Hello. I'm soliciting discussion about online sharing of photos among members.

I know that there are at least a few folks who are trying their hand at various aspects of photography. Some feel that their photos are not ready for prime time but want to share them anyway to gain comments, tips, or recommendations. For example, Deborah is experimenting with tabletop shots of uranium (depression) glass that glows under black light. Cheryl showed us some tabletop stuff she's doing with artificial flowers and such. I'm always trying my hand in areas I'm unskilled at.

I think it would be useful to be able to place relatively large numbers of "not ready for prime time" digital photos somewhere on the internet so that other LPA folks can see them and comment. The LPA Forum has a section on "Picture Critique" but a) you have to store your photos somewhere else and provide links and b) the word "Critique" may scare some folks off. In any case the "Picture Critique" section is rarely used. We also have the LPA Gallery which is more suited for finished, high quality photos and, in my opinion, difficult to use. And we have the "Member Webpages" but I don't think that all that many members have their own webpages.

I've identified these possible sites, though there are probably dozens available.

- Google's Picasa http://picasa.google.com/. This one seems to be the simplest, most suited for friendly sharing, and almost everyone who uses the internet is familiar with Google.

- Fotki http://www.fotki.com which includes photo contests and allows viewing without registering or signing in.

- Deviant Art http://www.deviantart.com which has a great amount of experimental art but may be too polished and focused on sales for what I'm thinking.

- Renderosity http://www.renderosity.com which is similar to Deviant Art.

So:

- Is anyone else interested in sharing photos this way?

- Does anyone have experience with these, or other, public sites?

- Does anyone have any comments on how best to go about this?

Thanks. Glenn

Don

We have a "members articles" section that I would be more than willing to post some of your pictures along with an article, "if you are so inclined". It seens you are a natural writer and love to write.

http://www.lpaphotography.org/MemberArticles/Articles.html

I cant do it everyday or even every week, but once a month would be fine. That would fall under the line of Journalism.

Glen: You may want to take a look a creating a flickr group. That may be what your looking for.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/

I do like to write, that's for sure. I have a few more pictures I need to take if I am to do a "Member Articles" entry on the preserve. I'm in the middle of doing an extended field survey on the Alpha coyote family. I would like to submit a short bio on the growth patterns of the new litter pups, Fred and Sue.

Anyway, how do I get that story and pictures to you, Arley, once I am ready?

Don