Documentary forum - Please Read
michswiss
Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 2,235 Major grins
The types of work I think our forum was intended to encourage is next to impossible to define or encapsulate in a pithy title (we love those arguments, don’t we).
As photographic genre’s Street, Photojournalism, Documentary are about people. Sure, each has a slightly different aesthetic and vocabulary and often enough people aren’t the main component of an image or even present. But it is uniformly about humanity, our presence, our impact, our relationships between each other and the environment we create or exist within.
I’ve toyed with the idea of thinking about the forum as a place for “Unplanned or Unposed” works, except I’d consider Environmental Portraits a valid topic and planning, or at least being prepared is always a good idea.
Urban landscapes don’t really fit either except when there’s some inherent social context or juxtaposition. Sharing a set of kiddie birthday shots from your family? Perfectly acceptable as long as it aspires to be more than a bunch of happy snaps. Pets? Better make them good ones and not just glamour shots. Found objects? Pretty much the same as Urban Landscape. And without implying moral equivalence, shots of homeless folks and buskers falls into the same category as shots of squirrels in Harryb’s Wildlife forum.
One of the other things that occurs often enough to warrant mentioning is the dumping of large sets of images into single posts or threads. It’s seldom a good use of your time or the forum’s. I can’t really say what an appropriate threshold is but if you are posting more than say five or six images, please be clear in the post what your intent is and what kind of feedback you are looking for. Also, number them for easier reference by the rest of us.
If it’s a project you want to present or you want editorial feedback on a large set, that’s a really good use of your online galleries. Set something up on your Smugmug site or whatever photo hosting service you use. Give us a few sample images, state your request and provide a link to the rest. I’m sure those that are interested in providing feedback will go and have a look.
I’m sure everyone here wants to improve their photography, learn something new, have a chance to see something interesting, all while having a little fun. Keep that in mind when you start a new thread or comment in someone else’s. I’d like to see this forum grow into a resource for those that truly want to expand their capabilities, to be pushed in seeing and capturing the world around us.
As photographic genre’s Street, Photojournalism, Documentary are about people. Sure, each has a slightly different aesthetic and vocabulary and often enough people aren’t the main component of an image or even present. But it is uniformly about humanity, our presence, our impact, our relationships between each other and the environment we create or exist within.
I’ve toyed with the idea of thinking about the forum as a place for “Unplanned or Unposed” works, except I’d consider Environmental Portraits a valid topic and planning, or at least being prepared is always a good idea.
Urban landscapes don’t really fit either except when there’s some inherent social context or juxtaposition. Sharing a set of kiddie birthday shots from your family? Perfectly acceptable as long as it aspires to be more than a bunch of happy snaps. Pets? Better make them good ones and not just glamour shots. Found objects? Pretty much the same as Urban Landscape. And without implying moral equivalence, shots of homeless folks and buskers falls into the same category as shots of squirrels in Harryb’s Wildlife forum.
One of the other things that occurs often enough to warrant mentioning is the dumping of large sets of images into single posts or threads. It’s seldom a good use of your time or the forum’s. I can’t really say what an appropriate threshold is but if you are posting more than say five or six images, please be clear in the post what your intent is and what kind of feedback you are looking for. Also, number them for easier reference by the rest of us.
If it’s a project you want to present or you want editorial feedback on a large set, that’s a really good use of your online galleries. Set something up on your Smugmug site or whatever photo hosting service you use. Give us a few sample images, state your request and provide a link to the rest. I’m sure those that are interested in providing feedback will go and have a look.
I’m sure everyone here wants to improve their photography, learn something new, have a chance to see something interesting, all while having a little fun. Keep that in mind when you start a new thread or comment in someone else’s. I’d like to see this forum grow into a resource for those that truly want to expand their capabilities, to be pushed in seeing and capturing the world around us.
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Comments
Nice summary of the content we should be aiming to post in this forum.
As far as I'm concerned the forum's title isn't particularly important to me but it's content is. I was happy with 'Street and PJ' and I'm equally happy with 'Documentary'.
I can understand others frustrations that some of the content doesn't fit a tighter definition of these genres and whilst 'it is uniformly about humanity, our presence, our impact, our relationships between each other and the environment we create or exist within' sums it up perfectly it's a bit too wordy for a forum title
I, for one, would like to see more project work reflected here and would welcome links from members to any personal websites where their project work can be seen. I'm particularly interested in hearing about the motivations behind selecting a project topic and the challenges and rewards this type of work brings.
The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking. - Brook Atkinson- 1951