Online Photography Communities

As you know, I joined Fotoblur in April this year with the intention of improving my photography and bringing it to a wider audience. I think I've achieved that. I have made several good friends at Fotoblur and have been pleased with the responses to my images.


So far I have had images featured in the various groups I'm a member of on nine occasions, been in the top 40 favourite image of the day once, featured in the top 100 a further ten times and received some good and constructive comments from my peers. The way in which I now look at my images, how I process them and select them for Fotoblur has changed radically. I now have a selection process, which has served me well in recent weeks. This provides me with a shortlist of possible submissions and some consistency in what actually gets published.


I've experimented with images instead of sticking with the sharp, perfectly exposed image and I've tried some slightly off-the-wall processing - well, off-the-wall for me! Not only that, but the way I look for images has changed; frequently when I'm out and about my head is on a swivel looking for potential shots to make. Over the past few days I've been inspired by the architectural photography of two folk whose work I follow and took some inspiration from them to produce this image...

Click the image for the bigger picture

It has been and continues to be a very worthwhile way of improving how see, make, process and critique my own work. And, more than any of that, it's got me out of my comfort zone and experimenting.


A good number of the Fotoblur membership are also members of Flickr, probably the most used and best known photo sharing site so I decided I'd create an account and see what happened to my images there. I loaded up half a dozen images that had done really well at Fotoblur and waited for the results. All of these images had either been feature images, appeared in the top 100 favourites for the day in which they were posted, or had received some acclaim from my Fotoblur peers. 


I'd also had a message from a good friend and fellow photographer - hello, Ian - who had stumbled across a website called 5∞. He was so impressed with the images there that he said it was "time to put the camera away". I had a look and agreed that many of the images were pretty amazing. Whilst waiting for the Flickr images to settle down in their new home I had another look at 5∞ and was further impressed the more I dug into the collection of images. Anyway, dear reader, I decided I really needed to challenge myself and see how things went...


5∞ has proved to be a greater challenge. At the moment I have nine images posted, which have been viewed collectively 79 times. Four have been voted for and one has been added to a viewer's favourite image bank. The site is set out much differently than Fotoblur. Here images continue to feature after their day of submission with a scoring system based on the number of images submitted, number of votes and selections as favourite images. This means that as your scores increase there is the potential to move up the leaderboard. I have one image with a score of 42.5, which might make you think I'm doing OK. There are probably 90,000 other photographers in front of me!


Here's the image and yes, I was surprised:

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And what of Flickr? Well, after five days only one of my images had been viewed (three times) the others were just languishing there doing nothing. I say were... the account's been deleted! And I doubt that I shall be going back.


So, which is best, Fotoblur or 5∞? They're both excellent; I like the way Fotoblur people interact with each other through comments and suggestions but a "slow burner" image may not get the chance to shine to a wider audience. 5∞ is a more long-term option but with, for me at the moment, less interaction between the members. But it's new and I suspect when I work out exactly how the site works that interaction will grow. Another bonus is that at 5∞ I can submit 20 images of up to 30Mb each per week whereas Fotoblur allow me one upload of 512kb per day.


And just to prove how different the two communities are I currently have an image featured in a Fotoblur group that's only received three votes (promotions) and 10 viewings while the same image on 5∞ has been viewed 37 times but received no votes. Some you win...


In the meantime, if you want to have a look at my Fotoblur and 5∞ sites I'd be delighted. You can comment, vote or promote my images... or not as the case may be.


Fotoblur site...

5∞


Thanks to the good folks at Fotoblur and 5∞ for all their work in setting up and administering the communities. It's very much appreciated here!


UPDATE 12 July: I've had considerable success with some new images at Fotoblur in the past few days and that is where my concentration lies right now. The 500∞ site will remain and I shall periodically be uploading new images... 

Thunder on the Mountain*

Easter Monday was another perfect day with a visit to Rhyd Ddu to watch the little trains of the Welsh Highland Railway tackle the climb up to the little station with an alternative view of Snowdon the prize.

Click the image for the bigger picture

Click the image for the bigger picture

*Thunder on the Mountain by Bob Dylan from the album 'Modern Times'

Storming North

Click the image for the bigger picture!

I grew up with steam trains... as a small boy my bedroom window overlooked a quite busy line and I was always fascinated by the sight and sound of a steam locomotive. In the late 1960's as the steam locomotive was phased out railway photography was radically changed from the sunlit front three-quarters view of a clean engine to a more realistic dirty, gritty, rainy one by the likes of Colin Gifford, Ian Krause and many others. They didn't go for pretty locations; the industrial north with its decaying buildings and lousy weather became the backdrop. And often the train was secondary to the location. I photographed many steam trains with my little Halina 120 camera during 1967 and to the end of July 1968. Sadly, the negatives were lost in various house moves.


Whenever it's possible I still get out and photograph steam trains. This is 71000 'Duke of Gloucester' at Coppenhall Moss just north of Crewe working very hard; I've treated this to a monochrome conversion, a severe crop and added some Giffordesque grain.


Two books that I can recommend are Gifford's 'Decline of Steam' and 'Each a Glimpse' and Ian Krause's 'Steam', which show how steam railway photography changed in the mid- to late-sixties.