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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

1x.com experiences

Anybody have any experiences to relay for the site 1x.com?

Do you currently have an account there?

Have you had any pictures "accepted"?

I'm not seeing much negative along the lines of a "rights grab".... Anyone?
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
The problem with 1x is that they only want one kind of picture. It is not obvious at first sight, but look at the site for a month and then go to any gallery or museum, and you will understand what I mean.

So 1x is not really a gallery. First, a gallery does not ask you to pay for the privilege to have your pictures turned down. Second, a gallery presents you as an artist with a vision. 1x only wants you to pay so that you can give them content which corresponds to their vision, not yours. They have their idea on what web site they want to present, and you should give them the pictures to fill it. And you pay for that.

Obviously, their idea of a photographic web site is spot on what is popular amongst photographers. That is why it works.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
The problem with 1x is that they only want one kind of picture. It is not obvious at first sight, but look at the site for a month and then go to any gallery or museum, and you will understand what I mean.

So 1x is not really a gallery. First, a gallery does not ask you to pay for the privilege to have your pictures turned down. Second, a gallery presents you as an artist with a vision. 1x only wants you to pay so that you can give them content which corresponds to their vision, not yours. They have their idea on what web site they want to present, and you should give them the pictures to fill it. And you pay for that.

Obviously, their idea of a photographic web site is spot on what is popular amongst photographers. That is why it works.

Jerome,

What are you seeing there. I just visited for the first time and looked at the artistic nudes. I seems that the pictures often all attention to the scheme being used. Is that your point.

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
No, this is not my point.

What I am saying, is that 1x criteria for accepting a picture lead to the gallery endlessly presenting the same picture in different incarnations. It is not obvious at first sight and you really need to watch the site for a longer time (it was more obvious in the beginning). But after you have watched the site for a month, you will slowly wonder: "is that all there is?".

Of course not. Any visit to a gallery or a museum will suddenly show you that it is not all there is.

The pictures on 1x all appear to be different on the surface. But they all talk the same language, tell the same message, use the same techniques. They are pretty. They are vivid. They are technical masterpieces.

They are empty.

And this is not what a "gallery" is about. A gallery is about letting the art lovers discover new things. New stories told in a new language.

1x is about a unique definition of prettiness and an army of photographers trying their best to come close to that unique target. A seducing proposal, just like the Devil is seducing. But, just like the Devil, it will take your Soul.
 
A seducing proposal, just like the Devil is seducing. But, just like the Devil, it will take your Soul.

So why don't you just come out and say it already!? =)

Thanks for your thoughtful opinion, albeit a strong one. I wouldn't say that ALL the pictures lack soul, but I do get your point. Perhaps I will try a few of my favorites that don't look like what they have and see if they get any consideration. To be fair, they do say they are looking for inventive photos within each genre...
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
No, this is not my point.

What I am saying, is that 1x criteria for accepting a picture lead to the gallery endlessly presenting the same picture in different incarnations.

Jerome,

Could you demonstrate this with examples. I'm not sure that my observations have discovered what you refer to, just the self-consciousness of staged images.

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Thanks for your thoughtful opinion, albeit a strong one. I wouldn't say that ALL the pictures lack soul, but I do get your point.

I did not mean that the pictures lack "soul", I meant that photographers who go the 1x route will have to make pictures according to 1x criteria and will forget their own ideas in the process. An artist is someone with a vision, not someone with a vision imposed by someone else.
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
Could you demonstrate this with examples.

No, I can't sorry. How could I demonstrate with a few examples that there is something in common between all this pictures and that it is something which is missing?

But I am sure that if you watch 1x for some a month, you will get the strange feeling that nothing changes. I am not the only one to say so, people post this kind of comment on the 1x forum regularly.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
No, I can't sorry. How could I demonstrate with a few examples that there is something in common between all this pictures and that it is something which is missing?

But I am sure that if you watch 1x for some a month, you will get the strange feeling that nothing changes. I am not the only one to say so, people post this kind of comment on the 1x forum regularly.
Why not take just one category and then point out the kind of parameters that get narrowed down to the 1X "space" to portray. After all, your brain has already done the work.

Can you go further with your feelings? Perhaps you can!

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
There have been some changes on 1x.com, so I would like to review my comments.

The photos which are accepted are a bit more diverse lately, but the style of picture is still very much controlled to belong to a very limited set of pictures. To understand what I mean, look at 1x.com, then look at the pictures on another gallery, e.g. this one: http://www.wantedparis.com/artists_mc.php?m_category=3 and compare. I find that 1x.com looks like a showcase for Nik software's filter collection in comparison, don't you?

So, basically, photographers are paying to present their pictures as long as they correspond to what 1x.com believe they can sell. It may be a good opportunity if you want to sell pictures of that kind (and you need the most expensive membership for that), but if your idea of photography is not overprocessed landscapes maybe you should try something else. Still: oversprocessed landscapes do sell, so....

What is new is that 1x.com has a critique section and the critiques are good. This is rare enough to be noted. I am tempted, but I should say that the critiques are not written by 1x staff but by paying members and that 1x staff is very prompt to tell members who do not write enough details that their text is not good and that they may have "their critique privileges revoked". Personally, I would find abusive to have to pay to write content and to be bossed around. Now, the critique section is quite new and maybe members will tire quickly to work for free and be told that they should work better... I don't know.
 
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