Where's B.D.?

seastack

I see B.D. hasn't posted in nearly a month. Taking a breather, or left the building?

DonRicklin

He may be busy with returning to classes. He teaches in Boston.

Don

torags

Sounded a little fed up , last post (I'm no help in that department)

I hope he comes back, he was an asset (as well as Russ was)

black mamba

torags wrote: »

Sounded a little fed up , last post (I'm no help in that department)

I hope he comes back, he was an asset (as well as Russ was)

I don't doubt that B.D. was a little fed up....but I think the definition " disappointed " is more accurate in his case. Like many of us, B.D., I'm sure, laments the changes that have set in on " Documentary ". The quality of the stuff being submitted, in general, has declined. In many cases, the postings would be more at home in Facebook. A lot of those folks who brought the most to the forum have either moved on or have significantly reduced their involvement. Some of those in that group are more comfortable when they feel they are in a more professional environment....meaning an environment less penetrated by snapshots and more centered around work showing a higher degree of skill levels.

When it was still Streets/PJ, at least the name tended to keep the work focused in the same general direction.....successfully so, most of the time. When it became Documentary ( which made sense as it had morphed there anyway ), the flood gates opend to just about anything people wanted to throw at it.

If these changes serve the most good for the most people, then whose to say it's a bad thing. But I can certainly understand, and appreciate, that there's a core group of really skilled photographers, we've all learned from, who feel that there's a happier hunting ground for themselves.

I hope that B.D. is not one of them. We've lost too many good ones already.

Tom

MarkR

Might also be working on his textbook he was working on.

RSL

I think Tom just explained the situation very well when he said BD probably is "disappointed." But I, for one, didn't drop off Documentary just because of the low quality of what was being posted. I dropped off because nobody seemed to want to be serious about critiques. Any discouraging word would be met with a blast from somebody, usually not the person whose work was being criticized but from somebody insulted because a discouraging word had been spoken. Then a bunch of others would pile on. In the end the person criticizing was the bad guy, and the person whose work was criticized was the affronted and insulted party. It wasn't just my own critiques to which this problem applied. It was, and I guess still is, almost universal. BD seemed to be the only one exempt from these attacks, but BD is the "artist in residence," so, properly, he's expected to criticize.

No matter how gently you try to describe what's wrong with a picture the shooter's liable to feel at least let down if not insulted. It's human nature not to want to be criticized. So it's useless to try to be gentle with a critique. You might as well just be out with it. On the other hand you need to be sure you don't word your critique in such a way that it sounds as if you're criticizing the shooter instead of the shot. I found that an awful lot of people on Street & PJ couldn't recognize the distinction and took criticism of their work as criticism of themselves. That's human nature too, but if you're going to expose your art to the world you'd better be prepared to get over it.

Most of the stuff that pops up here is stuff the shooter just shot -- that the shooter hasn't taken time to let settle down before he posts, and I know from long experience with photography, poetry, non-fiction, that the thing you just finished almost always feels like the best thing you've ever done. A week later you may look at it and say, "Damn! Why did I let that get out?" But having posted it, it's too late. Now you either have to defend it or post a mea culpa and slink off with your tail between your legs. It pays to wait and give your work time to reach its natural level before you decide to post it.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The only thing a photographer's reputation can rest on is the work he displays. Every time you post a bummer your reputation is diluted. Just to overcome one bummer and get your rep back up to where it was you need to post a new bunch of good stuff, and even then people will sometimes remember the bummer.

It seemed to me that Street & PJ, and later, Documentary, never could make up its mind what its function is. Are people posting pictures here to learn or are they posting pictures here to feel good about themselves? I'm not the least bit interested in a forum for people who want to feel good about themselves, but I'm very interested in a forum where people try to help each other learn. As Jennifer knows, I hang out a lot on the "User Critiques" forum at Luminous Landscape. Why? Here's why:

(1) The name of that forum makes it clear that people are posting their stuff for criticism.

(2) Critics don't have to beat around the bush to make people feel good. You can say what you think, as long as you're not being insulting. I've seen some devastating criticisms but people there seem to be able to get over it. I've been on LuLa for nearly four years and I've seen two people kicked off. Both of them just plain lost it and started lashing out at everybody in sight.

(3) On "User Critiques" it's fair game to download somebody's picture and demonstrate changes you're suggesting by making them and then posting the result in the same thread. That's another part of not being oversensitive when the name of the game is to learn. My main bag is street photography but I do landscape once in a while. I've learned a lot about landscape by having my stuff modified by the landscape experts and re-posted. That simply wouldn't be possible on Documentary.

Enough. I had no intention of posting on Documentary again, though I frequently check to see if it's improved. But Tom's insight that BD probably is "disappointed," and Rags's compliment both struck me.

See ya.

Syncopation

See you on LuLa

tortillatorture

what is LuLa? i tryed to google but didnt find a lula-forum, if thats what it is.

michswiss

It's Luminous Landscape. As the name implies, it's origin is around landscape and professional photography. But the owner of the site enjoys Street / Documentary himself and the User Critique section is open to most anything. I was fairly active there for the last couple of years under the same user name. I wouldn't say it's any better or worse than here. It can become an echo chamber as well. But it's always worth while checking views of your shots in other communities.

The important thing anywhere though is the original poster's intent to challenge themselves, learn and listen. This shouldn't be a place to throw spaghetti against the wall to see what happens to stick.

MarkR

There used to be a very nice sub forum on dgrin called "The whipping post" in which you could post your very best shots for critique. I and many others used it a lot. Just reading the critiques could be eye-opening. However, it was discontinued prior to dgrin 2.0.

michswiss

MarkR wrote: »

There used to be a very nice sub forum on dgrin called "The whipping post" in which you could post your very best shots for critique. I and many others used it a lot. Just reading the critiques could be eye-opening. However, it was discontinued prior to dgrin 2.0.

The rational for dropping the Whipping Post (nee, Refinery) was that we should always be providing that level of critique. No need to have a special forum just for that purpose.

WP was a moderated group that had two interesting restrictions, 1) only one image posted a week and 2) it had to be something you considered amongst your best. Interesting story. One of my earliest attempts at posting on DGrin was in the WP. I don't think the image I submitted ever ended up seeing the light of day. Why not? The moderator at the time, DavidTO, knocked it back as I frankly didn't know enough to judge my own shots. I had a lot of learning to do.

I would hope we can get back to solid, constructive criticism in this group. But to do that, I would expect image submissions to be of high quality. It doesn't have to be your "best", but it should at least have intent and careful consideration as to why you're putting out here.

MarkR

michswiss wrote: »

The rational for dropping the Whipping Post (nee, Refinery) was that we should always be providing that level of critique. No need to have a special forum just for that purpose.

WP was a moderated group that had two interesting restrictions, 1) only one image posted a week and 2) it had to be something you considered amongst your best. Interesting story. One of my earliest attempts at posting on DGrin was in the WP. I don't think the image I submitted ever ended up seeing the light of day. Why not? The moderator at the time, DavidTO, knocked it back as I frankly didn't know enough to judge my own shots. I had a lot of learning to do.

I would hope we can get back to solid, constructive criticism in this group. But to do that, I would expect image submissions to be of high quality. It doesn't have to be your "best", but it should at least have intent and careful consideration as to why you're putting out here.

Oh, I'm not saying it was perfect by any means. But it had a clearly defined purpose and clear goal. You weren't gonna post to the WP for an "attaboy."

On the other hand, not everyone is posting to Documentery for a full "whipping." Some just want an attaboy, others just want to show off something neat they saw. Others want critique on processing (only!), or content (only!), or whatever.

bdcolen

Nothing wrong with Facebook, which is where I have been posting almost daily. Yes, I have found myself frustrated - is fed up the right word? - by the pedantic nature of a good deal of the criticism here, when there is criticism. Most of the time posting here had degenerated into just heaving a rock into the woods without stirring up a thing. While I understand Tom's frustration about labels, quality, etc., I personally like the documentary label precisely because it does allow more freedom in terms of image content, and allows for less silliness about what is or isn't street photography, or photo journalism, or whatever. I, for one, want to see photos of people in their environments. I don't care whether those people are our wives, children, friends, or people we have never met - as long as they are not sleeping in doorways. :-) I have and will continue to subscribe to Susan Meiselas's line that "far away is not a place." I want to post and see images that reflect the documentary and street ethos, the style, but I really don't care what they are of. As to Facebook, I've enjoyed it because people either ignore what I post, or "like" it - they don't start telling me why it isn't street. And a good number of those people are outstanding photographers, by the way. I also post in a Tumblr feed called A Day In Our Life.

As you can see, I have just done a major photo dump. I have posted single images, because Jenn rightly suggested that we not put up a single post filled with an endless stream of photos. I have posted photos of things that have caught my eye; some personal, many not. Enjoy, or don't. Learn from them, or don't.

I hope we can get things going here in a better way - God help us if we end up in Luminous Landscape. :-)

RSL

Right, God help you if you were on Luminous Landscape.

bdcolen

;-)

torags

bdcolen wrote: »

;-)

Well I do like your "CCC" Camera Club Critique label....