Comments on: Is This Really It?

By: Bob Foss

Bob Foss — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 14:50:00 +0000

Glad I tripped onto this discussion. forgingahead just “celebrated” its 8th anniversary, but with news from Lor and Gordon that My-Expressions is on borrowed time, I will be looking for an alternative. Like you, I found the photoblogging community engaging and supportive…always preferred it to my short-lived use of Flickr. I recall our Photobloggie weekend in Chicago in 2007 with grand pleasure and so happy that I was able to put a face and personality with the sites and comments.

I’d love to help however I may be able to in reviving photoblogs.org

Also as an aside, I am trying to drum up interest in organizing a meetup of current and past My-Expressions photobloggers, perhaps scheduled sometime next spring to coincide with the planned demise of that site.

By: dimension2

dimension2 — Mon, 27 May 2013 19:39:00 +0000

Couldn’t have said it better. I was afraid Flickr would die a slow, agonizing death, and the new design doesn’t appear to help its case. The biggest draw on Flickr for me was not visibility of the images, or their showcasing – because, quite frankly, the design and packaging were quite dated. What took me there each time was the community, and the discussions that I gained quite a bit out of. And I don’t think the new design does the communities any justice. It’s getting harder for me to bring myself to log into Flickr each day, and while I might still use it to host my images, that might just be all.

And now Yahoo! takes over Tumblr, and promises “not to screw up”. Hah!

500px.com doesn’t yet have the same kind of strength of a vibrant discussion community that Flickr does, though they do have a much better visual packaging, and are attracting a growing number of photographers. 1x.com is in many ways what I would have liked Flickr to have been – a judicious use of white space, accessible images and communities, and a platform for honest image critiquing that can be so hard to build. And a much, much cleaner interface.

I’ve been working on my own photoblog for a while now, largely because I get full creative freedom to showcase my work, with as much aesthetic sensibility as I can muster. Am looking forward to the revival of Photoblogs and hope it can help carve an alternative space for the photography community.

Some very good tips you’ve mentioned – and a couple that I would like to add to it,

- A photoblog showcase of sorts, that not only lists the creme-de-la-creme, but also some insights into why they make the list, on design and content sensibilties that make a good photoblog.

- A curated list of posts on specific topics – on the design and development of photoblogs, on development and photo publishing workflows, on catering to desktop and mobile audiences.

Good to see some action on Photoblogs.org again. Am curious about what Brandon has been brewing. Hopefully the wait won’t be too long.

By: neverhappen.com

neverhappen.com — Fri, 24 May 2013 11:11:00 +0000

Have to admit I do miss the community, and the comments of the photoblog community. Twitter stole them, and so did G+ to some extent. I have a photoblog, have done for 7 years or so – an image a day – and like you a photoblog really got me into photography.

Would love to see photoblogs.org reinvigorated it was good to me, hey I even received a photobloggies nomination back in ’06. That felt great and inspired me to continue.

What has the blog gotten me though? Not a single person in all these years has bought me a beer saying wow, you’re the bloke from neverhappen.com OK, I don’t really mean that. I keep going ’cause it keeps me shooting. In a sick twisted way maintaining an image a day pace over all this time is, well, therapeutic.

Whatever the case, I look forward to being a part of the future as I have been in the past.