Photographic Website Saved

Posted by Philip Northeast Sep 16, 2007

Emerging from the Melbourne Camera Club in Australia, Passion For Pixels (P4P) became an online meeting and sharing space for photographers beyond the geographic confines of its host city.

The strength of the site is its members as they share their knowledge and experience, particularly relating to local conditions and issues.

The success of the photo galleries of member’s pictures is driven by the monthly competitions, providing little in the way of prizes other than recognition by fellow members and useful feedback on member’s efforts.

Part of the judging is by members vote and this is instructive. It is not a matter of choosing a good photo as the standard of entries is usually very high, they are all good. The task is to look for details that make an image stand out from the rest. The lessons learned from practicing critical analysis pay off when composing your own photos.

P4P facilitated regional events combining photography and social interaction. Arranged and publicized in the member’s forum these events help to build the cooperative spirit that marks P4P, and they typify the region relevancy of the website.

Recently the site started experiencing frequent down time as emerging technical problems continually disrupted member access. This proved to be the catalyst for a new direction in administration of the site. Long time administrator, Kevin Power, and the Melbourne Camera Club handed over domain and the running of the site to Peter Schuck. The technical assistance provided by Peter in recent times kept the site working with a series of short term fixes.

The growing pains of P4P illustrates the value photographers place on regionally based web sites that still has a global relevance, as the site has many international members.