You may or may not have noticed me constantly plugging SXC on this site. It is a photographic site and community that I’ve been obsessed with since the moment I first found it. See that link over there on the right? The one that says Maffu’s Photos? Well, that takes you to my photos on SXC. See all those Image of the Day sections? The majority of them so far (with the exception of Asya Scheeen) have been from SXC.
Anyway, as of yesterday (Sunday) I’ve been given moderator status at SXC. What this means is that I get to be part of the photo approval/rejection process. It is something that I’d hoped for in a way for a while. So on Sunday I spent my first day in the system sorting through the backlog of uploads that have built up during site maintenance over the last couple of weeks. It was at this point that the reality of what I was undertaking hit me.
In the many months since I first started visiting the site, uploading and joining in the forums there I have made a good number of friends to various degrees – it’s the way of things really when you have a common passion it makes it easier to get to know someone even if you’re on the other side of the world. Now, all of a sudden I’m having to judge their work. In some cases I’m having to reject the work of photographers whose work I have admired and even aspired to in the past.
The thing is that it is a stock-photography site. What makes a good stock image isn’t necessarily what makes a good photograph. Technical prowess is important for both stock and artistic photography, but beyond there the two take quite separate roads. In a photography competition a close-up shot of a key against a plain white background isn’t really going to turn heads. On a stock site it will be a great asset. Stock images that are acceptable, whilst falling within certain guidelines, also need to be judged on ‘useability’. That indecipherable mess of squiggles that you finally figured out is a shot taken of a light bulb whilst pissed may be useless in the village photo competition, but I can guarantee you that there are hoards of dribbling designers who’ll bite your arm off for it if you put it on a stock site.
So you have the dilemma of seeing a photo by an artist you admire, that is artistically exciting/interesting/outrageous but will be practically useless for stock purposes.
And you just have to reject it. You don’t get to say why, other than selecting from a choice of about fifteen possible reasons in a drop-down box. You don’t get to encourage that person or say that you personally loved the image. You just have to reject it. The quality of photos uploaded on SXC is soaring higher and higher all the time and the only way to keep that up is to be strict about the approval rules.
I wonder how long my friends will remain friends.