Flickr Groups

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

This post is mainly intended for my compadres (and compardresses) on Flickr. And it’s a rant (for a change).

A couple of days ago, a kind and certainly well-meaning person left a comment on one of my photos, and added an invitation, adorned with the usual eye-watering graphic (above), to add my photo to a group. Now, I wasn’t a member of this group, and to post a photo, you need to be. So I had a quick look at what was required in this particular instance. Well, quite a lot. First of all, there’s the standard “post 1, award 3”.  Fair enough I suppose, sort of, except of course (a) what is really meant is “post 1, heap glib, meaningless gushing praise on 3 others”, and (b) well, most of the photos posted the day I looked were toe curlingly bad.

Honestly, there’s a lot of good stuff on Flickr - there’s a lot of stuff way beyond what I could aspire to. But there’s also a lot of total dross- For example, was this a “classique” before it was butchered mercilessly with that horrific frame and the ridiculous watermark ? Or was it a poor snapshot of what looks like an open sewer ? Is this really the Isle of Wight ?  I’m sorry to pick out an individual like this - especially as she has actually got some far better shots, but I needed an example, and this one stuck to the insides of my eyelids.  (and I’m already feeling guilty. I’m a bad person)

Anyway, back to the main rant. Apart from the forced commenting, one is also required to vote on the current competition. Well sorry, but WARNING NAUGHTY WORDS APPROACHING please do fuck off. Honestly. First, I don’t do photo competitions. Photography is not a competitive sport in my opinion. Second, why the hell do the group admins think that their members are in any shape or form qualified to judge a photo competition ? Ok, ok, ok, lighten up, it’s just for fun. Fine - so why is it OBLIGATORY (is this group based in Zürich by any chance ?), and why are they so fucking (I did warn you) pompous about it ?

Guess what ? I didn’t join.

So what are these groups for ? Does anybody actually monitor them to look out for good photography - or even interesting stuff ? I doubt it. It’s all about getting comments. Empty, vapid, pointless comments. Once an obligatory “award” is given, the member giving will probably never visit the photographer’s stream - unless the avatar or name indicates a likely Hot FlickrPhotoBabe(tm) of course.  No, they’re just circling around looking for somewhere to get rid of their obligatory award drops asap, then getting the hell outta Dodge. I always wanted to write that in a blog post.

Well, I don’t want “awards”, thanks.  I like getting comments, when they’re actually meaningful, even if they’re negative, just so long as they’re accurate and funny. I, in turn, may not comment as often as I should, but when I do, I try to avoid being vapid. And if I say I like a photo, I mean it.

I like getting views even more, which is a bit tragic, as after close to 3 years on Flickr I’ve only chalked up 19,000, which I have a sneaking suspicion is not very impressive.  This website, when the photo galleries were up, got around than many views every couple of months…

So I’m leaving all the “award” groups, and I kindly ask you not to give me awards. A few words are much more appreciated. I’m not going to go nuclear (like some) if I do get awards, I’m just not going to act on them.

This means I can focus on the groups that actually interest me, including, at random Deep North, Lightness of Being, Tuscany in Tuxedo, Darkest Dreaming, and of course XPan and E-System Community.

These actually give me pleasure and inspiration (and jealous rage), rather than bemusement and irritation.

My first point of call in Flickr is always my contacts page. I look at least 2 or 3 times a day. That’s what is all about really, finding out what people you have some tenuous link to are photographing, all over the world.  For the others it’s the ego trip of getting hundreds of “awards” and being in “Explore”. Well, fair enough, they’re not hurting anybody. But it has f-all to do with photography, and I’m opting out.

Adolph Gassers, San Francisco

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Last week I was in San Francisco. I took my XPan with me, and expected to be able to buy some decent film in situ - surely film is still alive in the heartland of f64 et al ?

Well it appears not. The only place I could find which even admitted to stocking film, Discount Camera (which seems like an ok place) only had some old Sensia. I wanted my favourite Velvia 100F. They suggested I visit Adolph Gasser’s (that’s A-Dolf, of course). Beautiful website by the way, so retro, so 1995.

So I did.  I found my way to the film section, and encountered an overweight, grumpy soap dodger who seemed to resent having to deal with a customer.

I asked if they have Velvia 100F, and was treated to a condescending lecture which informed me that Merkins didn’t like Velvia 100F, and it had been replaced with Velvia 100S (which I’m pretty sure doesn’t exist in the US of A or anywhere else). I was also informed that 100F has been out for “over 15 years” and was no longer available.

Having had quite enough of this blatantly untrue and / or pig-ignorant bullshit, I decided to cut my losses, buy some Provia 100F, and get out in the fresh air.

Well, imagine my surprise when I saw this ad, this evening, on the American photo.net website…

So, in the hope that this might get Googled by somebody somewhere, Do Not Visit Adolph Gassers in San Francisco. And forget any idea you might have that all Americans are service oriented….

LaserSoft plumbs the depths

Thursday, June 04, 2009

This really is the final straw for my relationship as a customer with Germany’s worst software house, LaserSoft. 

I few days ago, I submitted a topic to the user forum, asking for shared experiences on scanning Portra 160NC with Silverfast. I did not criticise any aspect of Silverfast, or Lasersoft, in fact as far as I remember I was complimentary. I was just a novice negative user looking for advice with the famous NegaFix miracle solution.

So, today, I was a bit surprised to receive this:

Hello drm,

You are receiving this notification because your topic “Scanning Portra
160NC” at “LaserSoft Imaging” was disapproved by a moderator or
administrator.

The following reason was given for the disapproval:

Dear Customer,

our(sic) SilverFast forum is not intended for individual techsupport as this
would make the forum hard to read for users that seek certain help or
information. Also our Support staff can not hadle (sic) “everyday” support over
the forum efficently (sic), therefore please use our support assistent (sic) to get
individual support. If there is no answer in the support assistent (sic) that
solves your problem you will automatically be redirected to our Support
request form where you can create a support ticket.

—
Yours Truely (sic),
The Site Admin

One can only applaud them from keeping upsetting information like my post from their nervous users.

My answer, also verbatim, after I edited out some possibly inappropriate references to the teutonic character (especially when reflecting on the excellent support I have received from NIK software’s team in Germany):

This is really so bloody stupid. I take the time to participate in your forum, asking a general question to the community about scanning a particular film stock which I’m not familiar with. This is not “tech support” - even if I did also ask tech support - it is actually a topic I have no experience in and am seeking other’s advice. In general this is what a user forum is for (Adobe, Apple, PhaseOne, Microsoft, etc etc)

Your site COULD be the destination for everybody still interested in scanning. It could become a huge resource for the community which in turn benefit you by increasing attention on your products (this is called “marketing”- I suggest you research it)

Fine, I will no longer waste my time on your forum, or your software. Actually, thanks to other resources in the web, I have discovered the wonderful ColorNeg & ColorPos plugins from C F Systems, which demonstrate what a piece of crap “NegaFix"is in particular, and in fact how bad the rest of your terrible, expensive software actually is.

The emperor has no clothes. SilverFast is complete sh*t. There is no magic bullet (VueScan hasn’t got one either). Scan in raw mode and sort it out in Photoshop, or invest in ColorNeg.

Dead End for Mac G5 ?

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

I have to say I’m not very comfortable with the way Apple ties RAW support to OS X versions.  I’m one of a group of users (relatively small, but not insignificant) who could not use 10.5.6 because it breaks DDC monitor hardware calibration on PowerPC systems (G5s are still pretty good at running Aperture). This affects monitors from NEC, LaCie, Eizo and Quatto and probably others - i.e. all the high end brands used by pro photographers.  Early reports are that 10.5.7 has NOT fixed this, and it is extremely unlikely that it will ever be fixed now.  Note, it does seem that this far from being 100% Apple’s fault, but nevertheless it WAS working up to 10.5.5, and it does work on Intel hardware, so it can’t be rocket science to get it right. It just isn’t a priority in pointy-haired product manager land.

So in this case, we’re stuck with a choice: new camera support, or monitor hardware calibration: pick one.

This could be the issue which drives me away from Aperture - crazy, really.  And really, you have to start wondering if the photography market segment really is considered any sort of priority at Apple these days.  All the signs point to the company being mainly concerned about supporting the consumer level (iPhoto, glossy screens) and considering that anything higher level is commercially insignificant.

Fotonauts. Unimpressed.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Maybe I’m just too old for this s**t, but in a week when I’m questioning if I actually get any benefit from Flickr, i.e. does it help ME to reach whatever nebulous objectives I have for my persona-as-photographer, I came across fotonauts:

Fotonauts, apparently, has the “mission” to “enable the creation of the definitive pool of images for everyone to contribute to, discover, use and enjoy, covering all areas of human interest”. Whew. Is that ambitious, or pretentious, or both ? Whatever, it certainly isn’t holding back! (by the way, the “about” page on the site is veritable treasure trove for Bullshit Bingo fans).

The thing is, what is the point, exactly ?  Is there actually a deep demand for this “definitive pool” ? And anyway, who makes it definitive ? A cursory appraisal finds the usual holiday snaps and latest online trends (like some truly atrocious HDR, but that’s a whole rant all to itself).

One of the things which fotonauts is aiming to fix is “collaboration usually takes the form of shallow “pat on the back” style commenting”, which I fully commend. By how are they going to fix this, hmm ? Well, and I quote, by “(enabling) albums made up of the images from more than one photographer, and (allowing) multiple collaborators”. Well, fab. And how is that different to Flickr, just to take one example ?

The fact is this so badly misses the point that I cannot believe that anybody involved with fotonauts has any photographic background in anything other than family snapshots.

Photography, in very large part, is about self-expression. Not group expression. Would a collection of photos of America in the 1950s randomly assembled from the collections of Robert Frank, Cartier Bresson, Ansell Adams and LonelyGirl13 from Hicksville, Alabama be of any artistic interest ? I doubt it.

And NATURALLY, it’s all hooked up to Twitblogfacebo.  As for the business model, well it is invisible at present, but I wouldn’t mind betting that it will have something to do with bargain basement - and exploitative - photo licensing.

In my opinion there is a real demand for some kind of web resource which is genuinely aligned with ambitions of “serious” photographers. At the moment small self-organinsing clusters within Flickr go someway in that direction. But Flickr is too democratic, and has far too much noise. However, fotonauts, at least so far, is just another “me too” photo sharing site wrapped up in fancy words.

Oh, and it’s a Beta too ... as you can tell from this screenshot:

I didn’t touch anything. Honest.