I feel a rant coming on...

Proceed with caution, here comes a rant.

I am often amazed by the cloak of invisibility or anonymity some people feel when posting on the internet.

Now let me preface this by saying that I am in no way famous or well known. Sometimes I'm not even very popular in my own household. But I do maintain an internet presence, mostly photography related, and mostly geared toward the benefit of my students. This blog is one such place I do that. Flickr is another. And maybe what I am about to talk about is something I should get used to if I have any aspirations of watching my veiwership grow, but this wasn't directed at me, it was at one of my students.

So here we go. I maintain a Flickr group only open to my Tri-Community students. It is a place that I have opened up so they can showcase their work, get critiques or be lauded, and hopefully for them to network, grow, expand, and meet new people.

There was an image posted recently that was a very nice piece. It was a production still from a horror movie, and it is well shot. This is EXACTLY the type of work I hope to have entered into the group. It is a work, shot outside the confines of our school, and hopefully the shooter used some knowledge gleaned in our classes to help him create his vision.

Is it to everyone's taste? Probably not. But it is well executed. Someone didn't like it. I can appreciate that.

She said so. I can also appreciate that. And I'd imagine that her response was perhaps exactly the response the OP (original poster) was looking for, as it was an image from a horror film.

Here is the image and the ensuing posts:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sleazycompany/3641132900/

I perhaps made a mistake by posting that the image was a production still. The commenter that didn't like the image went into the OP's photostream to further examine his work. Ahh, just what we are hoping to do!

But she mentioned that she would like to see a description accompanied with the image. I don't think that is neccessary, and perhaps detracts from the initial emotional reaction to the shot. Someone else agreed with me. And she formulated a very articulate and thought provoking argument. And then she started name calling.

I have left the image up in the group. I want my studentsto see the work, and I want them to read the comments.

Why is it neccessary to resort to name calling? Especially with a well thought out response? It no longer appears to be an articulate argument. Again, I am not famous. But in the places where I maintain a presence, I estimate 75% of the people that come across it actually know me in person, so I would not resort to such tactics.

Please people, pretend that these people know you, or could possibly meet you. Or you may become a famous (insert something here) someday. And these people will call TMZ to let them know just what an @ss you may be.

Rant over...

Now on to the haps at school this week.

Monday and Wednesday night night we will cover contracts and other paperwork and catch up with the calendar.

On Tuesday night I hope to have a model or 4, however it hasn't been confirmed yet. But I do have a back up plan.

If you feel the need to name call, I have posted another poorly shot, poorly composed iPhone image of my kids at the top. Please tell me how much I suck, what crappy equipment I use, etc. I have thick skin. But let's not chase off the students that are striving to get better, and honing their skills, and are new to posting work on the internet. I want them to keep coming back.

Frank