An observation
So, on Flickr, the only photo gallery and portfolio, there are "groups". These are user made, user defined and can cover any topic. They can be public, member only or private. Subject matter ranges greatly, but can be as broad as "Nature" or as specific as "Pictures of Boston Terriers taken with a Nikon south of the Mason-Dixon Line, under the light of a full moon" (I may be slightly exaggerating there, but only slightly.)
I belong to a lot of these groups, I even started and administrate a few. Groups like Action Heroes (And Villains),Beautiful Girls and Bellydancer Photography.
Now, since these groups are all user created and run, they've also got a huge range in quality. Some are completely open. Anybody can put any photo in there, and they do, trust me. Some are heavily moderated and the quality is very consistent.
Recently, and after some pretty serious deliberation, I joined an "award group". I've avoided them for a while because it seemed a very vague and impersonal way to complement someone's work. You post a photo, then scan through the photos posted before you and if you see something that you feel fits the criteria, you leave a little stamp in the comment section. That's all.
Anyway, recently I joined a group called !! **flickr award (((Must Award Five))). I'm pretty sure I picked it because it has the least garish award tag. In this group, you post a photo, and award five photos that came before you with a "Flickr Award" tag. If a single photo gets 5 or more of these tags, it gets posted in the Level 2 Gallery, and from there, it can accrue Level 2 awards. If it gets five level two tags, it moves to level three.
I've dropped a few photos into this group and gotten a handful of award tags. I've had 2 photos move to level two, and after having checked around a bit, I noticed an interesting trend: there are almost no pictures of people in the level two gallery.
Tons of landscapes, birds, cats, statues, skylines...and an interesting number of squirrel pictures, now that I take a second look... but very few pictures of people. Perhaps only 3 or 4 per page. And there are over a thousand pages in level 2 and over 2 million photos in the general group pool.
So why do so few picture of people make it to level 2? I wonder. Does putting a person in the photo immediately create a new layer of criticism? The "do I find this person attractive and/or suitable for this photo?" layer? Are we more critical of people than we are of objects and spaces? Or is it simply that nature has a universal appeal? Everybody things squirrels are cute! Whee!
Just a thought.
I belong to a lot of these groups, I even started and administrate a few. Groups like Action Heroes (And Villains),Beautiful Girls and Bellydancer Photography.
Now, since these groups are all user created and run, they've also got a huge range in quality. Some are completely open. Anybody can put any photo in there, and they do, trust me. Some are heavily moderated and the quality is very consistent.
Recently, and after some pretty serious deliberation, I joined an "award group". I've avoided them for a while because it seemed a very vague and impersonal way to complement someone's work. You post a photo, then scan through the photos posted before you and if you see something that you feel fits the criteria, you leave a little stamp in the comment section. That's all.
Anyway, recently I joined a group called !! **flickr award (((Must Award Five))). I'm pretty sure I picked it because it has the least garish award tag. In this group, you post a photo, and award five photos that came before you with a "Flickr Award" tag. If a single photo gets 5 or more of these tags, it gets posted in the Level 2 Gallery, and from there, it can accrue Level 2 awards. If it gets five level two tags, it moves to level three.
I've dropped a few photos into this group and gotten a handful of award tags. I've had 2 photos move to level two, and after having checked around a bit, I noticed an interesting trend: there are almost no pictures of people in the level two gallery.
Tons of landscapes, birds, cats, statues, skylines...and an interesting number of squirrel pictures, now that I take a second look... but very few pictures of people. Perhaps only 3 or 4 per page. And there are over a thousand pages in level 2 and over 2 million photos in the general group pool.
So why do so few picture of people make it to level 2? I wonder. Does putting a person in the photo immediately create a new layer of criticism? The "do I find this person attractive and/or suitable for this photo?" layer? Are we more critical of people than we are of objects and spaces? Or is it simply that nature has a universal appeal? Everybody things squirrels are cute! Whee!
Just a thought.