I've been finding myself vaguely dissatisfied with the Gallery and have decided to express some of my thoughts about it with the hope of spurring some discussion with an eye to possible changes in that area. Those who submit become real photographers to me. The aggregated knowledge and experience those who post to this group is quite a resource, but having a regular opportunity to see people's photographs has definite significance. Submissions cover a very wide range of subject style and quality. This can be frustrating, particularly in relation to reviewing the gallery, there are quite a few instances where I'm not sure of my ability to avoid being either insensitive or ignorant. Finding something to say about 20 pictures by 20 photographers is a time consuming task, which means that I (and perhaps other list members?) don't manage to say anything about the pictures that really strike us. I've recently been making an effort to submit a photo every week if possible. It's frustrating when there's little response. It's also reasonable to expect that there will often be less reaction than one might wish. I often find myself wanting to know more about a picture than I have been told. I also don't always get around to asking. It seems that a good annotation can at least at times provide an opening for deeper discussion. It would still be nice to figure out ways to be able to respond more frequently to other people's gallery submissions and to get more frequent and detailed responses to my own pictures from others. I feel that a lot of the time the gallery submissions suffer from being crunched into the available space. I know I often see pictures that seem likely to be lacking in technical ways which may be mostly the result of being jpegged down. Also, I know I have submitted pictures that lost quite a bit when reduced to meet the gallery specs. I'm considering responding to gallery postings individually or in small groupings, mostly in the hope of actually responding to more of them. I also want to figure out a good way to supply a link to a larger better version of my own postings, either in a brief post to the list or else as a link in the gallery description. Would anyone have any objection to the former? or idea of how to do the latter? -- Alan P. Hayes Pittsfield, Massachusetts <http://www.meaningandform.com/photography> <mailto:ahayes@berkshire.rr.com>
