Photo Sites

Some objections have been raised to the listing linked in the previous post. So what are the best photo sharing sites? Chris S. nominates altphotos.com, for instance, and Howard French obviously likes flickr (I don't, so much, because I dislike the everything-oversharpened-all-the-time look).

I typically visit Trek Earth, because at least it's organized around identifiable places—the tendency of most online photographers to not identify, and thus seemingly not to even care about, where on Earth their pictures were taken drives me insane—and pbase and PhotoSig because I'm a lens nut and those sites identify pictures by the lenses used to make them.

Any other good ones? Reasons?

______________________

Mike

Comments

[Markus Puustinen]

deviantART has a lot of good stuff if you bother filter through the typical teen angst and the cute dog pictures and such.

[dyathink]

Altphotos..because, like the caffeine rush from a double expresso, i can always count on a jolt of inspiration there when i need it the most. (sunsets, baby/kitty pics and conventional flower macros need not apply)

[Andy]

Altphotos for me too. Their long-awaited new server has speeded things up only ever-so-slightly, but it's always worth waiting for. Get an insight on how the eastern european eye works - there's a big contribution from Polish, Czech and Russian photographers - often rather disturbing, ideosyncratic work which transcends the usual photo-site contributions. Mind you, having just come back from Latvia I reckon I can understand why......

[Adam Isler]

I used to be on PhotoSite which offered great facilities for designing and organizing your work, but mostly featured people's family and holiday snaps. Then they closed down.

On a tip from Strobist I've now signed up with Zenfolio ( you can see me at http://islerphoto.zenfolio.com ). It seems to have pretty good keywording and search capabilities as well as other EXIF data if the photographer enables it. They also allow non-photographers to organize their favorites across multiple photographers into collections of their own.
Adam

[Jonathan Irwin]

You got it in one with flickr - I quite like it, but the thing that drives me up the wall is the ridiculous amount of sharpening it applies, that seemingly cannot be turned off (unless I'm missing something). Would also be nice to have a larger default image size, especially for pano shots which always come out absolutely tiny with 500 pix width.

The "solution" to the oversharpening problem I adopted was to upload images soft (i.e. with less than the usual USM applied post-scan). I eventually guesstimated the right amount, but of course the corollary is that they look dreadful when viewed large...

The whole thing smells of being designed really to take JPEGs straight out of camera from digicams and cell phones. It's a pity, since the "community" aspect has generated a large gathering of (film) enthusiasts, and a vast repository of ideas for mucking around with developers, alternative techniques, etc. via the groups and tags system, unlike other photo sites I have used.

Sorry, just had to get that off my back. I also use pBase, and note that it was somewhat mis-represented in that article. Snag with that is I get on better with the "stream" concept, never being able to produce any kind of coherent series of images for more than a couple of shots...

[Marek]

Speaking of Eastern Europe http://www.onephoto.net/ was quite good when I used to frequent it a while back. You'll have to forgive it being in Polish though. Photography is quite a popular hobby this part of the world - and the kind with understanding behind it.
mk

[Thiago]

I like the premise and the content of www.onexposure.net

[Jack Bush]

May I suggest http://my-expressions.com if no one else has? I post there every day but, aside from that, it offers a good range of picture approaches and styles. The occasional sunset but usually with a redeeming feature.

[Ken Tanaka]

I have used PBase for several years and have been very pleased with it. I have no interest in the "social" photo sites like flickr and smugmug. PBase offers nearly every feature I want without the kiddie entertainment. You might be astonished at how much stock and related work comes my way through PBase.

Nevertheless, I've been chided and bashed by four art directors, two prominent gallery owners, one "very well known" photographer (just this year!) for not having a site of my own. So I'm in the process of doing that. But I'll probably still keep some work at PBase.

[Tim]

How about panoramio? It doesn't get much more aware of geo-location than that; your pics will appear by default in everyone's Google Earths after a few months.

[E.B.]

I'm surprised no one mentioned Smugmug. It's customizable and has a number of tracking features. The Pro account allows you to set your own prices and sell directly from your site.

[KeithAlanK]

Flickr only applies sharpening to the default size photo you get when clicking on a thumbnail. Hitting the 'All Sizes' button gives you the unadulterated original version unless the photographer is too paranoid about theft to allow this, or hasn't figured out that they should only upload jpgs that are sized and optimized sharpening-wise for browser windows. Any image-size upload is possible if you know what you're doing.
The social aspect of Flickr makes it more fun than any other sharing site I've tried and now I even enjoy it more than blogging, despite my initial resistance. The Strobist Flickr Group is a fantastic resource for lighting technique and technology.
If you told me a year ago that I would be defending Flickr...

[Nicole]

For me it has been flickr for two years, but since they got bought by yahoo and staff grew more arrogant than was good for them I left.

I am at www.Ipernity.com right now and more than happy.
It has been a site to share pictures, blogs, videos and music.
Since a bunch of flickr folks ended up there they started adding a lot of things and they constantly keep improving.
They are still close to the people and have an open ear (yes, like flickr has been in the early days...)

You can upload up to 1000 pictures for free and have all the other options as well.

None of the other sites impressed me much.

I have started using www.RedBubble.com as well.
It's not actually a picture sharing Site, it's more a Gallery where you can also sell your art, but since someone mention Deviant, I thought, I might give the Australians a chance too ;)

[Stephen Scharf]

I have used ImageEvent since 2003, and like it. I use it only for image hosting. Rates are approx. $25/yr and in four years, I have yet to fill up the space that that buys you. It is easy to create, edit, and provide different levels of access priveleges to galleries. it also provides you with different levels of resolution you can host, as accomodates a very large no. of file formats, including video.

I make no claim for Flick being the place that makes pictures look their very best, or that displays them in the most artful way. It doesn't do either.
I do think Flickr is unmatched in terms of the quantity of photography it hosts, and once one knows how to navigate it to one's advantage, I made the case that Flickr is among the best places to see a huge and ever-changing variety of really excellent work, mostly but not exclusively by amateurs.
It takes a little savvy, but in as little as 10-15 minutes every day I can find an abundance of really good work to look at, to study, to draw inspiration from and to learn from.
You can get a sense of this by visiting my Flickr page and clicking the link for my "Favorites" which appears there.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aglimpseoftheworld/
I add to this collection almost every day.
Howard French

[Robert Roaldi]

I like pbase too. SImple, no fuss. And I too like to know where a photo was taken when the subjecy is obviously related to a specific location.

[Steve Weeks]

It seems the topic of so many photographs, made by so many people, with so little depth, is not a new subject. I found it strange the newly arrived book literally popped open to this page.

Letter from A. Stieglitz to E. Weston- 3 September 1938

"Yes there seems to be millions on millions of photographers & billions of photographs made annually but how rare a really fine photograph seems to be. "Interesting" shots. Its a pathetic situation.- So little vision. So little seeing.- So little inness in any print.-Lots of cleverness banale and stupid.-I fear I'm an old man".

Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings, page 218

[Matt Linden]

I enjoy several of the above. But I can find some beautiful pictures on www.smugmug.com also.

[XebastYan]

i use and enjoy flickr.com
i am doing photowalks as often as i can. i'm not a professional (or a person who load only the best ones up)....
i like flickr because of its big range of people, it's pools from art over techtalk over awarding, it's simply and intuitive functions, the comments others can give me and to see very fast if my photos work.
everyone can use it as he/she wants. it's simple to click away the big sum of flowers, pets and lousy snaphots

[cynlee]

Have tried several..

Renderosity- where I started "posting" 7 years ago.. there the Photography section takes a back seat to 3D, pros eventually move on & what one can post & say can be pretty restrictive :P

Innertraveler- small & just didn't get good vibes there 0.)

DeviantArt- found it to be loaded with cutesie options geared towards a "younger" crowd but agree, there is good art to be found :I

flickr- one can get lost & totally left by the wayside if you don't join a group & a bit wary of it being a place where images are constantly being snagged for free use by the general public :(

right now I'm trying out Photo.net.. so far so good.. ;)

have PhotoSIG & photodom bookmarked but hadn't tried them :/

will have to take a look at some of the others mentioned here.. TY :0)