PhotoSIG

[drmike]

Rarely a day goes by that I don't miss photoSIG a site dedicated to critiquing photographs. In its pomp you'd be hard pressed to keep up with the posts each day - certainly 200 plus - but even as it dwindled and faded away there was enough to interest. Sure there was a lot of dross but also some wonderful work. And the scraps, those wonderful pointless internet scraps over nothing. And the help and advice, it was great if you listened and saw past the negative comments and took the positives. Thin skins didn't last long.

Has anyone found a suitable substitute for it? I know I haven't, maybe one of you guys has?

Mike

[BernardLanguillier]

Yes, I used to be on Photosig too, until probably 2006.

I got a bit tired of the "I rate you, you rate me" spirit. But it is true that there were some insightful comments at times.

Haven't really looked for a replacement, not sure whether there is anything else like it nor why exatly it died out btw.

Cheers,
Bernard

[drmike]

Our paths may have crossed and I didn't like the cliques and tit for tat on critiques but there were some very helpful people there - quite possibly including you People were generous and I learned a lot.

Consensus  from past members including Sheena the admin was that it died partly because all such sites lost traffic and without traffic it was nothing, Sheena did become unpopular and people were always sniping, the owner of the site lost interest and would not develop it technically and to modernise, nor would he sell it to willing buyers.

So, it stagnated and looked old fashioned and lacked facilities that were simply expected by new users. Then there were down times and it relied on a senior VP in a big corporate to put his geek hat on in his spare time to kick it back into life and of course that slowly killed it as well. But the last down time just dragged on and it was never fixed. Nor did the owner declare it dead. I would have removed all my images given the chance.

I have found nothing comparable and probably its time has passed. No-one really wants to be told their image is flawed - well some say they do but if you do it, even with positive suggestions, you don't often get a positive response. All anyone wants is 'great image', 'Excellent', 'St Ansell couldn't do better', 'reminds me of HCB' etc. All people want is affirmation that what they are doing is wonderful and if that makes them content then that's fine by me but they won't grow.

All that said somewhat windily I still miss it and thought of it today again. Some of the characters there were great NixPix who was a very naughty person, MaxArt who was wonderfully abrasive but had a big heart, Evan Levaine who was so quietly creative (and now sadly dead) and a phalanx of others who gave help so willingly.

Mike

[Justinr]

Our paths may have crossed and I didn't like the cliques and tit for tat on critiques but there were some very helpful people there - quite possibly including you People were generous and I learned a lot.

Consensus  from past members including Sheena the admin was that it died partly because all such sites lost traffic and without traffic it was nothing, Sheena did become unpopular and people were always sniping, the owner of the site lost interest and would not develop it technically and to modernise, nor would he sell it to willing buyers.

So, it stagnated and looked old fashioned and lacked facilities that were simply expected by new users. Then there were down times and it relied on a senior VP in a big corporate to put his geek hat on in his spare time to kick it back into life and of course that slowly killed it as well. But the last down time just dragged on and it was never fixed. Nor did the owner declare it dead. I would have removed all my images given the chance.

I have found nothing comparable and probably its time has passed. No-one really wants to be told their image is flawed - well some say they do but if you do it, even with positive suggestions, you don't often get a positive response. All anyone wants is 'great image', 'Excellent', 'St Ansell couldn't do better', 'reminds me of HCB' etc. All people want is affirmation that what they are doing is wonderful and if that makes them content then that's fine by me but they won't grow.

All that said somewhat windily I still miss it and thought of it today again. Some of the characters there were great NixPix who was a very naughty person, MaxArt who was wonderfully abrasive but had a big heart, Evan Levaine who was so quietly creative (and now sadly dead) and a phalanx of others who gave help so willingly.

Mike

Many forum are dead or dying and partly that is due to the fact that the novelty of social media is slowly fading away, FB will tell us differently of course but that's another story. As you point out they don't help themselves for all websites need constant attention to be effective, they are not fit and forget items as many think they are and in my wilder moments I do wonder if the whole web marketing edifice will come tumbling down as this is appreciated more widely. 

As for critique then we all love praise, we all crave recognition and photography enables people to create and achieve something in their lives without actually getting their hands dirty, it is also purely subjective so if fault is found then then it is perfectly possible to blame the viewer rather than the photographer who can still maintain a pretence of dignity by doing so. We are stuck with that unfortunately but I always feel the most valid criticism is silence from your peers because it means they are either too polite to point out the problems, they are just wishing they had produced the images themselves or they simply hate you irrespective of how good or bad your work is.   

[drmike]

On PhotoSIG getting no response was very telling - it was generally because the image lacked anything good and anything bad it was just ho hum and you'd gently remove it In order to post your own image you pretty much had to post critiques so truly no response was the worst possible result.