Board index Photography Artistic Questions The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Artistic Questions

The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Discuss style and artistic aspects of photography
jypsee
 
Posts: 1247

The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Post Fri Jul 04, 2008 4:18 pm


I found this article extremely timely:
"Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/arts/design/04clic.html?ref=arts

and, here' the link to the exhibit, where you can see all the "picks"
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/click/

Mary in SW Florida

soenda
 
Posts: 1390

Re: The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Post Fri Jul 04, 2008 7:03 pm


Thank you, jypsee, for sharing the links to the NYT article and the website of Click! A Crowd-Curated Exhibition.

It's intriguing to think about how art is valued by its viewers. And to see group decision making applied to art. It's also fascinating to see the results when people's evaluations of the photos are broken out the three different variables, namely evaluator expertise and location, as well as divergence of opinion. I couldn't find details about the questions that were used to evaluate the photos, but that would be very interesting as well. I'm curious about whether participants were scoring pictures according to what they thought were the best, or what they simply liked the most. I also wondered what effect participants' self selection into categories of photographic expertise might have, since it could hardly be objective.

It's certainly interesting to compare the Brooklyn Museum project with Pbase's Pbase's Popular Galleries. http://www.pbase.com/galleries?view=popular . One question it raises is what are the criteria Pbase members actually use in awarding their votes? Some Pbase viewers seem to expect that "the most popular photos" should also be "the best photos." However, the Pbase evaluation process is not set up that way. Plus there are aspects of Pbase's "Populars" that make it very different from the participatory project at the Brooklyn Museum. One of them is the dynamic nature of Pbase's Populars, with new photos by the same photographers entering the stream every day.

In the end I'm not sure whether the "Wisdom of Crowds" effect is really at play here on Pbase, but it's sure fascinating to think about.

jypsee
 
Posts: 1247

Re: The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Post Sun Jul 06, 2008 12:14 am


Well, I happen to have found the whole thing way too similar to the way the social networking sites (including this one) choose the stuff that gets the most attention. To take Pbase as an example, the popular galleries and photos are really not good photography. If good photography happens to land in the pops, it's purely by accident. The pops are what they are -- popular.... meaning a whole bunch of factors went into choosing them. If you would like to see my interpretation of good photography, I have a topic devoted to it. And, I change it from time to time.

Mary in SW Florida

soenda
 
Posts: 1390

Re: The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Post Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:19 am


Mary, am I mistaken in thinking that you don't approve of the way the Pbase popular galleries work? If I am mistaken, I apologize at the outset. Please just ignore this post.

Here's the text from the intro page of the popular galleries:

Photo sharing allows photographers to learn from each other.
You determine the popularity of galleries by voting on them.
Just click on the Vote for this gallery link at the bottom of a gallery that you like.
There is no limit to how many galleries you can vote for, so vote for anything you like.

The purpose of the popularity ranking is so we can easily find galleries that other people think are worth looking at.
There are no defined criteria, but galleries with good technical or artistic quality will float to the top



Pbase members tend to find others with common interests. They keep an eye on one another's galleries, and show their approval and encouragement by voting. What's the problem with that? They're devoting time and interest in other people's progress.

I can't envision how you'd get only superb photos in the list, other than by appointing an expert to sort through the thousands of images uploaded every day. Plus, there are widely differing opinions about what makes a photo excellent, or even good. Many people value only technical skill. Others crave originality. And still others are mostly interested in the photographic subjects themselves. A "best photo list" would be a nightmare. Not to mention all the disgruntled members there would be who disagreed with the choices. Instead, the photo contest in the Show and Tell forum seems like a good compromise for people who enjoy competition with their art.

You and I must have taken away something very different from the Brooklyn Museum photo rating project. I saw it as an interesting test of the Wisdom of the Crowd theory. If it revealed anything inherently dishonest or disappointing about photo evaluation by a mixed bag of people, I missed it.

In any event, thanks again for sharing the links.

jypsee
 
Posts: 1247

Re: The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Post Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:50 pm


Soenda, I absolutely don't care about the way the popular galleries/photos are chosen. What I care about is that there are folks who conflate the populars with good photography.
As for the Brooklyn Museum's exhibit, I guess the objective is/was to examine what crowds do with the opportunity to choose an exhibit. They could have saved themselves some time and just looked at Flickr or Pbase.
Good photography is not a subjective exercise or interpretation. I suggest you find a copy of Szarkowski's "Mirrors and Windows" and read his take on why some photographs work and others don't.
Finally, I don't see any wisdom in crowds; just populism.

And, you're welcome re the posts/links.

Mary in SW Florida

sean_mcr
 
Posts: 493

Re: The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Post Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:18 pm


Hello jypsee,

I also have real admiration for Szarkowski; He’s contribution to photography can't be overestimated

I own that book and I also own Robert Frank’s The Americans which is highlighted in Szarkowski’s book

Alec Soth makes an interesting point on his blog about Mirrors and Windows. I must say that I agree

“Whether you are Minor White or Robert Frank, almost every photograph starts with an act of pure description – a window. But every now and then you catch a glimpse of the photographer’s reflection. The mirror is just another function of the window:”
(Please scroll down)

http://alecsoth.com/blog/category/aesthetics/


It's apt that winning photo in the exhibition(which I enjoyed viewing despite how it was judged) is literally if not metaphorically a window that’s also functioning as a mirror


Thanks

Sean
What uses having a great depth of field, if there is not an adequate depth of feeling? -

W. Eugene Smith

jypsee
 
Posts: 1247

Re: The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Post Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:03 pm


I was referring to Szarkowski saying that if you have a whole sequence of the same subject, one photo often stands out as perfect and the rest "lumpen and dead." He's referring to Minor White's "romantic, anti-intellectual, and profoundly self-centered" analysis that "some photographs are better than others" and that "the shared understanding on which this consensus is based defines the current potential of the tradition, and, is finally, intuitive and wordless." (Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960; Szarkowski, John; 1978; p.21)

I'd say that pretty much sums up the "wisdom" of crowds and the populars here on Pbase.

My take on Szarkowski is decidedly positive. I consider him to be the most influential theorist and practitioner of the 20th century when it comes to defining and shaping modern and historical photography. He was born in the midwest of America and did work in the very reflection of Walker Evans; but he had the sense of the public psychology that informs what photography represents and what meaning the photographer inculcates for her/his viewer.

sean_mcr
 
Posts: 493

Re: The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Post Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:57 pm


My favourite book by Szarkowski is "Looking at photographs" which is now out of print and must surely be due a reissue.

You could never accuse Szarkowski of being a populist; by the late 80’s some photographers refused to have their work shown at Moma. They chose instead to go to museums that were reflecting the times; some quarters believed that his beliefs were narrow and anachronistic. Moma in the mid to late 80’s had lost its edge. He was a great figure, a giant. But no great figure in photography is without flaws, but that does not diminish their standing


Here's another interesting article from a couple of months back

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/magazine/27wwln-medium-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
What uses having a great depth of field, if there is not an adequate depth of feeling? -

W. Eugene Smith

jypsee
 
Posts: 1247

Re: The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Post Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:20 pm


I had the pleasure of a very casual knowledge of Szarkowski (I knew him, but only as any other visual anthropologist/photographer/fan). He was a witty person, and a sort of cross between Evans and Friedlander in his photographic style. His choice of Arbus as a new documentarian was brilliant and hard to grasp (she still doesn't hold me in thrall... I find her obsession with "other-ness" off putting). However, she showed, as Szarkowski points out, where the American photographic "view" was headed. Her obsession with rituals and ceremonies (not in the usual sense/use of the words) was what made her unique.
When Szarkowski died last year I was very sad.
(Oh, and the first comment in the comments section was made by me....)
later....

Mary in SW Florida... for one more day and then it's off to Michigan

sean_mcr
 
Posts: 493

Re: The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Post Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:20 pm


I do think that for some photographer's what they see is what they are, I think she saw or felt that otherness in herself. Szarkowski once said that her photographs were about what you couldn't see, she thought she could capture physical darkness. She also believed that she could have photographed the suicide in Monroe’s face. I wonder if she could see her own. Garry Winogrand, thought that all that a photograph could do was to describe light and surface. Though I do admire much of Winogrands work I don’t believe he was “The central photographer of his generation” as Szarkowski once said. He stood by Winogrand to the bitter end, and what a bitter end it was. New Documents was Szarkowski at his best.

Edward Steichen's Family of Man was not something that would have ran under Szarkowski's watch, too inclusive. But it's one of Moma's most loved exhibitions and I've seen every one of those photographs in print, and every time I see an image from that show on a screen I'm reminded that screen images are not photographs anymore then a photograph of a painting is a painting. I find it hard to judge screen images alone, they never compare to actual photographs

Cheers

Sean
What uses having a great depth of field, if there is not an adequate depth of feeling? -

W. Eugene Smith

madlights
 
Posts: 914

Re: The Flickr/jpg.mag/Pbase populars method explained

Post Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:52 pm


Well to the point: Yep

edit: and as a side note: OK I've gotta be honest here even if I sound somewhat stupid, but at first I was naive. When I first came on PBase...I learned to process the hell out of my pics...and learned how to do more and more. I think I may have had more votes for my realistic looking frames then, than for my photos :-) I had lots of galleries in the "pops" I had lots of friends (nothing wrong with friends) but I'd vote for them, leave a message and they'd vote for me and I never did it consciously, nor did they, it's just that myself and a number of other people were very active at viewing and commenting...myself being very impressed with the general quality of work on here. (it takes very few votes to get in the "pops"). I stopped that and know many of my friends did too once they realized. I don't even tell anyone that I vote or not anymore...if I do. Because it WAS a popularity contest even if not intended, not who should be seen (although sometimes those who should be seen slipped in) There are great photos in the "pops" there are great photos hardly anyone sees too...Some of my friends have disabled voting...I haven't since it's such a hassle with 100+ galleries, and since I've realized what it's all about I don't care...and maybe someone thinks that a photo should really be "seen": the intent of the voting anyway. But something disturbs me more :well the first 2 years on here were spent learning to make my photos look over processed (creating photos) and the last 2 years have been spent trying to break old habits (which can be difficult) and make them look like photos again (taking photos). The first two years I had a lot of galleries in the "pops" the last two, only one or 2 by accident. It's a game ...and I can't tell if my photos (or yours) are good or not, or how to improve them by playing a game....even if there isn't an awareness of playing the game. This all might not make any sense to anyone but it does to me. The danger I see in the whole "pops" thing is where the popular galleries point. To me they are (here flickr and elsewhere) pointing to 'creating' photos (as opposed to OBVIOUS creations that USE photos which to me are sometimes really neat) rather than 'taking' photos. Seems some people are using photos to "create" something that's not really there, kinda like creating "candyland", and even creating themselves as if they were playing 'Second Life' rather than using photography to inform us of ourselves and what and who we are, from the vision the photographer has. For one thing candyland isn't real, and to me after a while has a boring "sameness". That's just my view and the link to the NY Times article about flickr etc. that Sean left, to me is right on the money. Thanks Jypsee for the link to the Brooklyn show too...interesting stuff and thought provoking.
Edit: I don't mean this as a put down on anyone's work, including mine. Some of my stuff is unique as are so many others. What I mean above, is that this is how the pops work in many cases...and when it works this way it doesn't bring too many new photographers, or people doing new and original things, to light. And yes I do know of quite a few people who don't trade votes who are consistently in the pops too....but what I'm talking about here is a trend...about what happens many times.


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