This is the title of a photoblog by Gerry Gomez, and was pointed out to me by a friend. (How do we find new and interesting photographs? That's the subject of another post)

©G Gomez 2008

I look at a lot of photographs on the web, most of them are pretty good, and it makes you wonder how to make sense of what people are doing with the camera these days. Because he was recommended to me, maybe I paid a bit more attention than I would have done if I'd stumbled upon the site myself, however there is something about the images. and especially the procession of the images that kept me turning the page. First of all, there is no commentary, no titles and little explanation other than the occasional headline. The photos have to speak for themselves.

©G Gomez 2008

There are no obvious hard hitting images here, there are no jokes and there are no formal compositional devices just for their own sake. There is variety, and obvious thematic motifs.

©G Gomez 2008

I've chosen to show three portraits to give you an idea, but the scope of his work is much more than this. Many thanks to Gerry for allowing me to publish his photos here. I recommend that you go and have a look yourself

Lawrence Ripsher posted this interesting article. While it at looks at three websites offering photo critique (well known ones) it is nicely balanced and along with a lot of comments it gives a good indication of what people look for and expect in the way of photo critique, and their experience of these sites.

Actually Lawrence's blog is full of interesting stuff - well worth a visit

Australian photographer Geoff Powell has started a new blog on his photographica website. It looks good and is going to concentrate on talking about photographs and photography. Good stuff I say!

I've commented before that I think the value of photography is being devalued by an emphasis on just looking at the next cool image. Nothing wrong with looking at and enjoying nice images, but I think we shouldn't forget that most art, and a lot of photography is art, only reveals itself after we have considered and thought about it. Minor White, I think, said we shouldn't even consider evaluating a photograph until we'd looked at it for half an hour. A lot of excellent imagery on current photo sites probably only gets 10 seconds because of the deluge we are experiencing.

Thinking is often at it's best when stimulated by debate, which starts with talking of course, and blogs are an excellent vehicle for this. I look forward to more photo blogs which make us stop, look and think, rather than click, look and click again.

I've been doing a lot of browsing lately of websites, particularly Photoblogs. By these I mean sites primarily devoted to showing the users photographs (unsurprisingly), allowing comments and updated regularly, often with a theme. Usually there is a potted auto-bio - "about me" - and I'm surprised by the number of these that start with the disclaimer, "I'm not a photographer, I just..etc etc..".

As far as I am concerned as soon as you take a photograph you are a photographer, especially if you make the photograph available for anyone to view and comment on. So what elevates you to the pantheon of "photographers"? Is it technical ability, the fact you get paid to take photographs, the approbation of others (ie you get voted in) or is it that your photographs have vision (whoever is going to adjuicate on that).

Maybe these self-deprecating statements are just bashfullness, or fear of being thought pretentious, or of taking yourself too seriously. I don't know. Certainly the quality of many of these sites is high enough to put many acknowledged photographers to shame.

This is an old topic of course, but I'd be interested if anyone else has an opinion