Opening Day
Posted on: March 1, 201023 Comments |
Budding photographers need an outlet — a place to show their work, receive feedback, to be inspired and grow. For several years, Flickr has provided such a forum and served us well. On its endless pages, we’ve charted our own progress, forged transformational relationships, and individuated our artistic identities. As those identities develop and demand greater commitment from each of us, we’ve felt the urge to do more with our photographs. Going full-time pro or dropping it all and pursuing an MFA isn’t in the cards for any of us at this point and may not ever be. But that shouldn’t mean that we can’t engage with the art on a deeper level, reach a wider audience, and interact more meaningfully with our peers.
With these objectives in mind, four of us — Nicole Civita, Doug Hallam, Brad Martin, and Brian Wagner — determined to carve out a new space where we could both practice and ponder. After many Skype sessions and email exchanges, we put together a site that we are proud to unveil and eager to nurture. In designing this site, we aimed to strike the right balance between display and discussion. We treated ourselves to a dark background and the built in the ability to showcase our photos at the size and in the series intended. But we wanted to do more than just set up a virtual gallery for ourselves. We wanted to open the doors to the countless uncommonly talented and refreshingly creative folks who have a camera and are not afraid to use it. We want to talk about photography with you and see what you are shooting. We want to divulge a bit about own processes and learn more about what drives you.
We’ve been at this for a few weeks now — thinking about why we shoot, who we’re influenced by, what defines our style, and how our environment effects our art. We’ve taken on new projects. We’ve started sharing tricks for kick-starting our inspiration, walking through our processing techniques, and exploring different media.
We’re not seasoned pros and we’re not pretending to be. But we’ve each taken a few damn good pictures — and we want to keep getting better. We aren’t trying to cultivate a cult of personality. We simply believe in collaboration and community.
We’ve got abundant energy for this enterprise, but it won’t work with out your participation. We’re looking for thoughtful commentary and tough questions on each day’s post. We’re inviting you to participate by commenting on the articles, joining in the threads and submitting your photos to our companion Flickr group and following us on Twitter. And we’re planning to showcase lots of guest bloggers, because we all have unique perspectives to share.
Today, we are pointing our lenses in a different direction. We sincerely hope that you’ll refocus with us and start clicking.
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Recent Comments
- Ryan on Wasting Time
- Ryan on The Fight
- Ryan on Spinning Wheels
- Sam on Wasting Time
- Brad on Wasting Time
- nicole on The Fight
- Maria on Spinning Wheels
- Martin on Spinning Wheels
- Brian on Spinning Wheels
- Dee on Letting Go
March 1st, 2010 at 8:28 am
What a great idea folks! Can’t wait to get involved!
Congrats on your Grand Opening!
March 1st, 2010 at 8:43 am
great looking site, congratulations to you all. I wish you much success
March 1st, 2010 at 8:58 am
the website looks great, guys! looking forward to exploring it and participating when i have more time
March 1st, 2010 at 9:05 am
Woohoo! Excited for this. Great site and a great idea.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:05 am
very nice work!! look forward to more!
March 1st, 2010 at 9:13 am
Wow! love this is idea – thanks for inviting me.
March 1st, 2010 at 10:16 am
Congrats guys on the website opening. Now where are the streamers and free cookies?
March 1st, 2010 at 10:34 am
Oh man, this is so fantastic!!!! Very excited about this!
March 1st, 2010 at 10:54 am
You guys even have ads! Yowzers!
March 1st, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Great looking site guys!
this is a beautiful idea/reality/project.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:30 pm
congrats on all your hard work… it really shows!
March 1st, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Oh my word…the site looks amazing! You guys are awesome, I’m so excited about this!
March 1st, 2010 at 1:29 pm
It is so wonderful to see the fruit of all your hard work and initial idea come to life. I am excited to follow you and participate. Best of luck on this new venture. It looks fabulous….this whole time I thought March 1st was the day Brad was quitting flickr, for real.
I kid, I kid.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:05 pm
bad ass site kids and a bad ass idea.
bookmarked and will be back.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Cool, this is exciting and has excited me.
Good luck to you all.
Nice site.
(Joomla??)
March 1st, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Thank you all for your enthusiastic response. If you haven’t already, when you get a moment please do rifle through the archive and help the community at large by sharing your thoughts on the topics we’ve begun to explore.
We’ve got plenty ratting in our brains, but we’d also like to know what topics you’re interested in discussing.
Really, thanks for the warm welcome!
March 1st, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Very proud and excited for you all. I will gladly participate when I am able and lurk during the times in between.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Wow, this is soooo great! I look at the time I spend each day working on my 365 as a photography class. A learning experience. I live in a rural area, and wanted to improve my photography, and an actual class wasn’t really an option, but a camera and an audience is a good start. I think your new site is the next step I didn’t even realize I needed to take until today! Thanks!!
March 1st, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Sweet! You have the mobile add-on. Perfect on the iPhone.
March 1st, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Ken… cookies are in the mail!
It’s been great watching all the comments come in throughout the day. We truly appreciate the support and look forward to seeing what this community turns into. Thanks for taking the time to check us out today and don’t be shy about giving us some feedback!
@sumsion: I’m glad someone noticed it! The iPhone formatting is very slick.
March 1st, 2010 at 11:07 pm
i know i had a bit of a sneak peek, which i appreciate, but i just want to once again say congrats. you guys are first on my list of bookmarks
March 2nd, 2010 at 6:02 am
The site is absolutely gorgeous! I’m so excited to keep viewing and reading and being moved and inspired!
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:48 am
This is a wonderful site, it has already been added to my bookmarks and RSS feed. I like the unpretentious and excited feel to all of the blog posts so far! Great job, I think this site will go far.