Has photo.net lost it’s way?
I’ve not been a huge fan of photo.net, as a whole; the website can never seem to decide if it’s going to be Phil Greenspun’s personal, idiosyncratic editorial outlet, an online cookie-cutter clone of Popular Photography, or an online “community” with a well-above-average quote of both idiots and snobs.
Well, Greenspun has written a new editorial recently; like most of his editorials, he manages to find gratuitous reasons to remind you just how wealthy he is, which I find grates on my nerves. Yes, Phil, we get it; you’re rich.
Well, as it turns out, so are the “average” photo.net visitors. “Our average reader is a 40-year-old gearhead with a $100,000 annual salary who plans to spend $3,000 in the next 12 months on camera equipment.” This just confirms what I’ve long suspected - that photo.net is the haven for Hasselblad fondlers, Leica fetishists, and rich dilettantes with more money than ability. So, too, does Greenspun’s comment “Expect to see more about digital cameras and less about film”.
$3,000 per year in the U.S. is, if you develop your own B&W, a roll of film a day. If you shoot color, it’s a roll every two to three days. That’s a lot of pictures. If you’re halfway intelligent, you’ll learn a lot in the process, and develop (no pun intended) as a photographer. As opposed to, say, blowing the bank on the most overpriced digital camera, and chimping in lieu of learning anything.
The problem is, none of the other photograpy forums are any better. APUG, the “Analog Photography Users Group”, has been largely taken over by large-format and ultra-large-format artistes. Nearly everywhere else you turn you can’t move without tripping over some Digital Rebel owner without two clues to rub together (and who doesn’t know what a “search function” is).
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