What this group is:

1. a place for artists who are serious about their work as a form of fine art and self expression who also happen to use photography as their medium of choice
2. a venue to share the best of our fine art work
3. somewhere to post articles (or links to other’s articles) likely to be of interest
4. somewhere to read and discuss interesting articles that relate to the ‘art’ side of things
5. somewhere to discuss possible and future projects – either personal or group related
6. a chance to network with other like-minded artists

What this group is not:

1. a technical group about cameras, settings, composition, depth-of-field…etc. (consider using the Photography 101 or Technical Photography groups instead)
2. a place to put unfinished work
3. a dumping ground for all of our images

Acceptance policy:

1. A maximum of one image per person will be considered per day; any additional images presented on the same day will be rejected without further consideration.
2. Images submitted will be vetted before being displayed. Images will be accepted that meet all the above criteria in the opinion of at least one of the hosts, and in addition maintain diversity in the collection.
3. Older images will be reviewed from time to time by the hosts and only the very best retained, in order to maintain freshness in the collection.

What type of images should be added:

1. fine art photography images that represents the very best of who you are and what you do
2. art that you think deserves to be on display in a fine art gallery
3. work that will invite buyers to explore the rest of your portfolio

Images should fit within the following parameters:

Minimal photoshoping or editing. Acceptable adjustments include:

Sharpening
Contrast adjustment
General levels or curves adjustment.
Cropping
Straightening
B&W tone conversion.
Noise reduction
In-camera filter use
Multiple exposures in-camera if done on one frame, not combined after shooting.

What type of images should not be added:

1. unfinished work
2. images that are not up to your own high, personal standards
3. images that do not meet the description of ‘fine art’; eg stock photography, photojournalism or snapshots
4. images that have been heavily post-processed and have crossed the border into digital art. (this is likely to include heavy use of photoshop filters, or the combining of multiple images)
5. multiple versions of similar images

Please do not submit images that have undergone any of the following:

Montage/compilation or combining of more than one image.
Texture layers.
Selective blurring (unless created by using depth of field or other in-camera method).
Added or selective colouring (adjustments as above excepted)
Obvious use of burning and dodging.
Vignetting (lens vignetting from in-camera is acceptable) or edges added in software.
Obvious use of ‘HDR’ processing.
Over-sharpening
Smoothing or noise reduction resulting in overly soft or smooth effect.
Over-use of eyes/teeth dodging.
“Lomo-style” imaging unless actually created with a camera.
Artistic filter applications such as posterization, oil paint, solarization or any other similar manipulations.
Photos that are comprised entirely of someone else’s artwork such as a painting or mural or advertising.
Photographs with added text or borders

If an image has been submitted and not accepted once, please do not resubmit the image to the group again, unless you have been through the appeals forum and are asked to resubmit it.

Since art always has a subjective element, the final decisions on submitted images will still encompass some subjectivity on the part of the hosts.

Please remember not to submit drawings, illustrations, paintings or journals that have nothing to do with photography or this group. If you’ve been featured and would like to say thanks, please use the Thanks forum in the group, rather than submitting journals.

If you have questions about the rules or images submitted, please use the group forums rather than bmails to the hosts. Since we have a number of hosts it is more efficient to use the forum as there is no way of letting members know which host chose or didn’t choose their images.

That doesn’t mean hosts won’t accept bmails, but critique requests and explanations for image choices is handled more efficiently by forum posts than by bmailing every host.

Using the forum ensures that the host(s) who viewed your image will see the question, and it allows all the hosts to participate in the discussion.

Don’t forget, your work needs to meet all of the criteria above!

(if you are not yet comfortable showcasing your work here, you can still join and participate without uploading images)

Think of this as a group show at a gallery. We all have limited, but equal wall space to showcase the very best of our work. You can change your images as often as you like (as long as you stick to the limit) but you are encouraged to leave things up for a bit. Sometimes a piece is best enjoyed while being contemplated over a period of time.

---

Edit: (by Mark German) 21/Oct/2008
Here is how I personally judge works submitted. Please read carefully:
*

We will screen entries on the above guidelines, followed by these three criteria:

Story* – by this, we mean the emotion/message/impact of the work
Technical Quality – including focus, sharpness, composition, framing, light
Originality – how uncommon this particular style, point of view and/or subject is

A successful photograph will have a very high score (figuratively speaking) in at least one of these criteria – but not necessarily all.

Example:
A photograph of your pet in your garden, your baby or a seagull would need to be of extreme technical quality since the other two criteria are low.

A photograph of a person leaping from a burning building could be taken with your camera phone, blurry as all heck, and composed horribly – yet still make the gallery based on the ‘story’.

A photograph of an endangered animal in the wild, or a particularly poignant photo-journalistic event would have a high originality score, and would be forgiven a slightly lower score in the other two criteria.

---

Please remember
A maximum of one image per person will be considered per day; any additional images presented on the same day will be rejected without further consideration.
A significant number are still submitting more than this. You may occasionally be lucky and slip two through the net, but usually your second and later images will be rejected as not fitting the criteria. (Sorry, there isn’t a specific rejection code for ‘you’ve submitted too many’.)

This is still happening – please try to follow the guidelines!

Hi Cathy – would you please name (or mail me) the name of the image?

Charles, the reason several of your submissions yesterday were rejected was that there were several!

• A maximum of one image per person will be considered per day; any additional images presented on the same day will be rejected without further consideration.

I don’t know whether ‘Bernie an Meryl at Coledale’ might have been accepted, as their criteria may have been different to ours, and the judges certainly were, but I’m sure you followed their rules when submitting it! We’d appreciate the same courtesy here.

Hey Teresa :)
I really like that particular photo also. It was ‘touch-and-go’ with that one :)

This in an open group – anyone can join. We don’t decide who can join and who can’t, so if you opt to join, you get to join.

Joining doesn’t automatically mean work is accepted though. I’ve had a quick peek at your gallery, and I think you have some work that is suitable, though as a host, I can’t really tell you what to sumbit. Generally we don’t have time to go through people’s galleries on an individual basis and tell them what to submit – we just haven’t the time.

Read the post above by Mike, and edited by Mark – though our guidelines really are somewhat subjective, it might help you. If you need more help than that, please bmail me directly and I’ll try my best to help you out sometime this week. I have some other comittments that I must meet, but I’ll do my best.

I notice in your gallery you have one work (yellows and blues, sort of abstract) that you indicate was all done with photoshop – an image like that, though it’s wonderful (it’s one of my favourite’s from your gallery) would not fall within the guidelines here because of the photoshopping.

I can’t answer that one as I didn’t reject it. Would you mind very much reposting in the appeals forum?

Hi Kierra – did you note the inclusion of the word “obvious” in there – many people use dodging and burning in a way they consider artistic, but the results end up making the photo look like anything but a photo. While the images can be fantastic artwork, they aren’t the type of work we are looking for in the group.

This isn’t to say you can’t use a tap of the dodge or burn tool, it means no use of these tools that make it obvious that you’ve done so.

Where a “no” statement has no qualifying factor (such as the word “obvious”) it means you can’t do it at all (ie: no artistic filters, period).

Where a “no” statement has a qualifying factor like “obvious”, then it means pretty much what it says – if the use is pretty obvious to any of the hosts, we won’t accept it.

Even in the darkroom it’s use can be overhanded. We are trying to ensure the photos coming into the group are “photographs”, not “photographs turned into art”.

There is one thing in your post I’d like to respond to also – “I don’t see how this is not allowed”. A group, or group of hosts may set any rule(s) they choose for the group – this goes for all groups on RB. Groups tend to set rules to achieve something – in our case, work that shows the art of photography, not just “photographic art”, if that makes any sense. We are also trying to get work that doesn’t highlight “the art of editing”.

The rules were chosen based on the criteria for the types of imaging we would accept in this group, though there is always going to be a subjective element in the final decisions.

Hi Aimelle :)

Yes, it is a bother. The easiest way to see if your image is in a group, is to look on its edit page and look for the ‘tick’. But there is no tracking – if you are unsure, just submit it again for consideration :)

Will do, Paul.

Edit:
Ok, I have placed the rule in bold, at the start of the guidelines and also in the description.

Not really wanting to put it in the title, though. Is that ok?

Initially we had 3 or 5 images as the max. Some time back it was bumped to 10.

There are multiple reasons for the maximum. Firstly, nobody wants to look through hundreds of pages of art. We want to keep the gallery manageable and viewable.

We also want people to submit only their best work, not every work they happen to like. There’s often a difference between the work you like the most, and the work that you feel is your “best”.

The general direction this group has tried to work under is the idea of creating a “virtual art gallery”, not just a group for everybody to display whatever images they have because they are a photograph.

The “rules” we finally set out were not something we really wanted to have to use, but submitters were finding it frustrating because there was little to follow in the way of rules. That’s somewhat how it is when you walk into an art gallery with a bunch of work – they may “like” some, and not others and they don’t necessarily have a reason for you. While this is not a bricks and mortar gallery, we try to look at the work as if we were choosing it for a gallery.

Unfortunately, this group culls the gallery a few times a year, so something you submitted a while back that is perhaps near the end of the group might be removed during one of those times. That again is to keep the galleries fresh and at a manageable level.

Yes, you should feel chuffed :)

It is definitely a tough group, but it’s tough because we want (or try) to accept the best of any particular “genre” so three people might submit a similar sunset, but the best of the three will be the one that gets accepted (or should be anyway). That’s not to say there’s only ever one sunset, but a good sunset shot might be rejected because there are already better ones in the gallery, even though they aren’t yours. I hope that makes sense.

If you know which images you’ve submitted, you can remove one, maybe the oldest you’ve got here by unticking the box in the edit section. You don’t want to remove yourself from the group or it will remove them all.

It would be really nice if RB would make it so members could search their own names within a group.

If I only see one in the queue (didn’t see the other) then it wouldn’t matter to me. It is supposed to be one per day.