On Nov 19, 2007, at 10:50 AM, Mark Roberts wrote: > Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: > >> On Nov 19, 2007, at 8:58 AM, Mark Roberts wrote: >> >>> When I was about 5 years old one of my favorite stories was "The >>> Little >>> Red Hen". She spends most of the story trying to get the other >>> barnyard >>> animals to help her make bread, but no one wants to help with >>> harvesting the wheat, grinding it into flour, making the dough, >>> etc.... >>> but in the end they all want to help eat the loaf. >>> >>> The Pentax Gallery seems to be a little like that: A lot of people >>> want >>> to get their photos shown there, but very few pitch in to the work >>> that >>> makes the Gallery possible. >> >> The question this raises is: "What is the purpose of the PPG and does >> the voting system actually support achieving that goal?" >> >> My understanding is that the PPG is a site designed to attract >> customers and sell Pentax equipment. It's not an artists' collective >> web gallery presented for the purpose of celebrating photography or >> selling the artists' work. It's a marketing tool in which Pentax >> offers users of their equipment a place to show work that they, >> Pentax, deem to show the equipments' capabilities in a good enough >> light to motivate sales. >> >> On that basis, it is Pentax responsibility to fund and manage the >> submission and acceptance business, not anyone else's. > > I certainly understand that view. But I have a hard time believing > that > all these photographers are sending in images with the impression > they're doing nothing more than contribute to a marketing campaign. If > you hold the view then I'd think you'd be morally obliged to refuse to > participate (send images).
That doesn't make much sense, Mark. Why would I be morally obligated to refuse to participate, particularly with your subsequent comment ... > My view is that the gallery is group effort that is also a means of > promotion for the photographers whose work is on display. I was invited to participate on precisely this basis. And there's the rub ... > (And the > tougher it is to get work accepted, the more valuable acceptance is). > So from my perspective, anyone submitting photos and expecting the > benefits of recognition that come with acceptance is morally obligated > to assist is making the project work and pitching in every once in a > while. While I agree that the tougher it is to get work accepted the more valuable the acceptance is, I feel the notion that the same people vying for acceptance be in the role of judging OTHER submitters' work is simply wrong. There are many ways to 'game' this, just like anything else, (e.g.: a hypothetical submitter acting as juror on others' work can simply cast a lot of no votes to minimize others' acceptance rates as much as possible, and colluding with other submitters to do the same, etc). Not to mention that the notion of acceptance by broad popularity of any particular image has been shown time and time again in collective jurying endeavors to filter out most of the really exceptional, edgy work. Who is doing the jurying? what are their credentials for judging whether a photo has merit, or not? etc etc are other questions that come to mind. The ONLY way to ensure that the effort is not being gamed in some mechanical fashion is to separate the submitters from the jurors. The work submitted should be fairly screened and selected by a group of people that Pentax deems qualified to the job and given a guideline of what they are looking for. (You can then bribe the judges but that's been going on forever anyway ... ;-) Beyond that, photographers who were directly invited to present work on Pentax behalf with the notion of personal exposure as well should be allowed to submit sets of work that they feel represents both interests in best light, and given some credence to group and arrange those works so that they are doing the job properly. Pentax judging and discussion of the work by these people would be a proper kind of collaborative effort meeting the notion of promoting photographers as well as supporting the marketing notions for the Pentax brand. People who are excited to get one random picture into the gallery and find great reward in that are a different kind of photographer from the kind of person who, being invited to a collaborative promotional effort, seek a working relationship with the Pentax organization that benefits both. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
