aizan
Veteran
and how can we support photo talk better? by photo talk, i mean online discussions about several things.
1) photographers and their work
2) the history of photography
3) criticism that's been written about it
4) your own creative projects and how they're going
time and time again, we read value statements that the thing that matters is the photos and your creative output. things like "don't buy gear, buy a plane ticket," or "buy photobooks," or "pay for a workshop," or even "buy film." it's ironic that the most common advice is merely "better" shopping, but the point stands. doing creative work is more challenging and rewarding than scrimping and saving for an expensive bit of gear or hunting down the right camera and getting it CLA'd.
i'm going to throw out a couple ideas about why photo talk isn't anywhere near as common as gear talk and what we might do about it, but i want to start a conversation on your ideas.
first, since we're talking about discussions taking place via the internet, you have to take the medium into account. i don't think online forums, mailing lists, or blogs are conducive to photo talk, mainly because it's not really talking. it's writing, and writing takes more thought and energy than talking. you're more accountable for things you write, too. for something you do for fun, putting in that kind of work is a tall order. also, it's not like anyone wants to bother reading anything long and substantive (and writing something short and substantive is probably even more work!). TL/DR, right?
second, learning about photo history, criticism, and artmaking is just plain harder. people who know a lot about this stuff are just less common, the population too low to reach critical mass. that's partly due to educational backgrounds (what percentage of us has a relevant degree or has been able to do lots of independent research?), and it's partly due to the accessibility of that information outside of universities. bookstores and public libraries don't have the greatest photobook sections out there. for that, you'd really have to go to an academic library, which can be inconvenient or not an option. building up your own library costs a lot of money, and you don't benefit from the ability to browse a pre-existing collection where you can more easily find things you didn't know about. the number of widely known historical and critical books is very small, probably less than a few dozen. when's the last time you looked at a bibliography or scoured the citations in a journal article? that's the sort of thing you're not going to get at barnes & noble or the public library. learning about what's out there and being able to get it are big barriers to entry.
third, there's no online meeting ground for people who are doing or want to do serious artistic or research work. i'm not counting twitter or facebook (where the academics go) and instagram (where the photographers go) since people connect with each other but don't have many conversations per se. there might actually be a substantial number of "creatives" on a gear-centric forum, but there are probably a lot more who aren't into that stuff for various reasons such as the things i've mentioned above. the signal-to-noise ratio gets diluted and people learn or see that it's not worth it, and they go offline to do photo talk or do it via email. or unfortunately they hardly do it at all.
maybe we should just accept that gear talk is the natural outcome of societal and technological factors and stop griping about there not being as much photo talk as we'd like on the internet. on the other hand, maybe we can do something about it.
off the top of my head, here are some ideas to increase the amount of photo talk. there are ways to help each other do creative projects and independent research on forums like this one.
1) create the "space" for discussion by making two sets of categories. one for photo projects should have subcategories like "work in progress," "project management," "photo editing," and "print-on-demand." the one for research would partly be an extension for projects, and it should have things like "history & criticism," "research guides," "reading club," and "college programs & continuing ed." some categories like "photogs/photo exhibits" and "photo books/mags/articles/blogs" already exist, and they should be grouped under these headings.
2) complement the forum with a tutorial and article website that members can contribute to. photo talk depends on developing new skills like how to prepare for hiking trips to do landscape photography, or how to review an exhibition. it also depends on gaining new knowledge like the history of travel photography or influential photojournalists of the 60s. bringing these resources together in one place gives you the benefits of a collection since you can see "suggestions" of things you didn't know you needed.
3) (this one is probably not going to happen anytime soon.) put the "talk" into photo talk. add functionality that lets you replace writing with voice or video recordings that expire, a la snapchat.
4) (this is more likely.) start a podcast where members can hold discussions to talk about their work and issues they're dealing with. there are podcasts that do this like the awesome cameras podcast, the candid frame, and the shoot with matt day, but they are too traditional in how they all have one interviewer who brings in a new guest for each episode. the format of this new podcast would be based on running themes and groups of participants who come and go, more like a serialized tv show than an episodic one. there could be multiple podcasts for each theme running concurrently.
anyhow, i'd love to hear your thoughts on how to make photo talk more common.
1) photographers and their work
2) the history of photography
3) criticism that's been written about it
4) your own creative projects and how they're going
time and time again, we read value statements that the thing that matters is the photos and your creative output. things like "don't buy gear, buy a plane ticket," or "buy photobooks," or "pay for a workshop," or even "buy film." it's ironic that the most common advice is merely "better" shopping, but the point stands. doing creative work is more challenging and rewarding than scrimping and saving for an expensive bit of gear or hunting down the right camera and getting it CLA'd.
i'm going to throw out a couple ideas about why photo talk isn't anywhere near as common as gear talk and what we might do about it, but i want to start a conversation on your ideas.
first, since we're talking about discussions taking place via the internet, you have to take the medium into account. i don't think online forums, mailing lists, or blogs are conducive to photo talk, mainly because it's not really talking. it's writing, and writing takes more thought and energy than talking. you're more accountable for things you write, too. for something you do for fun, putting in that kind of work is a tall order. also, it's not like anyone wants to bother reading anything long and substantive (and writing something short and substantive is probably even more work!). TL/DR, right?
second, learning about photo history, criticism, and artmaking is just plain harder. people who know a lot about this stuff are just less common, the population too low to reach critical mass. that's partly due to educational backgrounds (what percentage of us has a relevant degree or has been able to do lots of independent research?), and it's partly due to the accessibility of that information outside of universities. bookstores and public libraries don't have the greatest photobook sections out there. for that, you'd really have to go to an academic library, which can be inconvenient or not an option. building up your own library costs a lot of money, and you don't benefit from the ability to browse a pre-existing collection where you can more easily find things you didn't know about. the number of widely known historical and critical books is very small, probably less than a few dozen. when's the last time you looked at a bibliography or scoured the citations in a journal article? that's the sort of thing you're not going to get at barnes & noble or the public library. learning about what's out there and being able to get it are big barriers to entry.
third, there's no online meeting ground for people who are doing or want to do serious artistic or research work. i'm not counting twitter or facebook (where the academics go) and instagram (where the photographers go) since people connect with each other but don't have many conversations per se. there might actually be a substantial number of "creatives" on a gear-centric forum, but there are probably a lot more who aren't into that stuff for various reasons such as the things i've mentioned above. the signal-to-noise ratio gets diluted and people learn or see that it's not worth it, and they go offline to do photo talk or do it via email. or unfortunately they hardly do it at all.
maybe we should just accept that gear talk is the natural outcome of societal and technological factors and stop griping about there not being as much photo talk as we'd like on the internet. on the other hand, maybe we can do something about it.
off the top of my head, here are some ideas to increase the amount of photo talk. there are ways to help each other do creative projects and independent research on forums like this one.
1) create the "space" for discussion by making two sets of categories. one for photo projects should have subcategories like "work in progress," "project management," "photo editing," and "print-on-demand." the one for research would partly be an extension for projects, and it should have things like "history & criticism," "research guides," "reading club," and "college programs & continuing ed." some categories like "photogs/photo exhibits" and "photo books/mags/articles/blogs" already exist, and they should be grouped under these headings.
2) complement the forum with a tutorial and article website that members can contribute to. photo talk depends on developing new skills like how to prepare for hiking trips to do landscape photography, or how to review an exhibition. it also depends on gaining new knowledge like the history of travel photography or influential photojournalists of the 60s. bringing these resources together in one place gives you the benefits of a collection since you can see "suggestions" of things you didn't know you needed.
3) (this one is probably not going to happen anytime soon.) put the "talk" into photo talk. add functionality that lets you replace writing with voice or video recordings that expire, a la snapchat.
4) (this is more likely.) start a podcast where members can hold discussions to talk about their work and issues they're dealing with. there are podcasts that do this like the awesome cameras podcast, the candid frame, and the shoot with matt day, but they are too traditional in how they all have one interviewer who brings in a new guest for each episode. the format of this new podcast would be based on running themes and groups of participants who come and go, more like a serialized tv show than an episodic one. there could be multiple podcasts for each theme running concurrently.
anyhow, i'd love to hear your thoughts on how to make photo talk more common.
