonder how much others really think I do, that is if they do at all. I am sure maybe one or 2 of you do, but how many more do I am not sure of. There are a very select few who know this about me, and I mean few, as in I can maybe count them on one hand on DA.

So what is it I am talking about? Ok….

I wonder how many others have this secret meaning with their photography, an emotional attachment to many of the images which they post, which convey a greater sense of feeling and meaning within them? I remember when I first started on DA I used to be so excited to upload my latest shots that I had just taken, to share with everyone. Somewhere along the way, many many MANY moons ago, that changed. While 85% of the shots I do upload are fresh from the latest photo shoot, there are many which are not. I think this started changing several years ago when I started to become enamored by images which contain a sense of feeling within them. Images which many traditional photographers would probably frown down upon because they have been processed, sometimes rather heavy handed.

I wonder if my feelings are so often seen by what it is I upload on here…how I felt, what I experienced, how I thought at that very moment. I for one am not so sure but I do hope so. I wonder if people upload images mainly in this same manner, images which they hold deep to their heart that hold a much deeper meaning in them than what most viewers see?

Take for example the shot, while everyone was chasing a Bear around behind me, I was alone about 15 minutes by myself, just watching the sunlight come upon the peaks, watching the color change as the sun broke the horizon, and I felt like I completely belonged in this moment, with the soft echoes of some unknown soft song coming out of the car radio. It was in the background but it fit the entire scene as a whole. It isn’t so much the beauty of the landscape itself I was trying to represent, but the feeling I had whilst being there. What it is that I experienced.

 

 

 

Truthfully I have a lot of photographs like this, but most will never be uploaded on here…stuff shot in cemeteries and the like. I don’t upload it because I don’t think many would be remotely interested in seeing it. Some of it is very heavy though I will say that, and probably very unlike what you would expect from me.

Sometimes when life is being a PITA I am of a two tiered train of thought, one is just to go and get lost somewhere with my camera in nature, and the other is just to kind of go crawl under my covers and sleep, because I don’t have the desire to shoot. Luckily the latter happens very rarely.

Honestly the next images you see from me, well, I am trying to decide what I should post honestly but in it lies a deeper story than what you see, within that very image. Wildlife images are usually an exception to this rule, but generally everything else has this quality about it. Considering the last 2 weeks have been enormously hard at times, it may very well show up in my photos, who knows.

In the end, I hope that my images remain long after I am gone on this face of this earth, and I hope that maybe they touched someone along the way. that is the solstice which I would have in knowing that they did this. If they are able to do that, then I must be doing something right.

John

Variations---How to get a different look & feeling in a photograph

Fun. I think that is really the core reason why so many of us photograph. Let's face it, it is a downright blast, right!? We get to see things that other people never get a chance to, and often times only dream of seeing the things we do. We are lucky, very lucky my friends. It all comes back to the core belief though that we all do this to have fun, and one of the ways I like to enjoy that 'fun' it to be rather experimental when I am processing. It is honestly amazing the different thought provoking/emotional stimulating kind of photographs you can get from using different techniques in post work.

If you want to take a joyride sometime, try processing the scene not as you just saw it, but also work it. Convert it to B&W, add in a little softness, split tone the image, do some creative cropping, dodge and burn, all of which will give a very different look, feel and emotional appeal to the viewer. This is one thing I dearly love using Lightroom 3 for, it is honestly made for stuff like this with the built in split tone settings, the ability to color shift a precise exactness, the ability to soften exact parts of a photograph using the clarify settings.

To have a better understanding of exactly what I am talking about, see the shots below. Just remember, have some fun, be creative, and most of all enjoy yourself! After all, it is what it's all about, right?

John

photography, technique, tutorail, processing, photo, floral, macro, nature

deviantART vs. RedBubble vs. flickr

First off a disclaimer;

I am not going to be biased at all in this, but will take a very hard look and compare all 3 sites, as I have been a member on all 3 for some time now. Each site has it's good and it's bad sides, and I wish to explore and examine those as best as I can. This is aimed at the serious photographer 25+ in age, please keep that in mind when reading this.

Let's face it, as photographers we all want a place to show and post our work. Our own little place on the internet that is easy to get to that we can call home. Often times these are in community atmospheres where we meet other like minded individuals, where we share our thoughts and our art. Today I would like to take a look at 3 of these which are perhaps the largest of their kind. deviantART redbubble and of course, flickr This post has been a LONG time coming and for he last few days I have been busy gathering information for it, to compare all 3 sites, and to draw conclusions. I want to examine the good, the bad, and the downright horribly ugly of each. You may be rather shocked at what you find within the article, so let's move on.

Homepage Presentation

flickr-- If simplicity is award winning then they would probably win it. It is set up completely straight forward with no glitz at all. I like this, it allows for a very easy approach with knowing what you are getting yourself in to before you even really browse the site to begin with. There only seems to be one ad that I can see with all ad blocking off, and oddly enough it an ad for a camera. Imagine that on site to host photos!

redbubble--- As the motto states on the front of their page; "Living Art: Share It, Wear It, Hang It." I like that, I like that a lot. Absolutely no advertising at all from outside sources, I like that too. There is of course what some would call adverts for "buy wall art" and "buy T-shirts". However that is the point of RedBubble to begin with, a community marketplace where artists can sell their work. (more about that later)

deviantART-- One trip to the homepage here and it tells me it is different than the others, with quite a wide array of art shown. It does seem odd to me when compared to the other sites, that there are several images which obviously contain adult content and are greyed out with a lock. There is some in house advertising, nothing huge. The Llama keychain has me intrigued and makes me wonder what that is about on an art site? It certainly doesn't fit the front page at all. Then again either does a Llama T-shirt? It seems fairly nice from a navigation standpoint but also much more intense than flickr and redbubble, as there is no splash page at all.

Conclusion--- This is tough, I certainly wouldn't give it to deviantART though, but rather a toss up between RedBubble and Flickr. DeviantART seems different than the others with a wide focus on everything art. Not so much about photography, per say. RedBubble on the other hand is also a very diverse community, but it doesn't overwhelm you with the splash page and showcases what seem to be features of the day, slowly rotating 1 by 1 with a certain theme, today seems to be trains as example. Flickr is just one simple image which seems to be taken from their explore section (popular photos)

The winner--RedBubble.

Image presentation

This is a very interesting comparison here as all 3 sites have a VERY different way of showing images. Let's take a look at these.

deviantart--- First thing that comes to my mind is the image that I posted below some time ago on my own personal deviantART account (click for larger image)  which is a comparison between DA and my website host zenfolio. Zenfolio is geared just for photographers so I thought this would be a very interesting comparison. The first thing you notice is that the image on DA is VERY soft and there is loss of detail and sharpness when compared to the image hosted on zenfolio. This is bad, this is VERY bad. As photographers we are as anal as it gets about how our images appear, especially sharpened. There isn't another form of art who's artists are so worried about this, than photographers. Oddly enough it seems to affect jpegs more than it does png files from my personal experience. Also about DA is that you never really seem to know what you are getting when you click an image, if the thing is going to be 9000px on the longest side or 300px on the longest side. There is absolutely no uniformity at all. Is that good or bad? It would depend on how you want to look at it. I am on the fence with that one myself, I can see it going both ways. I do like that there are 'share this' features enabled, that is very handy, and those which are shared on twitter actually show a thumbnail of the image itself on twitter. Handy. Kudos on that. Same with facebook as well.


One thing that I think really does DA in badly other than this with the re-size issue and quality, is just how encased peoples artwork is in adverts. Honestly, is the showcase the art or the adverts itself? From schools to cell phone, to ads that flash....this is the big downfall. Without question, THIS is not only bad, it is God forsaken awful. Case in point, see the screen cap below to see what it is I am talking about and please click it for a larger size. However it gets worse....

There is something that I personally find VERY unethical going on here...and by that I mean extremely. Sadly many on deviantART are not even aware it is happening, I would say 99.5% percent aren't from my experiences. I am not quite sure what gives deviantART the right to think that they can make money off my images and use them as a lead in for a reseller program to amazon.com but that is exactly what they are doing with each and every single photograph that is put up on deviantART that contains EXIF info. This is downright sleazy. Shouldn't *I* as an artist say how my images are being used within a commercial environment? You had better believe it. It is, after all, MY intellectual property. They could have went the way of flickr and actually done it correctly, where clicking on a images exif info takes you to basically a search feature within flickr to find others who are using the exact same camera as you are. Did they? Of course not. As an example of what flickr does, see here and click on where it says "Nikon D90". You come to the flickr camera finder. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

 


redbubble--- Good old RB has a few issues from what I have heard though I must admit I haven't really experienced anything myself. Basically some say that RB over-sharpens images. The way RB works is that you upload the largest file possible (as you would want to do as you make prints and certain items like greeting cards available for sale, which need high resolution images) You basically then have 2 sizes which are displayed, a smaller version which can be clicked on to show a larger version. Both naturally have been auto re-sized down to a certain size which is implemented site wide for uniformity. The pages themselves are VERY clean with no adverts at all in them to speak of. I like that, that is a huge plus. There is the ocassional group banner saying someone has been featured in a group, which can be deleted (not hidden!) if the artist wishes to. Again, nice that RB allows for such a function. One thing that can be good or it can be bad depending on how you look at it. RB does not support EXIF at all, so when you upload an image, there is nothing saying what kind of camera the shot was taken with, what f-stop, iso, etc. I guess that would be a bummer if you really were interested in that (you could always 'bubblemail' the person and ask) or if you are of the frame of mind where the image is the only thing which really matters. Share features which can be automatic the very second you upload something, which will post on your facebook wall. Share features to twitter as well, however no thumbnails show up which is kind of a bummer.

Below is the screen cap of how art appears on RB, quite clean and quite easy to understand. Again, please click for a larger size image.



flickr--- Flickr is rather neat with how it displays images. There are several things which really stand out. I really like the fact that you are able to view a slideshow of the images, one that is seemingly lag free too and very easy to navigate. It is actually on par with the slideshow I have through zenfolio. Very straight forward approach with only the bare essentials, including the ability grab a long url to an image or a short url. Very nice. I like the ease of which it is to navigate within sets and collections, everything is at my fingertips. Thumbnail integration to facebook and flickr, very nice. A selected few images have advertsing in the form of a Casio camera ad, odd that it seems to be hit or miss though. Overall, very nice and very simple! I enjoy that!

Conclusion--- Again, DA loses the battle here as well with it's incredible amount of advertising bordering on perversion. Ads take away from the art, and do so in a very drastic way, especially when they flash and are anything BUT related to the image at hand (seriously, The Vanguard Group?? Which is an investment firm??) Stuff like this reminds of the days of AOL in the mid-90s. I guess some companies haven't learned yet by the mistakes which others have made have they? RedBubble is good, really good, actually. Very clean, simple to navigate, and just easy. My choice though for this one goes to Flickr. I like that everything is perfectly easy to get to, all within a mouse gesture away. It's navigation is easy and minimal. Then again though this is flickr, the very site which has built it's reputation on ease of use.

The winner--flickr

Features among sites.

Now let's dig in and get to where the getting is good! All 3 sites offer a very unique user experience. Bare with me here as this is going to be especially long, but it will give you a good inside look into each specific one.

There are good sides to it and very bad sides to it. The good is very good while the bad is...well....awful. Basically DA prides itself on having what they call the best community around essentially. I find that to be a yes and a no. There was once a time when DA was the only site around that really had what they have...an awesome sense of community where people feel like family. That is still true in a sense, but it is NOT the only site which is like that these days (enter RedBubble here as example) The community itself is awesome, I will make no bones about that, and it is one of the very best. It is also one of the very worst at the same time, too. People on the website get trolled all day long (as an example, let us look at this group here  ) Now if this woul dhappen on flickr or RedBubble it would be deleted faster than you can say "What's a polarizer??!" There is so much leniency on DA that half the time it seems like the rules are made up as they go along, disregarded completely, or just overlooked. DA relies on features that puts the power in peoples hands with the ability to block people. This however doesn't solve the problem, but rather is like painting over rust on a car. They are free to go on and troll and bully others...on and on. If we look at a comparison between DA and say RedBubble with their user agreement which is found here for inappropriate conduct you will see it reads;

RedBubble does not manually screen content before it is displayed on
the website so occasionally members may inadvertently or deliberately
submit and display content that breaches this agreement.

Inappropriate content includes, but is not limited to, content that
infringes the copyright or other intellectual property rights of any
person or company, or that defames or vilifies any person, people,
races, religion or religious group, is obscene, pornographic, indecent,
harassing, threatening, harmful, invasive of privacy or publicity
rights, abusive, inflammatory or otherwise objectionable.

Please help us by letting us know straight away about any
inappropriate, or potentially inappropriate, content you see on the
website.

You can do this by clicking the "report this work as inappropriate" link that will be displayed beside each piece of art.

If you believe your copyright or other intellectual property rights
are being infringed, you are able to make a formal complaint, or request
an agent to make a complaint on your behalf, by using the 'report a
concern' button displayed with each work.

In other words, RB deletes and bans people right away for anything which is deemed offensive. Including things of say a Nazi nature which is all find and dandy to upload to DA as long as it doesn't say something along the lines of kill people of a certain race. Also notice the word "inflammatory" in that too? Food for thought. But I do believe that DA is to understaffed and not stringent enough on things.

This being said....if you try to simply concentrate on the art and communication itself, DA can be wonderful. Most of the people I have come across on DA are wonderful and very supporting. I have met some of the nicest people I have ever met in my life on DA, and I have made many a very close personal friend on there. For me, it seems like there are really 2 DA's...the people who support you as an artist and the way it is ran. And they are VERY different. DA and the way that is ran is one thing I will openly admit I have a huge problem with, especially how everything is a gigantic money grab...from "needs premium mmebership" to the outright refusal to let artists sell their artwork on things like T-Shirts because it would interfere with sales of devwear (T-shirts which feature the deviantart brand) That alone tells me that they are more concerned with that than actually helping artists. (again insert, "meanwhile on redbubble" here..) The people though that make up the site are first class, mostly. The age group is very wide, ranging from 13 to 133 (probably) and with that comes it's good and it's bad. However just be prepared for anything from incredible landscapes to sketches done in Crayon of Sonic on notepad paper. They offer a critique system (sadly you have to be a paid "premium member" to really utilize) and free members are basically given the advert laden version of the site with limited browsing abilities and features. They offer groups as well. But honestly, out of all 3 sites, they are the worst when it comes to having such a feature. Flickr and RedBubble bother offer groups for free and so does DA, but DA also has a "super group" option that allows for things like custom CSS and the ability to display thumbnails in the 'blog' of the group. However that cost is ridiculously steep at $59.95 a year (launch price, after that it goes up to a $100 give or take)  Now to me that is just insane. Sorry but it is. Group messages also clog ones message center completely, and actually takes away from personal interaction on the site. There is the ability to disable that, but then why be in a group to begin with? RedBubble and Flickr very much have the groups thing figured out. Flickr more so with them often being a complete wealth of knowledge. It is like they have taken every photography forum out there and made them groups. Look at this as example as discussions go. RedBubble offers something very similar too. DA offers nothing like it with teh ability to communicate with members and for members to ask questions, for that they must ask in a blog post...awkward and very redundant.

The one side up that DA really does on everywhere else is the ability to communicate, Direct communication at that too. Currently no other site offers this like DA does with direct commenting and the ability to respond in page to someones comments. They honestly have the whole communication platform nailed to a tea. And maybe that is why DA is now referring to themselves along with others as a Social Network these days and not an art site so much.

DA also has a news section, which really isn't news that much of the time but rather a bunch of spam featuring images. It has it's good and it's bad, depending on how you look at it. Neither flickr or RB have such a thing.

Getting help when you do have a problem on DA is not the easiest thing to do. There once was a help forum, but that was taken offline awhile back. Now you have to send in a "help desk ticket" which can often take weeks to get a reply or in some cases, months. By way of contrast, help on RB is one simple post in the forums and within 24 hours you have a response from the admins, this can also be done via email on RB, and the time is often even quicker. Flickr is a tad slower than RB, but still better than DA. For copyright concerns, it can often take a LONG time to hear anything back, and there is a lot of art floating around on DA which is theft, but is not taken down because DA needs to hear from the original copyright holder. RB by way of example has a 0 zero tolerance policy that if it is not yours you have 0 business posting that. I like that. I like that a lot. Flickr is kind of similar to DA in a sense but much faster. 

Professionalism between the sites is day and night. Flickr has had it's issues with suddenly deleting content with no warning at all ...this is not good. Bad, very bad. DA on the other hand...it is more a respect factor than anything and immaturity factor with often times language of a sexual nature being used in comments on photos and from the staff itself. Case in point, this here and the link contained within. Cute huh? Language on flickr and RB is not an issue that I ever seen, ever. Maybe it has something to do with the large age range, I am not sure. Possible? 

DA also seems to be geared towards the kiddies the most, with things like Llama badges and such, something which makes no sense to me on an art site other than another money grab to buy little cute accessories to dress your little Llama badge up with. Flickr is a mix of professional and amateur, but does not cater to a specific age range at all, rather they cater to everyone. RedBubble? The most serious of the 3 sites without question.

Selling your art is an interesting contrast between the 3 sites. Flickt forbids any commercial anything at all (bad...bad on them) where as DA charges for a premium prints account to actually make anything substantial, otherwise they keep most of the profits. RedBubble, they get my nod for selling on. The site itself is completely 100% free and it costs nothing to sell on there. RB gets a 50s% take in any sales you make and you can sell at whatever royalty % you wish to. My profits on RB are about 7-10x the amount of sales which I get on DA. again blame it on the age factor I suspect. Flcikr relies heavily not so much on flickr but the outward reach of the site itself, the ability to use your images on external websites such as a gallery or on photoblogs. DA and RB really offer no such functionality with their API. There are more Greasemonkey scripts for flickr than you can even begin to imagine. 

The winner--none, each has it's strengths and weaknesses.

Final verdict---

Honestly for the serious photographer, DA is NOT the way to go. It is to encased with adverts to really show your images looking at their absolute best. To get the full function of the site, you have to buy a membership. Heaven knows also what kinds of comments you will have on your images too...and the last thing you want is someone dropping the F bomb when you go to show your grandma your photos, or worse yet, an art director/publisher. These are 2 of the reason why I personally quit sending people to my DA site. These days I send them to RedBubble or my personal website. Many professional photographers use flickr, and it is easy to understand why also. There is no commitment to 'play the game' to comment for comment, or fav for fav BS going on. Perhaps it explains why so many publishers (American Photo as example) have a flickr stream. The ability to upload images straight from Lightroom with all metadata such as keywords intact and cell phone capability with browsing, blows everything else out of the water. It is great for showing your photos, but it is awful for selling as it is against flickr's TOS. And then we come to RedBubble....

RedBubble is like taking the best things from DA and some of flickr and improving upon that in terms of functionality. What DA gives you a taste of (groups) RB does perfectly. It is a perfect blend of end user functionality mixed with the tools to sell fine art prints. For a website itself as a host, RB takes the cake, For outside functionality, nothing will touch flickr. RedBubble has a killer community and one where you have no worries about being trolled or having awful language posted on a photo you upload. People are very nice and respectful and are always encouraging. I have always said that if I could take those on DA that I have become friends with and move them to RB, I would do so in a heartbeat. Who knows, maybe after they read this, they will take those steps themselves. Because in my opinion, RB is what DA SHOULD be.

It all comes down to what you want in a site. If you want to talk to other people and meet friends, then DA is your place. If you want feedback on your work of an honest nature, that is a toss up between all 3. If you want to REALLY sell your work, RB is the place to go. It all comes down to you in the end.

Winners--Flickr and RB for the serious photographer.

photography, community, redbubble, deviantart, flickr

Seeing in a new light

Seeing in a new light. A play on words maybe but at the same time it is kind of amazing how myself and maybe you find yourself doing this as well, turn to your photography when times get a little rocky and such. I know I have been doing that a lot the last 6 weeks as life has certainly thrown some very large punches at me, major stuff at that too.

When I was younger I would get lost in art, drawing for a long time. Later on when I was studing illustration in art college, I would retreat to my art with drawing and painting, put a low light on and turn on some music and get lost in the zone. It took me a long while to adjust that experience to my photography but I somehow managed to do it. It isn't just about getting lost in processing though, creating images that are more of an artistic nature, but also about the entire experience of being out in nature and shooting itself.I always find myself breathing a lot deeper, staring a little longer, and taking in the tranquility of everything a little more. Well, ok, a lot more especially lately.

 

Shooting can be very therapeutic for me, I have always said that there is nothing like shooting a waterfall nestled among the wildflowers, or during Autumn. The scent, the scene, the sound of the water....tranquility especially for the mind and soul. In fact a recent study even shows that being out in nature itself is healthy as this blog from the National Wildlife Federation suggests. Amazing to think that "Exposure to natural settings may be widely effective in reducing ADHD symptoms".

 

So when life gets a tad hectic, turn to your creative side to find some self medicating solutions. Nature is all around us and it's healing benefits are amazing! The shots below were taken outside of Golden Gate Canyon State Park in Colorado, on a day when I needed to get out and shoot and experience a little tranquility.