An IBM tech has come to replace the motherboard of one of my 1U servers. He doesn't require my help or even my attention, but I have to remain in the data room where I am currently babysitting him. Anyway... I have a few moments to share some thoughts.

First of all, Brian wrote a lovely blog about Lomography. He's a passionate film photographer and artist. Check out his blog.

The next part of this blog arrives here thanks to the urging of one of my cohorts in mischief. Here you go, Chris... Recently, for a social experiment of sorts, I began posting photos on onexposure. My goal was to get one rejected, a goal which I achieved on my third post. The photograph in question was rejected for lack of sharpness and snapshot quality. It was a Holga shot made with Portra film. It also had poor lighting. Actually, I kind of like the lighting. It's soft and wintery. Here's the photo which met my goal of rejection:

Bringer of Winter

I'm guessing there is a chance that the pickers didn't know what a Holga is, which brings me to my point. Everything is a question of audience.

Yesterday, I took a Time-Zero shot with film expired in 1999. It was one of those rare times when I waited in anticipation as the shot developed, because I could see I was going to like it (and I did). I quickly scanned it but didn't post it anywhere. Instead, I sent it electronically to a few friends to seek their thoughts and to share. Once I decided to share the shot online, I posted it in two different places... Polanoid and deviantART. I saved it for my blog here. Again, I was doing a little experiment. On Polanoid, it drew attention, and even though the audience there is small, it got many votes for SoTD (Shot of the Day). On dA (as of writing this blog) it has received 4 favorites and twenty views. In the dA world, it is doing very poorly indeed. Here is the Polaroid...

Memento from the Underworld

In the past, I used to spend lots of time sending poems to editors to be accepted or rejected. Some of my poetry was published. Much more of it was rejected! I'm a seasoned acceptor of rejection now. One thing that's great about photography, though, is that you can always find an audience, even if it's an online audience, and there are so many audiences from which you can choose. It's more difficult to get people to invest time in reading your poems. Just as it's important to be selective about what photography you view, it's essential to be equally selective about whose opinions you seek. If you value someone's inherent aesthetic, even the negative criticism you receive from that person will be meaningful.

:-)