Picking images for your galleries - Art vs Memories

This is sort of an extension of the topic of Skills vs Equipment, found here. I've been thinking a lot lately about re-designing my site, or having someone put together a framework for me since I can do the technical bits but not the artistic side of things.

Given that not many of the people I dive with are UW photographers, I am the defacto trip photographer. All throughout group trips I get "wow, that's a nice camera, must take great photos, you'll have to share them with me." More often than not, people don't really want to buy a lot of the photos, they just want to be able to see them, maybe get one or two special ones. I generally print an album, so some of my closer dive friends can see, but the vast majority on a larger trip only get to see them via the web.

Given that, I'm torn. I want to prune the images down to what I personally think are my best and only showcase those. The problem is, I've done that at times and had friends ask me not to, because they like even the crappy photos (or the ones I think are crappy but still might be better than the results from a cheap film P&S).

I guess what I'm getting at is how do you resolve the desire to only showcase the "art" or "portfolio" images, and still share the rest with friends if they want to see them? I guess this is where I have trouble with the diverging goals of photography for art and putting my best feet forward with simply helping people remember the great moments from their dive trip.

Any thoughts?

How about two different web sites, you could even put a password on one of them and only give it to your friends?

Tom,

In pbase you can set galleries to be viewable by the public and others as private. I would set up a gallery for each trip and only have it available through a specific link or passward. Thus, leaving your "artistic" shots viewable by all.

ps Good thing you bought the camera that takes the good pictures. LOL Don't you love when they say that. NO PASSWORD FOR YOU 1 MONTH!!!!

Interesting question Tom.

The funny thing is, I've found that the photos I like the best are seldom the ones that casual viewers or even topside photographers like the best. Obviously, my choices are based on knowledge of the marine critters, how hard it was to get the shot, etc. Most folks don't know or care about that...:-) So if you choose to display only the images you like best, you will not really be showing off all of your best stuff, as "best" is different for everyone.

On the other hand, it's YOUR gallery, right? So you should just show what you want and not worry about everyone else. If they want to see photos documenting the trip, they should buy their own **** camera, right? :-)

In any case, what I do is try to show a good variety of photos that have interesting subjects, good composition, and good lighting and exposure. YMMV

Cheers

James

Tom,

A great extension of my thread from yesterday....I've found myself in this predicament many times in the past few years traveling with a laptop which inevitably adds more work. Especially when leading trips with new photographers or dive customers. I've had folks ASSUME I'll be loading their digital files on MY laptop, organizing them and burning a finished CD! While I like to help people learn I'm not going to keep their images on my hard drive forever...

With 5 trips this year I've decided on a two-prong approach......

First, I'll burn folks a "trip photo" CD as long as they bring a blank CD for THEM to take home. I'm not going to package, ship, etc. after all teh toher tasks I need to do once I'm home.

Second (and I can't belive I'm agreeing with James) images I post either on a pbase gallery or eventually a personal photography web site will be what I want to show as my work. Those who've visited my pbase link know I post a very limted number of images.... I'll likely keep doing so subscribing to the less is more philosophy.

David Haas

www.pbase.com/dhaas

I will not be subscribing to the adage that posting all photos that people want to see anymore either.

I am going to try to stick to a 1 to 2 photos per dive day for a goal to narrow down to for galleries...or, should I say try to achieve 1 or 2 suitable photos?

David, et al,

The thread from yesterday really was what prompted me to ask the question. Part of me reacted to the thread yesterday with sort of a "how pretentious can we all be, isn't this supposed to just be for fun?" attitude. But another part of me really does feel that I should trash 95% of what I've shot and only keep the very best of it and not show anything else to anyone. Just in the last few months I've found myself starting to try to previsualize shots, which I never did before. Still got a long way to go, but it's a start.

Part of my problem with the "all the photos from the trip" mentality is that I'm just too damn lazy (and don't have enough time) to categorize them all the way I'd like to. If it were 10 shots for a 5 day trip (subscribing to Todd's goal of 1-2 suitable images per day) it would be much more managable.

James, you're right on with "get your own ***** camera". As I mentioned, out of a group of almost 40 divers on a shop sponsored trip in Feb, maybe 5 had film P&S cameras, and 1 other had a housed Canon A70. Of those, only a couple got any shots they thought were worth keeping, so it's only logical that I should supply them with photos, right?!?! It's funny how some people react (even if they aren't friends and thus don't have any reason to expect something for nothing) when you say "sure, I'd be happy to get you prints made, my standard charge per print is $X".

I like the idea of a separate site for "portfolio work" and some private areas for everything else. I'll probably do something like that with my site moving forward. James is right though, what I personally see as my best is not always in line with what other non-photographers see as the best. Just goes to show that everything is about personal preference.

Tom I hear you load and clear.

On a recent rip I was asked by someone to bring them back a photo of "x". I explained like you a standard cost and they gave me that alien look. I felt like saying that instead they can buy me the camera, the plane fare, accomodations and diving and I can then give then them the photo.

But, I like you do it for fun, and it is still fun.

I must also admit that I think we should be cautious in criticizing the pictures that are the same as every other frogfish we have ever seen. Many people, like myself still try to emulate shots they see as we are still developing. While yes, trying to come up with some unique perspectives.

We do need to encourage people new to U/W photography while also inspiring those that have been doing it for a while and mastered some basics. All while trying hard to be politically correct. Sometimes I start to feel I should put disclaimers on threads to try to avoid offending someone unintentionally.

ps The comments above are not meant as a negative comment on any thread, website or user of any website and should not be relied upon as the truth or accurate facts in any manner. LOL

Don't get me wrong I love the thread that encourages out of the box thinking. We need more threads that are more perspective than technical.

Another option is to have your own personal gallery site, like a few of us have, but have another site for "boat aquaintenances" (sp????) to buy prints of whatever they want.

A good site is printroom.com as you can set up a gallery and post "events" there. You could literally dump EVERYTHING into a "trip" event gallery and folks could order whatever prints they want. There are a lot of sites that do this, but Printroom is set up mainly with Event Photographers in mind.

Cheers

James

PS, here's what an example "Event Gallery" looks like:

http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?u...allery_id=30148

I'm with you Todd, emulating "that same old shot" is a huge part of learning for most of us. When I do finally get the shot that everyone else seems to have already gotten, I'm pretty darn proud of it, at least until I replace it with something I like better. Just because someone else has done it before doesn't mean I'm not happy I did it too!!

As for adding disclaimers, some people are seriously offended by overly PC people!

P.S. Good idea James. I've got some stuff on different sites like DotPhoto, but never thought of it as a place to dump all my excess trip photos.

Tom, Todd, James and all,

Ditto on Todd's last post......My comments are interspersed with as many smiley faces as possible and I sure hope folks don't take anything personal. Those I've met know me as a self-deprecating person, willing to be the brunt of all jokes not taking myself or my photos too seriously....If you don't believe that, we just haven't shared a beer yet....Or 2, 3 or more

I'm happy on this forum we can agree to disagree, even strongly, and still share thoughts and ideas. Some UW photo discussion groups are SO anal that there's no room for different ideas...And I think that hurts underwater imaging....

One other comment on the "less is more" philosophy which was recently coined best by a humorous sign off from Phil Colla (www.oceanlight.com) Phil's a great photographer and his sign off read:

Phillip Colla

www.oceanlight.com

10,000 images / 3,000 + visitors per day / where's the money?

Unfortunately, this is pretty true today due to the capability we all have in underwater imaging tools and then our COMPUTERS!

If anyone wants to ever flame me for my posts, feel free as this old codger has a thick skin But I hope my comments are taken in the spirit of exploring and expanding underwater digital photography.

David Haas