It's quiet here

[Pea-n-Me]

I used to be on this forum a lot and when things sort of changed to phone photography I stopped checking so often. I never posted much, but read everyday. One of my favorite things was the scavenger hunt because it got me out with my camera. I would love to see it revived.

As the originator of the scavenger hunts here on the photography board, I just want to say that yes, those are a lot of fun, but it is also a TON of work to put them together. That’s great if there is participation, but when that dwindles, it takes away some of the motivation to do them. Speaking just for myself. PrincessinOz later took over and she may feel differently, idk.

Not unlike now, I am doing this Back to Basics thread for the casual user here, and participation is pretty low. I think that when someone puts that much effort into doing something, it’s helpful for people to at least join in. There is nothing wrong with phone photography, btw! If used to its fullest, one can eke out some pretty good photos on a phone, and it’s still very enjoyable!

Here we’ve talked about getting a new moderator to revive things but few want the job, unfortunately. It is also a lot of work and requires a commitment.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Since this is a Disney forum, I find you mostly get people who joined to ask questions about parks/food/resorts and then perhaps stay around for some of the other things being discussed. If you are an avid photographer not necessarily related to Disney, I doubt you would have found this board. I belong to some other non-Disney forums and the majority of users participate due to their interest in specific topics for which those forums were created.

If you mostly want to talk about photography, you can probably find photography forum sites with participants who have that interest. Disney fans who are also avid photographers are probably only a small subset of those who participate here.

That seems to be true today. I'm just nostalgic for a time about 15 years ago when this forum was active with avid photographers that loved photography and Disney. We were a big enough group to keep things interesting but a small enough group that you grew to know most of the major contributors. We had a variety of skill levels from experienced photographers to enthusiastic newbees. We shared. We critiqued. We encouraged. We argued. We had contests. We had assignments. We had scavenger hunts. We had some great moderators. It was a lot of fun.

I've been a member of several online photography discussion forums - DPReview, DGrin, Luminous Landscapes, Fred Miranda, and many others and I've enjoyed them. But I think my favorite was right here back when it was thriving. I liked the vibe here. It's hard to explain. I guess you had to be there.

Hopefully we can still use it as a place to talk about general photography. I hope that people are learning from the things Pea-n-Me is talking about in the Photo Tutorial thread and that they are benefiting from seeing the different approaches that the more experienced photographers on the thread are taking. I know that I learned a lot from similar threads here and elsewhere when I was earlier in my journey as a photographer.

 

[KVH]

I think the world has moved on. Phones have had such a huge impact on how people treat photography now. There was a time when relatively few guests took anything more than an Instamatic to the parks. And they were happy. Then came the Canon Rebel and everyone thought buying a DSLR would allow them to take better pictures. And they were happy (mostly). Then phones came along. And it wasn't the quality but the ability to take stills and video, plus the accessibility of their online albums that made people realize carrying 4-5 pounds of gear wasn't what they wanted. So they're really happy now.

I think this has affected the forum in many ways. Heck, I've seen it in many online discussions on other sites. Most of which end up revolving around gear and very few about the art and skill of actually shooting.

For good or bad, I think that's the way things are now. Whether I can accept it is another story. Then again, I still argue with myself every time I go whether to pack the macro lens. And agonize over my shot list, some of which I'm still trying to complete after 15+ years. But I realize I'm the odd man out here and happy to walk my own path.