Yes, I was noticing the irony that Rob C. has 9,000 posts and he says he doesn't follow forums. I have just over a thousand here (my most active forum anywhere) and have been a member for over eight years.
1) LuLa
2) DPReview (I mostly use this forum to filter and get to interesting news and deals. I don't participate much there)
..after those two I am all over the map depending on what I am interested in at the moment
3) Micro Four Thirds Forum
4) Max Lions Tawbaware Forums were THE epicenter for pano and stitching discussions. Less active now.
5) Fred Miranda forums for buy and sell used gear and for browsing photos
6) Adobe Support forums are occasionally helpful.
7) Anandtech and Toms Hardware forums are good for PC building information
Forum following. Nope, I still don’t think I follow forums of any sort, and certainly don’t feel that LuLa is something I
follow. I think it’s a place where I chat with people who, on the whole, seem to understand me and put up with my possibly misplaced sense of some particular values.
To me, following something connotes being led by the nose by it; I never felt that way here. Were I to become a football fan, for example, then as a follower, I would expect myself to be swept along on a tide of bullshit and the kind of mindless devotion best given a dog who would, in the end, perhaps repay you with love – or a bite.
For example: I am coming more and more to the conclusion that photography has plateaued: reached a place where it has lost (personally) its original purpose as either provisioner of happy snaps (however grand or even grandiose) or a commercial venture – has reached a position where yes, it can be more than either of those two basic things, it can become therapy not in the sense of replacing something that’s lost or even something else never present, but in providing an outlet for a creative urge that really doesn’t require that one produce anything on paper at the end of it. What purpose any forum for this concept of something from nothing, including LuLa?
In a sense, perhaps that’s what Imogen Cunningham was about: did she really ever feel the need to make any giant blowups from her Rolleiflex? Would she have given a Flying Burrito Brother for mega-pixel sensors, ultra-this coated lenses, been a closet fan of anything simply expensive and, therefore, by dint of that, exclusively worthy of cachet? Maybe she was about seeing, and the inner satisfaction that comes from realising something not entirely obvious. But I suspect this may be something that comes with age and/or long experience doing something. As I’ve suggested in other topìcs, when you know you can do it, do you always have to do it in order to enjoy the idea of doing it; isn’t seeing the possibility enough or, perhaps, even better? It’s certainly cheaper and less frustrating.
Rob C