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October 30, 2009
The Department of Environment and Heritage in South Australia is hosting a photographic competition entitled Art of Nature, in which members of the photographic community can enter their photos that celebrate South Australian natural landscapes, seascapes and native plants and animals over the next fortnight.
Those photos that are posted in an online gallery are voted on by registered members of the public. It's a nice idea in terms of Web 2.0 user generated content and is proving to be very popular in terms of uploads.
I initially submitted this image under thoughtfactory, which looks better on the DEH online gallery than it does here:
Gary Sauer-Thompson, Melaleuca, Murray-Mouth estuary, 2008
The image is languishing around 200 in the most popular and has received no comments. Oh well.
The results of the top ranked photos so far are what you'd expect: sunsets, moody landscapes, cute animals, with the emphasis on content not form. It confirms the views of those who argue that there still is a big divide between art photography and popular photography. They have different aesthetics.
Joel Coberg's point is about the distortions and misinterpretations in internet debates around this divide and across this divide. He says:
The “rather straightforward” point that “there is this tendency to stereotype Flickr as nothing but kittens, sunsets, and chipmunks” of course never happened in the three articles that caused all of this. In fact, it was the exact opposite (but apparently, artists like Penelope Umbrico or Joachim Schmid are not worthwhile talking about - well, if that isn’t just the same form of elitism that is usually leveled at the “fine art” community I don’t know what it is).
Internet debates are not conducted like academic seminars, as they are far more freewheeling. Colberg goes on to say that this distortion, and what he sees as an attack by "Flickerites":
is a “wonderful” example of how so many “debates” on the internet evolve, and as someone who is interested in talking about photography online, it’s actually pretty disheartening. Why should anyone bother trying to engage with Flickr, if regardless of what is written it is automatically taken as stereotyping “Flickr as nothing but kittens, sunsets, and chipmunks” - even if in reality the exact opposite is happening?
Trouble is, as Bryan Formhals points out, since 'Flickr' is a social networking platform with diverse uses and voices, it cannot be seen as a unified whole, one group, or as Flickrites. Colberg refers to engaging with Flickr --with mass culture in the old terms --rather than with the specific voices or groups using Flickr.
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