Thoughts on 500px

December 18, 2014  •  1 Comment

 

For those of you who don't know, 500px is a photo sharing site. I joined as a "free" member about a year ago. I joined because I liked the user interface and the way that photos were displayed. It's a very elegant and clean way to view photos.

However 500px has a dark side. Notably it has a scoring system, they call it a "pulse". People can view, like or favourite the photos you upload. This leads to the photo rising up the ranks with a score. It first reaches "Upcoming" at a "pulse" of 75, before becoming "Popular" when you reach a "pulse" of 80 or more. But over time this score diminishes...

So you're photo's popularity is often short lived, unless you literally live on 500px and do everything possible to promote and push your photo back up the ranks again.

What a waste of time.

And that's why I really don't like 500px, neither do I pay any attention to these so called "pulse" scores. If you have to "compete" to keep your photo up there, in nothing more than what is a kin to a "social media popularity contest", then you are doing something very wrong with your photography.

I decided to run a little experiment. My "Fine Art" (as I am calling it) leopard photo - I uploaded earlier this week. I wanted to see how it would fare. 

Sure enough it hit a high of "92" (See the photo/screen shot linked). "92" is one of the highest "pulses" I've had on an image.

Sure enough, the interpretation of the wildlife image scored more highly that one of my favourite photos of 2014; my walking lion shot. My walking lion shot only scored "53". This image you see a powerful young male lion trawling the banks of the Timbavati river. I really like the shot, and of the two images, The Walk is a true wildlife image. 

But it never scored as highly as the "fine art" image. 

And that goes exactly to the heart of my point: it isn't about scores, likes or favourites, it just isn't. Many of my best shots don't score highly on 500px...because that medium for me is totally artificial, even superficial.

So why do I post to 500px? Only because it is a more intuitive way to view and eventually share an image with people who matter. I pay no attention to the ridiculousness of their scoring system. I've long learnt that great photos are so much more than a number of likes. 

cheers Jon

 

 


Comments

Warwick Cairns(non-registered)
Looking at the two pictures above, I’d say the ‘Fine Art’ picture is a much stronger composition.
The animal dominates the image, is dynamic, and is clearly defined.
The lion picture is a bit messy: the branch above it makes it looks like it has wings sprouting out of its back. The log in front of it further disrupts the outline and the colour of the grass behind it means that it doesn’t stand out clearly.
A good test of a strong composition, I think, is to squint your eyes (or apply a lot of blur in photoshop). Do that with the leopard and you still have an arresting picture. Do that with the lion and you don’t.
Now, the process of getting the lion picture was, of course, more authentic and more truly ‘wildlife.’ Its often hard to capture a scene like that. But that doesn’t make it a good image, from an aesthetic point of view. That’s why I’d give a like on 500px to the leopard and not to the lion.
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