What the Hell, 500px?
Trying to figure out why this photo has such a high score on 500px. It’s a pretty damn good photo, until you start looking at it and notice that the photographer has ruined it by Photoshopping a shark into it.
Full photo:
Stupid ‘shopped in addition close-up:
It’s shit like this, 500px, that makes it hard to take your community seriously. You’re starting to go down the Flickr rabbit hole of blind praise without critical thinking, circle-jerking and, eventually, irrelevance. How long before “Award” comments become a common sight?
I’ve been using 500px for a few weeks, migrated over from Flickr. While I think there’s higher caliber pics on 500px, I have to agree that it’s tiring to see that the extent of critique or praise is such things like “great shot”, “great capture”, or “love”.
Maybe part of the problem with the shark picture is us. In a circle-jerky environment it takes some bravery to level an honest critique. If more people start critiquing maybe others will follow suit.
I was an early user on 500px and the community was excellent then. Good critique, hardly any circle-jerkiness, great photos. But as soon as it became popular, the comments became “flickr-y” (save for the hated “award” posts!) and over time, I lost interest in the site. I had never left flickr and all of my work was there, so I went back–I didn’t feel like I should have to police comments on my photos on two different sharing sites. I’ve carefully cultivated who I follow and only participate in groups that are actually helpful and quickly block people who post what I consider to be useless comments.