Editing Is Everyone’s Business
June 17, 2009
June is a big month of photography in New York City.
Its a month dripping with interesting things to do, happenings to attend, people to observe, and fine weather to enjoy. My personal favorite events to photograph, the Mermaid Parade in Coney Island and the Queer Pride Parade in Manhattan usually fall on the same weekend resulting in complete collapse sunday night as my sunburned flesh gives in to fatigue. This year they fall on consecutive weekends so at least I’m spared back to back days of street high energy street shooting.
While many older and perhaps more serious photographers scorn it, I enjoy flickr a great deal. After an event I like to see what other people took away from it. Even people who consider themselves snappers with point and shoot cameras can often surprise themselves. Let’s not forget the legions of avid amateurs who have high performance machines tightly gripped in their right hands and a decent amount of proficiency at Photoshop or Lightroom to boot. Thousands of cameras will converge on the same scene and all go home with gigabytes of dirt cheap memory cards filled to the brim. Even without a camera nearly everyone has a phone with a built in camera which are surprisingly good for snapshots in bright sunlight.
And they’ll post every single pixel of it into their photostreams.
Cream has a way of rising to the top but when its got a lot of shit in the way it might take days, weeks, months, or years to do so. I’m being overly judgmental but I think its important for people to realize that when they post things to a public people do want to look at them. Photographs have many purposes one of which is information.
There’s a term from electronics called “signal to noise” which has crept into common usage. Quite simply its the ratio of useful stuff to distraction. When someone comes home from an event and uploads 500 photos to flickr using the bulk tool to label them all “Figment Festival” or whatever event they just went out to which features 400 pictures of people’s backs with no sense of place they’ve just made it very difficult for someone to find out what happened at the festival. Multiply the 500 photos by the thousand people who brought their camera and you could easily have half a million photos of an event within 12 hours of its occurance. Even if a thousand people only post 10 photos each that’s an astounding amount of information to sort through. If you’re a performer who wants to contact a photographer who has some photos of their performance, you’re suddenly looking at a Sisyphean task which only grows more onerous as more and more memory cards are unleashed.
This isn’t a matter of aesthetics its a matter of being a good member of a community. Flickr is a community of users. Its just not the people on your contact list, its the general public. Perhaps its just a matter of my most liberal of liberal arts education putting exotic ideas in my head but being part of the community means doing good for that community. How can you increase the utility of the community? How can you enlighten, share, teach, communicate, show, and delight?
By not posting a bunch of shit that people have to sift through to find the nuggets of information they value.
I’m not asking for people to judge their photographs on artistic merits before posting. That’s my personal hangup. What I am asking is that they realize that they’re not alone. A little thought and a little bit of typing can easily improve the utility of any community like flickr for the general public. Simply tell us what it is and be honest. No one asks for great art, but when they search for something they do want to be given an answer. Ask yourself, does this photo tell me anything. What does it say? Label it as such. When you ask for an apple, you want an apple, not an egg. Be sure to extend the same thoughtfulness to others.
As I’m writing this there’s unrest in Iran. The government has been attempting to shut out foreign journalists to control the flow of information. Individuals using social networking sites have been able to get around the government blockage and have been telling their stories to the rest of the world. These are just a bunch of students and young professionals who have the same facebook account you do. Now they find themselves in the middle of a contested election that has started the largest series of protests since the ousting of the Shah. Just normal people. Who want to speak. And want you to hear.
Photos are important parts of their stories. Be a little thoughtful and make sure that each channel is clear so the signal can be heard.
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