Ooh! Pick me! Pick me! I'm a new talent!

Actually, I'm not, but I can give you a perspective from a relative outsider.

Of the images that I have posted, the best responses are to the ones that I post in the forum, and not the gallery. I think that's because people know that I am looking for feedback when I post to the forum, where in the gallery, I'm just one of a large crowd.

I admit that the last photo I posted, I was hoping would do better than it did, as far as comments at least, but I was excited to get the comments that I did (I tend to judge my photos more on the number and type of comments it gets than on rankings). What really bummed me out was the number of people who actually looked at it. After a week of being up, very few people had actually looked at it. This led to a number of thoughts running through my mind.

The first was annoyance that I had posted the photo just before I went to bed, and by the next morning it was already buried three pages deep into the gallery. Not much exposure time there.

The second thought, of course, was that it wasn't good enough for people to pay any attention to. I think this runs through the brain of any artist who displays a work though. This led to the thought of, "Yeah, but if they could see the print instead of a JPG, they'd understand." Well, nothing to be done for that unless someone actually decides that they want a print. Then, depending on my mood, I'd waffle back over to the "maybe my work just sucks" thought.

On the other hand, every time I see that the photo has another hit, I get really excited. Especially after it's been up for awhile. That, in my mind, means that someone took the time to go way back through the gallery, and that something about my thumbnail caught their eye, causing them to look at the finished work. This thought negates the feeling that it's an inferior work.

Now, from the standpoint of someone who browses through the galleries, I agree, there is just too much to look at sometimes (thus my annoyance of being bumped back so quickly). I generally scan though the thumbnails, and check out the ones that catch my eye. The lesson here, at least to me, is to make sure the thumbnail is interesting.

Sometimes I just pop on here and check out the gallery of some of my favorite artists (Michelle being one of them). This really isn't any different than what I would do anywhere else. In a bookstore, for example, I usually scan through the titles, but I alway focus in on my favorite authors. What I have noticed, however, is that I don't really comment much on anyone's work myself. I chalk this up as me being a generally shy person, but I think I need to work on changing that. My new resolution is to start commenting on works, even if it's just to say "Wow. I really like that", which is pretty much all I know about art anyway (which really annoys the owners of the local galleries when I go in to look at their $30,000 paintings).

Okay. I think I've lost my train of thought, and I think I'm rambling, so I guess I'll stop now.

The general summary of my ranting is that, yeah, I'd like to see more feedback, but yeah, I totally understand how hard it is to do.

-Taltos