Flickr Delete Me group. What is it?

J J Kapsberger

J J Kapsberger

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What is the Flickr Delete Me group all about? I can't find a simple explanation, only rules which don't seem to tell me what the hell's going on in that group. Is it like Flickr's version of Survivor in which people post a photo and then vote for others' to be deleted and the one which isn't deleted by the end of a period wins? Does anyone here care?
 
It became notorious after their resident photography experts "deleted" a work of HCB.
 
Yeah, but how do they actually "delete" a photo off flickr?
Is it just some mass selective ignoring of the destined picture by the group, or do they actually have power over other's libraries?

(I remember a thread about that HCB picture's "deletion"--it was "Mario on a Bike," right?)
 
The HCB photo deleted is his famous photo of the cyclist zooming past the somewhat circular staircase. Among the criticisms levied against it was the notion that because the entire photo was noticeably soft, the impression of the blurred cyclist was lessened too greatly.

Erik, they don't delete photos from Flickr, only from the Delete Me group.
 
While I don't have a problem with people criticizing a work otherwise acknowledged to be great (as someone who has never "got" Mozart, I should know) what is disappointing in the discussion of the photograph is that somehow the merit of a photograph is tied to certain measurable technical elements which in turn are pretty closely tied to appreciable advances in technology. This is only very partly, if at all, true.

Everyone got so bogged down with the criticism of the fuzziness, that they didn't seem to see the compositional elements that make the photograph tick. The almost distorted bend of the stairs, the curved street and the placement of the bike just in the gap. For me, the composition holds together in the tension between the conventional positioning of the bike at 1/3 both from left and top and the very unconventional positioning of the stairs bang on centre. HCB or not, this is the kind of photo I hope to take sometime. BTW, does anyone know what lens was used? It looks so wideangle to me, but didn't HCB use mostly 50mm?


-A
 
J J Kapsberger said:
The HCB photo deleted is his famous photo of the cyclist zooming past the somewhat circular staircase. Among the criticisms levied against it was the notion that because the entire photo was noticeably soft, the impression of the blurred cyclist was lessened too greatly.
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My impression also is that it's run by the "it's got to be super-sharp, and 'Autofocus or Die!'" Cartel that is easily distracted by anything that has more than two elements on a photo. In Zen balance with the "Who Cares!" illiterati.

My impression.
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
My impression also is that it's run by the "it's got to be super-sharp, and 'Autofocus or Die!'" Cartel that is easily distracted by anything that has more than two elements on a photo. In Zen balance with the "Who Cares!" illiterati.

My impression.
Click to expand...

Gabriel I think you're right at least in some part. I don't know if its the "Autofocus or Die" group exclusively as there seems to be some obsession with sharpness in other groups as well (Leica lens testers for example) but I think its understandable. Sharpness is one of the few qualitative things in photography that we can quantify to a reasonable extent. And people will tend to judge things by factors that can be easily quantified, and therefore easily defended. The fact that the photograph works on so many other levels beyond sharpness gets lost as people don't want to go out on a limb and express admiration for something that others may more easily shoot down with a simple "It's not sharp!" and wind up feeling silly.
Its kind of a paradox in a way as the web is so often a place where people say horrible things to each other (present company excluded) but in this case that very fact might be making people more hesitant to express opinions of their own.
But maybe I'm reading too much into this.
 
Steve: the reason why I said that (specifically, the "Autofocus or Die" comment), is because of something that you've touched upon: "sharpness" is the only one of the qualities in a photograph which people seem to think they are able to measure absolutely, although that is also subjective, to some degree.

Given the complexity of the issue, people throw up their arms and would rather not think and go by a very finite and small, easy to handle concepts, a la bumper-sticker political slogan. Everything must fit in a very neat, simple box. Same reason why the most popular photographers are those who have only one style. Diversity is just too "distracting" to many (as Exhibit A, I give you the Film vs. Digital "camps")

On that same token, it is assumed that, since the camera does everything for you, not you doing everything with the camera, that the autofocus (which most assume "everybody" must use, because they use it), as part of the camera that does everything for you, must work. If your photo doesn't exhibit "this", then you must have taken a bad photo.

I could write a treatise on it, but I'm too lazy.
 
Gabriel,

You've brought out the elitist in me. I think it's simpler than what you describe: most people I meet simply aren't sensitive to, or appreciative of, artistic beauty. Period. Putting an HCB image in front of them is like casting the proverbial pearls before the proverbial creatures that cry "Oink!"

They certainly have it within themselves. We all do. But this is, after all, a profoundly superficial age (if you'd permit me that ironic description), one in which simple, immediate amusements are more valued than artistic offerings of a more challenging nature. Cute images of a person on the beach holding the sun are what gain notoriety these days.
 
Those HCB haters' viewpoint is just as valid as anyone else's

I don't need an art critic or music expert to point out the greatness and subtleties of a certain piece of work. If I think what I saw at the museum is crap, then it's crap to me. However above all, it is the elitist attitude which I despise the most.
 
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Gabriel M.A. said:
Steve: the reason why I said that (specifically, the "Autofocus or Die" comment), is because of something that you've touched upon: "sharpness" is the only one of the qualities in a photograph which people seem to think they are able to measure absolutely, although that is also subjective, to some degree.

Given the complexity of the issue, people throw up their arms and would rather not think and go by a very finite and small, easy to handle concepts, a la bumper-sticker political slogan. Everything must fit in a very neat, simple box. Same reason why the most popular photographers are those who have only one style. Diversity is just too "distracting" to many (as Exhibit A, I give you the Film vs. Digital "camps")

On that same token, it is assumed that, since the camera does everything for you, not you doing everything with the camera, that the autofocus (which most assume "everybody" must use, because they use it), as part of the camera that does everything for you, must work. If your photo doesn't exhibit "this", then you must have taken a bad photo.

I could write a treatise on it, but I'm too lazy.
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Gabriel, I hope you won't think that I'm dismissing your point because I suggested that it wasn't limited to the technologically obsessed. I think you're absolutely right that people tend to rate photographs based on easily quantifiable criteria like sharpness and what kind of camera was used to make them. I can just hear certain people saying that this would have been a great image if only it had been shot with such and such a camera, if only he had had autofocus, etc. I just meant to suggest that this attitude wasn't limited to the auto focus crowd, I've seen leica-philes exhibit the same attitude. Don't get me wrong though, my favorite camera is my M6 but I don't judge photographs by what kind of camera was used. At least I try not to.
And please lets not start into the film vs. digi madness. What a boring and pointless debate! I think we're lucky to have so many different tools to choose from to make a photograph. I just hope that I can view the resulting work objectively and on its own merit. I also think that discussions like this one help me keep an objective perspective. At least I hope so!
Has anybody else seen the Joshua Bell experiment that I posted a link to above?
 
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