Inspiration

This is a post from my now moribund art and photography based blog. I have left all the links and references as they were at the time, but fotolog has continued to grow.

I have been taking photographs since I was 17 years old - that means I have about 40 years worth of pictures - perhaps 10-12,000. I recently started to scan and restore some slides I took in Morocco as a student. The original transparencies have over the years got scratched and some were showing signs of fungal damage.

As became more confident in my restoration work, I realised I could go further and started to experiment. It was only when I discovered Fotolog however that my work really took off. I created my own flog, initially with the idea of posting a single image and then working at it till I ran out of inspiration.

I checked a few minutes ago and Fotolog now has 318,484 Fotologgers (676,993 today), who have uploaded 6,294,304 photos (21,581,409 today)- 21,611 (34,027) today. This is a huge repository of creativity. Even applying 'Sturgeons Law' that 80 % of everything is crap, it leaves an enormous amount of work of high quality and high standard. There is some incredible work to be found on Fotolog, some of it from practising artists and photographers, but much by people who have found a vehicle for their creativity as outsiders to the 'art world' - as I am - and in the process produce work of great beauty and energy.
Look at these:

http://www.fotolog.net/av_producer/
http://www.fotolog.net/av_producer_2/

http://www.fotolog.net/iansummers/

http://www.fotolog.net/zinetv/

http://www.fotolog.net/ch_p/

http://www.fotolog.net/onmywaytowork/

http://www.fotolog.net/tomswift46/

http://www.fotolog.net/shutter451/

http://www.fotolog.net/hihihi/

Some sites are not for photographs:

http://www.fotolog.net/aquarelas/

http://www.fotolog.net/deboraluchesi/

Others use photographs, in theory not for 'artistic' purposes, but nevertheless producing sites which are of great value and merit:

http://www.fotolog.net/ronni/

There are communal sites organised around themes:

http://www.fotolog.net/echolalia/

http://www.fotolog.net/history/

http://www.fotolog.net/minimal/

I'm writing this as my way to give thanks to all of you on Fotolog - and to the developers of the site who have begun the difficult process of turning a 'hobby' site into a serious venture. Your collective inspiration has - quite literally - opened my eyes to see the world in a different way.

Regrettably, the site owners still get a lot of abuse in the forum pages for Fotolog, however looking at the site statistics, many of the complaints seem to come from a tiny minority who want a free ride - not all, some members seem to get hit with every problem that comes over the horizon. My experience has been largely positive and once my broadband connection is enabled I hope to post much more than I have been of late.