Registered: Dec 03, 2007
Total Posts: 13713
Country: United States
Hi Friends,
I would like to know which are your favorite photography forums (besides this one of course).
I have occasionally seen some people post links here. But I have some other interests. I would like to understand what you see in those places and how your experience is shaped BY those places or the features or the people in them. 
I am doing some research and think this may help others too, including our own little forum community here at FM.
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UPDATE JULY 5 2010:
I was doing some research last year about what makes a good forum "good" and such.
Obviously, forums, like any group or community, go through change and evolve. Some grow, some advance, some decline and some even disappear.
Since many people here got some value from this thread, I thought I would ask if any "new" forums may have hit the internet in the last year that people like and WHY they like them.
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Try to answer these questions if you will.:
1. What do you think makes a forum a nice place.
2. What have you seen that works or does not work?
3. How did you find the experience at those forums to be different from one another?
4. WHY do you think that happens?
5. IF you did not join one of those forums, WHY?
6. IF you did join at one time and left it, WHY?
IF you did not post your own photos there, WHY?
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7. Anyone from Asia or Latin America or Europe or Africa have photography forums in their areas they would like to suggest?
I would have thought someone from Japan would mention a forum. Anyone?
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I have posted my own forum experiences below in this discussion.
I will post the following to help others by just sharing my own experiences. Your experiences will be different, of course. No two people will see the same event the same way.
Here are a few of my experiences (good and bad), though I must admit these are impressions from years ago, so the situations, places, and personalities have no doubt changed over those years. When I first started visiting photo forums YEARS ago (2000 starting), I used to drop by the following:
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dpreview
This is a massive site with a huge following or membership and LOTS of stuff to read. I like their camera reviews. I used to enjoy the forums too. Some people were very nice. But, over time, I found the place had many trolls too. That was my first experience with trolls on the internet (I was new to the net experience). Unfortunately, the weakness I saw was that photos were kept out of discussions threads (at the time) and that meant it was a text only discussion and then one had to go to a gallery section to see photos. I bet that has changed, but it was a limitation at the time. I haven't participated there in years, but I bet if you want to find an answer, it is a good place to look and a good place for reviews (even if some people do not like their style). Lesson Learned: A troll or dominant person can spoil a forum or group quickly and change the entire experience for visitors.
Digital Wedding Forum
The digitalweddingforum was a very nice place (at the time) and it was free to join (at the time). I met some very nice and experienced photographers there. We discussed many aspects of professionalism and such. We also were pushing through on leading edge stuff as Digital was taking over from Film. It is now a paid subscription place now and seems "very driven" to get you to sign up on the front end, with very little ability to see why. Over time, I focused my business on high-end portraits and turned down more and more weddings, to the point that I stopped going to DWF years ago as my focus is now on a single image rather than any kind of event. Lesson Learned: This was during the whole "is it Film or Digital" phase of photography. The lesson was that photographers were more hung up on that than the customer. UPDATE NOTE: I am now aware (due to this thread) that there is a FEE to join and view this forum now. It used to be a free forum.
Photo.net
I used to spend time at photo.net too back in about 2000-2001. I liked it. Then. Unfortunately, I was moving from film into DSLR digital photography (Big investments on equipment at that time) and at that time, the photo.net community was VERY film-oriented (what many here would call "old school" ) and....well...there was some real bias there and LOTS of negative response to digital issues or topics. I am sure that MUST have changed since then....I hope. Lesson Learned: New technology causes some people to get VERY uncomfortable and to feel at risk. New technology can unsettle a profession as the transition takes place. Lesson? Adapt or become obsolete.
photo.sig
This forum is very interesting because it posts SO MANY photos in a very easy to view format and from all over the world. I enjoyed seeing the travel photos and photos from people who obviously love photograph as amateurs (the real love). You can surf there and see thumbnails or what is like a light box (anyone remember those? ) and see a MIX of images all at one glance. As Nina pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, it also has a critique area below each photo where viewers can post short comments (like seen here). Those critiques are also critiqued too for helpfulness etc. That is different. I have seen lots of beautiful photos there when I visited some years ago. I decided I would NOT post my own photos there for one very important reason: There is no division into groups there. So that means that a photo of a young child may be displayed right next to an "erotic" photo (some looks like porn to me) and those two photos go through time and cyberspace together. As I did not want my clients to see their children's photos on a site that shows that kind of nudity and erotic images, I decided that it was not the place for me to display my own work. Lesson Learned: There is a need to have some segmentation so that photo types/subjects are not mixed inappropriately on a forum.
digitalBWtheprint
Another forum I really liked (years ago) was: digitalBW (the print). This was/is a forum (a Yahoo group) devoted to making fine digital BW prints. Lots of arcane knowledge there and lots of talent too as the stuff was cutting edge then (2001). We used to have a lot of fun discussing the nit-picky details of paper and inks. At one time I was a real "Fine Art Paper Review Guru" (for a while). It was a real "gear head" kind of place that melded with the desire to make truly cutting edge digital fine art prints. From that place, I learned more about the physics of particles (carbon) in suspension, than I ever did in my physics classes! I also invested many thousands of dollars into gear, ink, and papers...and time and effort. I will always remember with fondness, the look and FEEL of a highly textured 100% paper Carbon print. WOW....they were beautiful! They make typical black and white prints (c prints now) look....cheap and plastic! Lesson Learned: Sometimes one can get TOO focused on the minute and miss the big picture.
Zuga.net
Hemmm....just as I am writing this, I recall visiting a few times a place called "zuga.net." Back in about 2001. That place was interesting for the concept. It had lots of "stuff" going on in the interface with lessons, videos, "TV" channels devoted to photography and stuff like that. What I learned there was that some people can tend to dominate a forum (in a negative way) and how that inhibited others. There were more than a few "internet bullies" there and some of the discussions were pretty ridiculous. But, that is probably because it was a forum that started as an offshoot of a bunch of students of one photographer. So there was a "dominant" theme and approach to photography that was all based on that one view of photography. I thought it was a place "stuck" in a closed box, narrow focus (on a particular style or "school") mentality. Everyone was told to pose a certain way for example. Lesson Learned:Not every photography forum is open to different styles or creative approaches. UPDATE: I don't believe this forum still exists.
(can't recall name...something like "digitalphotography forum")
I seem to recall another "digital" oriented forum where people posted photos and they had contests and stuff like that. I truly don't remember the name at the moment, as I have not see it for years. But I do remember it was a "competition" oriented place and then they sold the prints for the best photos. Perhaps someone here knows that place and can tell others about it and how it works today.
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Each of these on-line communities has something to offer a photographer. I gained something from each experience. Sometimes it was very positive, sometimes (unfortunately) it was negative. Just like a big group of people, there are nice folks and there are 'trolls.'
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Also, I read something today about facebook. I have never posted anything on facebook before. Does it have some method of keeping pictures from being copied from the facebook account/wall/page? I think some forums have a covering transparent image or some other features designed to discourage copying of photos. I know Zenfolio or Flicker has something like that. Any input?
It has been years since I looked around at other forums and I have been so busy here. Just thought I would check and see how others find other forums on photography.
I am thinking of forums where photos are displayed or discussed, rather than just text forums.
Thanks in advance for any insights or opinions.
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