Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner

[KLaban]

I didn't mean to blame anyone for it, especially not you. It is what it is, but i believe the idea that it "delivers the most consistently admirable image content on this site" is bordering the ridiculous, to put it mildly. Admittedly, the threads that do qualify for that have all but dried out.

Well, the appreciation of images is essentially subjective. That said I'd love to be pointed towards those image sharing threads that do qualify.

[KLaban]

I may be mistaken, but I'd fondly imagined that the CC was for things that would consist of other than photographs; the "Chain" thread could fit perfectly well into the general swim, for example, under the Critique folder, just as do WP and the Abstract threads.

Street got its own slot, wisely,  because it means that people with an interest that is only in that direction needn't bother looking at the cats and kittens, the cuddly puppìes, the obligatory travel shots, the rare tits or anything else that isn't street, if you see what I mean.

As for the pubs, I don't go. The single one that I did frequent when live music was playing lost its music licence and, with it, the band I used to snap. Bars hold no other interest because there is nothing that I find enlightening or the least bit pleasant about watching a bunch of expats drown their sorrows in pint after pint. And no, I wouldn't expect to find much photographic conversation there either. And that would be no different were I living in the UK right now; even more so, since I have never seen any violence in any of them out here - but then I don't live in Magaluf or Arenal, and bars I would go to are all Spanish, anyway, not themed Irish, Scots or anything else. I often wonder why folks who seek those out leave home in the first place.

But yeah, specialist threads don't get a heap of traffic either; few give a damn about photographc history or its greats; music, either good or otherwise, may usually just as well be being played to the deaf.

I suppose the wonder is anyone expected anything else.

Does it really matter where they are? As I remember the Cats and Boobs thread was put where it is to avoid it becoming a for critique thread or another Without Prejudice.

[32BT]

Well, the appreciation of images is essentially subjective.

No kidding!?

That said I'd love to be pointed towards those image sharing threads that do qualify.

Recent professional works, or fun with mf/35. Yes, there is crap in those as well, but that just makes it all the more admirable. Someone actually making money off of those...

[Rob C]

Well yes, Keith, of course I think it matters; I think it matters for the very same reasons that it mattered for street to hold on to being about one or another form of street: categories make for easy access, just like a contents page helps do in a broader manner; a specific spot for a specific thing. Just like I keep my T-shirts apart from my socks, and in another drawer.

I can find no reason given in Ivo's first post in the Chain thread that forced it into CC; it just happened.

Rob

[KLaban]

I didn't mean to blame anyone for it, especially not you. It is what it is, but i believe the idea that it "delivers the most consistently admirable image content on this site" is bordering the ridiculous, to put it mildly. Admittedly, the threads that do qualify for that have all but dried out.

I see consistently admirable content in the cats and boobs thread from Ivo_B, JNB_Rare, langier, RobC, John R, Slobodan Blagojevic, MattBurt... all prolific contributors of images, to mention but a few.

Sure, we all post bum images now and again, but without these prolific contributors the site would be all the poorer: all talk and no trousers.

[KLaban]

Well yes, Keith, of course I think it matters; I think it matters for the very same reasons that it mattered for street to hold on to being about one or another form of street: categories make for easy access, just like a contents page helps do in a broader manner; a specific spot for a specific thing. Just like I keep my T-shirts apart from my socks, and in another drawer.

I can find no reason given in Ivo's first post in the Chain thread that forced it into CC; it just happened.

Rob

I believe it was my suggestion that it go into the CC for the reasons I've given. Guilty. But, OK, let's keep the CC for the unpopular stuff.

;-)

[KLaban]

No kidding!?

Recent professional works, or fun with mf/35. Yes, there is crap in those as well, but that just makes it all the more admirable. Someone actually making money off of those...

Yup, I've contributed to all of those threads and made money off the images. I also started the Give Us Your Best Shot thread alongside RobC, who put it on the Coffee Corner ;-). It of course eventually died a death despite there being some of the finest work I've seen on LuLa: folk unwilling to put their neck on the line? Perhaps you should have contributed?

[Rob C]

Yup, I've contributed to all of those threads and made money off the images. I also started the Give Us Your Best Shot thread alongside RobC, who put it on the Coffee Corner ;-). It of course eventually died a death despite there being some of the finest work I've seen on LuLa: folk unwilling to put their neck on the line? Perhaps you should have contributed?

You're right! However, we did discuss moving it, but decided just to stay as we were.

A pity it died, but as you say, only one pic per person is logically possible - unless something better gets shot at some later date.

:-(

[KLaban]

Ultimately it is our responsibility as contributors to post content in the hopes it might be of interest to others. We can whine about it all we want but it really isn't anyone's fault but our own if we fail.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Ultimately it is our responsibility as contributors to post content in the hopes it might be of interest to others. We can whine about it all we want but it really isn't anyone's fault but our own if we fail.

That is certainly true.

As you know (or if you don't know, can easily find out), I wanted political discussions to take place, but to take place in an atmosphere of reasonableness and consideration. It didn't happen. Worse, the level of vitriol led to people being dissuaded from belonging to the other forums. That's why, with some reluctance, Kevin, Chris, Debra and I decided they had to stop.

Surely there must be things we can talk about other than photography and politics that can be discussed with restraint and civility.

I know - religion! 

Jeremy

[KLaban]

You're right! However, we did discuss moving it, but decided just to stay as we were.

A pity it died, but as you say, only one pic per person is logically possible - unless something better gets shot at some later date.

:-(

How many people contributed, perhaps a couple of dozen at most, that's why it ultimately died. How many contributors are there on LuLa?

You can lead a horse to water...

[Rob C]

How many people contributed, perhaps a couple of dozen at most, that's why it ultimately died. How many contributors are there on LuLa?

You can lead a horse to water...

True; but there's another aspect too, which I guess comes with age and a lot of photographic experience: after that time arrives, one stops thinking about photography as a journey, a learning curve, as the young say these days, and two things seem to happen, one being that one knows one has become all one will ever become, and anxiety pretty much goes out of the window, and, secondly, any sense of embarrassment about one's work with it. It's a kind of liberation, a sense that one can at last be honest with and about oneself.

Which is good, but for younger people, or those for whom photography has not been a life's concentrated effort, there is probably that damned sense of not being good enough, with the subsequent hesitation about going out on limbs.

Which is understandable. I guess it really is about ego and the certainties of youth where you just never think you can fail. What else could allow one to become a professional photographer? It is far more difficult to feel that way later on, especially when your own eyes place you pretty firmly on the ladder rung you think you really should cling to because it's the last safe one.

How did we get here? Maybe we really can find something to discuss in this slot after all.

Rob

[Ivo_B]

After I got disappointed in what I got out of the websites I worked with, I turned my back to social media and specially fora like Lula. No matter what subject the forum is about, whether it is a motorcycle forum, photo forum or poststamp forum, members are typecasts and react identically. Every forum has it's own Ivo_B, RSL, Rob C and Jeremey, etc etc.  (try the Fujix forum, just for fun, after a while you will recognize all substitute Rob'c's, Ivo_B's, opgr's and RSL's, etc, etc).

It was with ample hope I subscribed to Lula, just to find out things are here just like they are on other fora. But hey, maybe that is not so bad after all, better than the nec plus ultra navel gazing on Facebook, better than the professional ranting on Twitter and better than being flooded with scam publicity on Instagram.

I understand Rob_C's initial comment, I tried to start a new style photo-group on Flickr, sadly, at a moment Facebook was sucking all live out of the majority of fora, or other than facebook communities.
The goal was to post quality images and in the discussion section we tried to talk about the emotional impact of images, find relation between images, poetry, music and literature. There was a section to share new exhibits, new published books, etc etc.
One project was to illustrate a poem of the Dutch poet Lucebert. 20 Photographers initially joined the project, only few contributed and the rest turned their back to the project in arguments, just to cover up their incompetence to effectively make the cerebral link between poetry and visual art.
No need to say the Flickr group did not survive.

I started a facebook group with the subject: The clock of Jean Claude Lemagny. All much to difficult, Peoples are not interested to contribute, it reveals their incompetence.

So I'm with Rob_c's initial comment, but I'm still hoping to find colleague photographers, enthousiast or pro's, open minded enough to substantive discuss images.

Rob_C, I will give it another try, .....

[Jeremy Roussak]

... members are typecasts and react identically. Every forum has it's own Ivo_B, RSL, Rob C and Jeremey,

And there's me, thinking my personality is as unique as my name. Hey ho.

Jeremy (with but two "e"s).

[Ivophoto]

And there's me, thinking my personality is as unique as my name. Hey ho.

Jeremy (with but two "e"s).

Sorry to misspell your name Jeremy, I won’t do it again.

I ‘m pretty sure you are a unique person, however your internet faceplate isn’t.

[amolitor]

I feel your pain, Rob.

Mostly, I don't want to talk to people that I share nothing with. We might disagree about most things, but we live on the same street. Or we agree about politics and live in different states, and enjoy talking about the state of computing (terrible).

People in a forum are ciphers, we might agree on this, disagree on that, but there is also a vast unknown world of things we might or might not have in common. When it's open to all, and anyone can horn in with their ideas, the conversation already has trouble staying on track.

When the conversation turns interesting, it's usually because you're feeling around the edges of something big, or alarming, controversial, and feeling our way into what we can agree on, what we can agree to disagree on, and what we are willing to start throwing down some serious rhetoric on. It's at this point that someone will, in the context of a forum, usually horn in with something hurtful, or stupid, or wilfully argumentative. Alternatively, they'll simply try to derail the conversation because it makes them uncomfortable.

Politics is just a worst-case-scenario.

Try talking about Art. It with degenerates into a dribble of "well it's all just subjective innit" because nobody's got the juice to take a stand, or it degenerates into a stupid fight between people with too much juice and not enough brains.

Forums feel like they ought to be good for this, but they're not. They're great for "crowd-sourcing" solutions to problems, for getting a multitude of answers to more or less non-controversial topics, but that seems, sadly, to be about it.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...Recent professional works...

You mean the one that evolved into passport photos?

[Rob C]

You mean the one that evolved into passport photos?

A look at my work book tells me that for the first few months of professional life on my own, passport heads were high on the list of things done. I remember the Exakta Varex camera I had with the built-in knife that, in case of an emergency passport, allowed me to cut the film and save the rest; times were bloody tough and prices so low that using a film per job meant no profit. Thank God that I was able to outlive that initial period of penury and get into advertising just in time.

But I know what you mean.

On the other hand, folks get to do the work that's around. That's one huge difference betwen pro and am.

[Ivophoto]

A look at my work book tells me that for the first few months of professional life on my own, passport heads were high on the list of things done. I remember the Exakta Varex camera I had with the built-in knife that, in case of an emergency passport, allowed me to cut the film and save the rest; times were bloody tough and prices so low that using a film per job meant no profit. Thank God that I was able to outlive that initial period of penury and get into advertising just in time.

But I know what you mean.

On the other hand, folks get to do the work that's around. That's one huge difference betwen pro and am.

The nice thing of the Exacta Varex, apart from the nifty knife, was the standard lens with makro ability and the mechanical automatic adjustment of the max aperture.

It is certainly a relief not to be full time pro, I don’t need to accept the bulk to pay the house and the car.

[Rob C]

The nice thing of the Exacta Varex, apart from the nifty knife, was the standard lens with makro ability and the mechanical automatic adjustment of the max aperture.

It is certainly a relief not to be full time pro, I don’t need to accept the bulk to pay the house and the car.

My moment of epiphany came on the steps of a dank, Paisley Road West, Glasgow church as I waited for a bride to arrive in the rain. I imagined Bailey driving along in his Rolls-Royce, slowing down to look at me, smile in sorrow, and drive away.

I swore there and then that I would never do public work again, and that if I couldn't hack it doing fashion, which was why I became a snapper, then I should get the hell out of it. Somebody must have been listening, because it worked out.

If you take on a job as difficult to make a living in as photography always was, then you owe it to yourself to do the work you are driven to do and not settle for crap. If you settle for crap, you may as well do entirely other crap that will keep you busy and earning decent money without the angst.