APUG gallery

severian · Aug 16, 2006

I've been going through the APUG members gallery and it is huge. Save my poor hand from cramping up. Whose work do you recommend that I view? Who are the best (i know it's subjective and I will not define "best") photographers represented in this gallery?
Jack

philldresser · Aug 16, 2006

What style of photography do you like?
Are you looking for inspiration or technique?

Phill

thebanana · Aug 16, 2006

Take your time, and check out as many as you can. You never know what you'll find. Following someone else's recommendation is sure to be somewhat limiting.

Davec101 · Aug 16, 2006

severian said:
I've been going through the APUG members gallery and it is huge. Save my poor hand from cramping up. Whose work do you recommend that I view? Who are the best (i know it's subjective and I will not define "best") photographers represented in this gallery?
Jack

A method you might start at is changing the way the APUG galleries display members, as this is quite a good indicator of finding popular/interesting images. Change the way its sorts from alphabetic to Views high to low. It cetainly works for me as my all time favourite galleries are at the top that being Thomassauerwein , Cheryl Jacobs, Sportera, Gandolfi.

Matthewt · Aug 16, 2006

I have work in the gallery. I would be so bold to say that I am the best. I have sold work from the gallery as well. Not many sales, but a few. Thanks for looking.

jovo · Aug 16, 2006

Matthewt said:
I would be so bold to say that I am the best.

Yup....that's pretty bold all right! It might serve you well to wait until you garner that kind of accolade from someone other than yourself. Having looked at what's on your site, that someone will not be me.

naturephoto1 · Aug 16, 2006

jovo said:
Yup....that's pretty bold all right! It might serve you well to wait until you garner that kind of accolade from someone other than yourself. Having looked at what's on your site, that someone will not be me.

I agree with John on this one.

Rich

arigram · Aug 17, 2006

No, don't listen to him. I am the best. Not only in photography, but in everything.

David H. Bebbington · Aug 17, 2006

Davec101 said:
A method you might start at is changing the way the APUG galleries display members, as this is quite a good indicator of finding popular/interesting images. Change the way its sorts from alphabetic to Views high to low. It cetainly works for me as my all time favourite galleries are at the top that being Thomassauerwein , Cheryl Jacobs, Sportera, Gandolfi.

I tried this and noted to my surprise that #1 on the charts is a picture with 5165 views, with several other having racked up numbers in the thousands as well. I must say, while these pictures are good, they do not strike me as being as superior to the other gallery pictures as these numbers might suggest.

Jon Shiu · Aug 17, 2006

I don't claim to be the best, but you might want to look at my pictures anyway.

Jon

Davec101 · Aug 17, 2006

David H. Bebbington said:
I tried this and noted to my surprise that #1 on the charts is a picture with 5165 views, with several other having racked up numbers in the thousands as well. I must say, while these pictures are good, they do not strike me as being as superior to the other gallery pictures as these numbers might suggest.

Hi David

When I go into the 'All APUG Subscriber Galleries' and review results by 'Views high and low' it comes up with Thomassauerwein, whose 58 images have been viewed 23249 times. Likewise with Cheryl Jacobs, her 61 images have been viewed 21597 times. I think this is possibly a a good indicator of whose work one might want to look at first to get a general idea of the quality of work at APUG. David, you must being doing something different than me or maybe i am not explaining it properly.

jovo · Aug 17, 2006

Without meaning to reflect in any way on the worthiness of people's work in the gallerys, keep in mind that the gallerys used to be structured differently than they are now. Earlier on, every time a comment was posted to a photograph, the 'graph moved back to the beginning of the gallery postings. Thus, for example, one of my images that received a LOT of comments kept being returned to the beginning of the list where it could, in effect, start all over again. When Sean changed the default way that images were displayed in the gallery, 'number of views' declined considerably because they'd get to the second or third page much faster where fewer people bother to look. Also...the number of subscribers posting images has vastly increased so that also propels them along more quickly as well. And folks who only post to their own gallery rather than the standard or critique gallerys 'disappear' even faster. Lastly, of course, the gallerys are now subscriber only, where once they were able to be viewed by anyone visiting this site.

Another thing to consider is that some people do not consider posting scans of their work to fairly represent it's considerably higher quality when seen 'in person', so many of those folks rely on print exchanges and such to have their work seen...not on views in the gallery.

anyte · Aug 17, 2006

jovo said:
Without meaning to reflect in any way on the worthiness of people's work in the gallerys, keep in mind that the gallerys used to be structured differently than they are now. Earlier on, every time a comment was posted to a photograph, the 'graph moved back to the beginning of the gallery postings. Thus, for example, one of my images that received a LOT of comments kept being returned to the beginning of the list where it could, in effect, start all over again. When Sean changed the default way that images were displayed in the gallery, 'number of views' declined considerably because they'd get to the second or third page much faster where fewer people bother to look. Also...the number of subscribers posting images has vastly increased so that also propels them along more quickly as well. And folks who only post to their own gallery rather than the standard or critique gallerys 'disappear' even faster. Lastly, of course, the gallerys are now subscriber only, where once they were able to be viewed by anyone visiting this site.

Another thing to consider is that some people do not consider posting scans of their work to fairly represent it's considerably higher quality when seen 'in person', so many of those folks rely on print exchanges and such to have their work seen...not on views in the gallery.

A post well worth repeating.

Gene_Laughter · Aug 17, 2006

Matthewt said:
I have work in the gallery. I would be so bold to say that I am the best. I have sold work from the gallery as well. Not many sales, but a few. Thanks for looking.

Mirror, mirror on the wall ... :>)

David H. Bebbington · Aug 18, 2006

Davec101 said:
Hi David

When I go into the 'All APUG Subscriber Galleries' and review results by 'Views high and low' it comes up with Thomassauerwein, whose 58 images have been viewed 23249 times. Likewise with Cheryl Jacobs, her 61 images have been viewed 21597 times. I think this is possibly a a good indicator of whose work one might want to look at first to get a general idea of the quality of work at APUG. David, you must being doing something different than me or maybe i am not explaining it properly.

What I did was go into the Standard Gallery and select "Sort By Views" and "Descending." I tried what you suggest, which worked and among other things revealed myself at #72!
I feel what others have said about the way the galleries work, and the changes to this, have had an effect on the figures. For example, in the case of Thomassauerwein, 58 images viewed 23249 times means an average of just over 400 views per image. With the present system, I don't see anyone getting this number of views per image, no matter how good these are.

Regards,

David

David A. Goldfarb · Aug 18, 2006

Another route is to click on a participant's name or avatar in the forums, and navigate to the link that will show all their images posted in the galleries, and/or if they've listed their personal website, you can find their work there.

Alex Hawley · Aug 18, 2006

David H. Bebbington said:
I tried this and noted to my surprise that #1 on the charts is a picture with 5165 views, with several other having racked up numbers in the thousands as well. I must say, while these pictures are good, they do not strike me as being as superior to the other gallery pictures as these numbers might suggest.

David, that one with 5165 views may have been one of mine. It seems that when one of the big site revisions went into effect, a couple of mine suddenly accumulated those large numbers of views. I have no idea of when it occurred or why, just that all of a sudden, they were there.

Drew B. · Aug 18, 2006

Who knows why a given image is looked at. All you see is a thumbnail image on each sheet. It has to be one of two things: something about the image or the way it is laid out that catches our immediate attention. Once inside, it might not be as good as you thought. Another reason people go into a certain image is they are friends with the member or like this person's other work and so they look further. On the other hand, one might not like that person and even if he/she is a good photographer, the work might not be looked at or no comment given. Some do a lot of experimentation and some do none. That gets people looking or not looking...depending on ones likes. And lets not forget subject matter....portraits, landscapes, flowers, houses, etc. Its all in what grabs your attention. As far as past comments on this thread...I agree that past the first or second sheet of the gallery, I don't look further. In fact, after a few days, I will deleat my own images believing the image will no longer be seen. I do think some galleries should be set up by subject matter.

drew

Cheryl Jacobs · Aug 18, 2006

Just a few thoughts...

Asking "which photographers are the best" is a lot like asking "which film is the best" and the answer is "it depends".

What kind of photography do you do? What kind do you like to look at? What kind of light moves you? What subject matter most draws your eye? I could tell you that Diane Arbus is the best photographer ever, and a landscape lover would call me a liar.

Don't confuse popularity with quality.

I would suggest that you read through as much old APUG stuff as you can, and when you find a member whose comments and perspective interest you, search for their work. It's a lot more fun, and a lot deeper, than simply being told that so-and-so is good.

- CJ

severian · Aug 19, 2006

not looking for inspiration!

Phil and banana,
I'm not looking for inspiration or aesthetic/spiritual/metaphysical guidance. I just think it would be interesting to see which photographers on the APUG galleries make you weep of make you want to cry?
Jack

noseoil · Aug 19, 2006

For children's work this is an easy question, Cheryl & Nicole must be the winners. No one has the depth of feeling that they do.

For nudes I would have to say it is Thomas and Faye at the top.

Abstracts, of late Donald Miller's work has shown a very large leap in vision, substance and technique, not that it wasn't already pretty good. It just gets better.

Architecture, landscape and generally top of form would have to be be Francesco, but he hasn't posted an image in over a year. Jorge comes to mind as well.

Landscapes become more difficult, Steve Sheppard, Alex Hawley, Ryan, there are too many good ones here to list.

Technique and technical proficiency would go to Sandy King, as well as being an all around class act and mentor.

Heck, take a look at some of these folks and you will get a lesson in photography. tim

catem · Aug 19, 2006

The work in the galleries is very rich and varied.

I'm not going to suggest my own personal favourites because, dare I say it, subjectivity plays a role here. It's not too unlike asking people what their favourite colour is....

I think the best thing is take some time to explore and make your own decisions.

Cate

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