Interesting photos wanted!

February 22, 2009 5:30 PM

Nonlamephotopraphyfilter: What are some websites, books, and/or magazines that have some neat photos?

Flickr pools and sets, count too. :)

posted by sixcolors to society & culture (17 answers total)

Strobist. Detailed technical instruction on lighting.
posted by asockpuppet at 5:33 PM on February 22, 2009

Oh oh, I didn't copy and paste this part from MW...

I’m really tired of seeing millions of photos of mountains, sunsets, country sides, lakes, forests, wildlife, babies, and dogs! Or anything else that screams “middle America”. I don’t give a shit about that stuff. I see those things everyday! Same ol’, lame ol’.

Unfortunately, that’s like 90% of what I see on websites and in magazines. I’d rather see something like chicks with guns, legos giving blowjobs, weddings and earthquakes, lawn art, dead people in parking lots, and places where we aren’t supposed to go. Anything that arouses emotion, besides boredom and frustration.
posted by sixcolors at 5:34 PM on February 22, 2009

So it isn't really about photography then, is it? The question is 'show me cool things'.
posted by asockpuppet at 5:39 PM on February 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

The Big Picture offers both: technically good photos of some pretty cool stuff.
posted by runningwithscissors at 5:42 PM on February 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

And, no it doesn't have to be high-brow "fine art" photography...it can be pictures of anything that would capture most people's attention. I don't see what the problem is with that.
posted by sixcolors at 5:43 PM on February 22, 2009

FFFFOUND! is one of my daily reads. I don't know if its "exactly" what you're looking for (it sometimes leans a little to far into design/typography for my tastes) but its definitely not "typical".
posted by jmnugent at 5:54 PM on February 22, 2009

If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger,
There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats
growabrain's quip (from his MeFi post):
Thomas Sutpen is one of Faulkner's most complex and intriguing characters. His blog, If Charlie Parker was a gunslinger, there’d be a whole lot of dead copycats includes nostalgic collections of rare photographs in serial form. Samples: They Were Collaborators (298*) Great Con Artists of the 20th Century (14) Vietnam - Dramatis Personae (7) A is for Arbus (37) Collect 'em All (26) The Golden Age of Prurience (37) Poets are both clean and warm (18). Many wonderful others on the sidebar.
* Post from 2007; these numbers indicating how many posts are in a given category are outdated.

I posted The Nocturnes Gallery to MeFi a while back. Photography at night.

Looking into communities surrounding niche photography can be fruitful. Polaroid and Lomography being two of my favorites.
posted by carsonb at 6:02 PM on February 22, 2009

pixdaus or b3ta.
posted by krautland at 6:14 PM on February 22, 2009

I've been enjoying a lot of the exhibits on Photography Served.
posted by tybstar at 6:41 PM on February 22, 2009

La Pura Vida Flickr pool.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:42 PM on February 22, 2009

Conscientious is the fine art blog where I'm pretty sure I first saw the chicks with guns and the weddings/earthquakes pictures.
posted by philomathoholic at 7:47 PM on February 22, 2009

Flak Photo
posted by querty at 8:12 PM on February 22, 2009

http://www.metafilter.com/tags/photography?

Narrow to taste by adding additional tags.
posted by pokermonk at 9:31 PM on February 22, 2009

ecrinsdelumiere.com has wonderful shots of mountains.
posted by V-Turn at 3:16 AM on February 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

Quite a few of the suggestions above focus on photography as a technique rather that photography as a means of expression. You want photojournalism; interesting, weird, sad, inspiring stories distilled to their visual and emotional essence. I spend a lot of time looking at photojournalism online. Best to go to the source, which means agencies, photographer sites, online magazines, and annual contests. You'll find bigger edits of stories (more pictures, cohesive narrative, etc.) through those rather than on the printed page or on many print publication websites.

I could spend all day looking at any single one of these links: Magnum Photos (the archive goes back about 70 years or so; many, many famous pictures that you already know are contained within), Vii, Agence Vu, Oculi, Noor, Time Magazine's photo essays, World Press Photo 2008 results, Pictures of the Year 2008 results (currently being judged; you can watch the judging live online from a link on the front page of the contest), Best of Photojournalism annual results (2009 results will be released in a month), Atlanta Photojournalism Competition 2008 results, Burn Magazine, Ahorn Magazine (not photojournalism), Blue Eyes Magazine, Dispatches Magazine (one of the best; only 3 issues (America, Iraq, and Russia, I believe), and each blows me away).

With most of the above, if you see something you like, type the photographer's name into google and you'll find their website which will contain much more inspiring work.
posted by msbrauer at 6:02 AM on February 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

My favorite is "Things You Wouldn't Know If We Didn't Blog It" which has tons of interesting stuff daily!
posted by olddogeyes at 6:57 PM on February 24, 2009 [1 favorite]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_pictures
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_pictures
posted by Mike1024 at 9:11 AM on March 4, 2009