XtremeCamera

I walk into our daily meeting, sit down, and wait for my turn to talk about what I want to write about. Thursday is my official day to post, so I wanted to clear some of the ideas I have. I tell the rest of the Admins and a discussion begins.

Some want me to post one of my ideas to the forum; another wants me to not write about it all, and another tells me that if I want the front page I can run with it. There is no consensus, ultimately its up to me. I decide to take it to the front page, the Daily Snapshot, and see what happens. I like shaking things up.

Before I post it, I’ll tell you why I chose to post it on the front page and not bury it in our private forum.

Over the past few weeks I broke my usual pattern and began cruising around the Internet, looking at many type of communities, including other photo sites. I never did this before because I didn’t want to be influenced by the way others were doing things. (I also never mentioned this to anyone else)

I had an idea that I wanted to somehow get across to other members, but more importantly, after spending time reading hundreds of posts by people in other forums, comments to articles posted at other sites, etc, I came to the conclusion that non-members, of which there are many, would benefit from the topic as much as our current members. So I dedicate this blog post to all those guests that come to see what XtremeCamera is all about.

Photo Site Spam, or PSS. Needy Is Ugly. Stand Up Straight!

There seems to be a lot of people on the Internet fishing for compliments, seeking attention, and asking to be validated. I find this behavior sad, and I believe this is because some people feel tremendous emptiness in their lives and seek to fill that emptiness by making virtual friends, giving and receiving compliments to people they will never meet, and just being downright needy. It’s not just the United States, where most of our members live; it’s a global problem.

We cannot support this kind of behavior on XtremeCamera. I’m not saying we have that here, I’m stating that we can’t ever have that here.

XtremeCamera is not a place to come to if you are the type of person that seeks validation for your life in the virtual world. Simply stated, you won’t get that here. Neediness is an unattractive trait, and if you suffer from it please seek help elsewhere, the Internet is the last place you need to be looking.

To those people I would like to say “Don’t look to the internet where people’s advice to your problems usually sucks, where people can love you one day and hate you the next, where you will not see the real person you’re trying to relate to because in most cases their real personality is left in the real world.”

Perhaps it’s like getting behind the wheel of a car and the driver becomes this monster filled with road rage. I don’t know.

The Photography Sites In General

Narrowing my focus to other photo sites now, I’ve noticed something I find really distasteful. Others may disagree, and if you do please post your opinion on this in the forum. If I am wrong I want to know, honestly.

The distasteful act of which I speak is asking people to look at your photos (I’ll explain in a bit, I know this sounds over broad and its not always a bad thing to do), asking people to vote on your photos, complaining when they don’t, and whining when they don’t. But the worst are posts I’ve read on three different sites that state some variation of this:

“I guess my photos suck. Maybe I should take up a new hobby. Nobody wants to look at my photos, maybe it’s because you don’t like me. I should just go away. Please come to see my photos. Why won’t people vote for my photo? What’s wrong with me? I’m going to leave.”

Every time I read something like this I cringed. Respect yourself, respect others, and for God’s sake don’t be a baby!

Zero Tolerance

There are some things we do not tolerate on XtremeCamera. Okay, a lot, but concerning this topic it needs to be said that this kind of behavior on our site will get you nowhere fast. If you do not have confidence in yourself why should we have confidence in you?

If you are a non-member and you’re reading this, thinking about joining the most us, the most dedicated photo site on the net, you need to know that no one here will ever send you a message urging you to look at their photos. No one will ever pester you with a whiny lack of confidence and ask you to validate their existence. No one will ever vote or critique your photo based on your personal situation. And, more importantly, you won’t be allowed to do these things either.

Let me clarify this last part a little more. No one will do any of the above once an Admin is alerted to it. That’s the fastest way out the door of XtremeCamera. If any member reports a single instance of this type of behavior from a member the offending member will be asked to leave. Period.

Now, that’s not to say that members cannot send a message to an Admin asking what they might do to bring more attention to their work. We’ll gladly answer those kinds of questions. And if you feel as though your own photos are not being critiqued often enough you can express that to an Admin, we’ll listen. But other members are off limits.

The Reason Why

First and foremost members privacy and personal enjoyment of our site is a top priority for us. It is our job to make sure our members aren’t wasting their time reading through spam. Time is precious to us all, and privacy even more so.
If you lack confidence in your work it’s going to show up in your photos, you don’t need to tell us, we’ll see it. Admins and members will only attempt to encourage you and your work when we think its needed, not when you ask for it. Going public about your lack of confidence comes off as needy, and needy is something that does no one any good.

How To Seek People To View Your Work

Seeking out people to take a look at your photos on XtremeCamera is, or should be, done by utilizing your homepage, writing about what you photographed, and posting them to your own private gallery. Everyone, members and non-members, can and do visit the homepages of our members. The latest 12 homepage blog posts appear on the front page of our site, allowing everyone to click on the link and read and view your homepage. This is the only acceptable way of seeking out people to see your work. And we believe it’s the only respectful way of doing so. Oh, you can also use the Member’s Only field (a field only logged in members see) to alert us to the fact that you have more photos on the topic you just upload to the Member Gallery, and provide a direct link to them.)

Back To Confidence
Photography takes confidence in yourself and your abilities. Even if you are just starting out, even if you don’t know an f-stop from an ISO, even if you’ve never heard the word ‘composition’, you need confidence in yourself in order to go from beginner to intermediate to advanced. If you won’t believe in yourself we sure can’t.

If you are seeking out a photography site where what matters is the photography, not the personality, than XtremeCamera is your best bet. If you are simply tired of people sending you private messages to come look and vote on their work, or jealous photographers denigrating your work because they will never be as good, then XtremeCamera is the place you’ll find yourself at home. If you are confident in yourself, and wish to be around others that share that confidence, then welcome to XtremeCamera.

We’re certainly not perfect, not by a long shot, but we do strive to be better each and every day. Because we believe in XtremeCamera and ourselves. You’ll never be hounded for votes; you’ve never experience the bombardment of spam or “Look at me! Look at me!” type of posts in our gallery or forum because to do so violates everything we stand for.

We would love to have thousands of members join us every week, but only members that have the confidence that if they work at it, if they really want it, they will become a good photographer. But if you lack confidence, if you have a thin skin, and if you are seeking validation for your existence, you’ve come to the wrong place.

Julia Barnes
Admin