Censorship and judgement on APUG and in the world...

[flatulent1]

The Internet is an interesting place. One must realize that it is in practice the foulest version of democracy, the version where ignorance is equal to knowledge, facts are arrived at by consensus, and anonymity or distance guarantees righteousness.

I don't worry much about it. This is a good Internet community, one of the best you will find, but it is still the Internet. You can get a lot out of it, but when you stand up it goes away. It is not real for most intents and purposes.

To paraphrase Tom Lehrer...

The internet is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

 

[Eric Rose]

Don't sweat it Stone. The conversations on APUG are probably 99% gear related. Most people coming here are not interested in discussing "art" or any other subjects relation to the finished product. Unless of course it's about what concentration of XYZ toner you used etc. This is not meant to be a harsh condemnation of APUG, certainly not. Another member years ago tried to encourage discussions about "art" etc and he left in total frustration. I just loved his parting shot "we could all eat shit and die". Too funny! I love APUG, it's a great community and one of the best when you have gear or process questions. Just don't expect any intellectual discussions when it comes to photography. Not to say there aren't people here that can and do offer intelligent commentary, but generally the signal to noise ration is pretty bad. Just take a look at the huge number of views for any nude photograph and that gives you a pretty accurate indication of the relative maturity/sophistication of many members.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Eric, speak for yourself!

Most are process, photo related IMHO.

PE

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

The conversations on APUG are probably 99% gear related. Most people coming here are not interested in discussing "art" or any other subjects relation to the finished product.

I think APUG's greatest contribution to photography is to give everyone at work a place to sneak off to during lunch, or those short mental breaks between two tasks, where they can spend a few moments reading about a subject that actually interests them (at whatever level).

I work from home most days, and I find it facinating to watch the ebb and flow of the members "Online" and photo gallery "Views" numbers as a function of the local time in all the time zones around the world. You can see it happening if you watch closely.

Ken

 

[Slixtiesix]

Stone,

let me say that I appreciate you, your work and contribution to APUG very much! I have not seen much of your work including people in the scenery but found the ones you posted in the Gallery all decent and tasteful (Including the B&W nude on the bed. I have not understood the deeper meaning of the railway series though.) and I want to encourage you to post more of it.

Best,
Slix

 

[StoneNYC]

Don't sweat it Stone. The conversations on APUG are probably 99% gear related. Most people coming here are not interested in discussing "art" or any other subjects relation to the finished product. Unless of course it's about what concentration of XYZ toner you used etc. This is not meant to be a harsh condemnation of APUG, certainly not. Another member years ago tried to encourage discussions about "art" etc and he left in total frustration. I just loved his parting shot "we could all eat shit and die". Too funny! I love APUG, it's a great community and one of the best when you have gear or process questions. Just don't expect any intellectual discussions when it comes to photography. Not to say there aren't people here that can and do offer intelligent commentary, but generally the signal to noise ration is pretty bad. Just take a look at the huge number of views for any nude photograph and that gives you a pretty accurate indication of the relative maturity/sophistication of many members.

Yes, thankfully I mostly come here for advice on the tech side anyway haha, but it's a good point to remind myself about, thanks

 

[StoneNYC]

Stone,

let me say that I appreciate you, your work and contribution to APUG very much! I have not seen much of your work including people in the scenery but found the ones you posted in the Gallery all decent and tasteful (Including the B&W nude on the bed. I have not understood the deeper meaning of the railway series though.) and I want to encourage you to post more of it.

Best,
Slix

Thanks, sadly that I have to say this, but you probably won't be seeing much of my Abandoned Books Project (the railroad image) because, it's very very lighting specific, very harsh and drastic, that was my LEAST drastic scene, and mostly because I f$%k3d up. I totally forgot to check the ratio of light from the strobe, to that of the ambient sunlight, and so I didn't "overpower the sun" so to speak, and ended up with a less dramatic image. The ONLY reason I was even shooting this on film was because my Canon 5D II had gotten water logged from Hurricane Sandy. I love shooting film, but there are some scenes that are just too complicated and I just have too little experience with in terms of reading the light that I can't fully "see" it on film yet. And it takes too long, if my normal shoot for that project is 3-5 hours, with film its MUCH longer. Setups take longer, check and recheck, too much film cost for big unknown shoots etc. Thankfully my camera was repaired by Canon. I just don't have the knack to shoot film with the kind of look I want for this project that I wish I had. I guess you'll just have to wait till I finish and then buy a paper book copy . I'll try to shoot some film images at some point, but it's not top priority for that.