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Jun 30 2010

The Attention Engine

When I attended the HDR Workshop hosted by Scott Bourne and Trey Ratcliff earlier this year, Trey discussed one of his projects called HDR Spotting. The concept came out of a question.  Trey is pretty popular and his images get a lot of attention.  In my opinion, it’s deserved.  He’s found interesting subjects during his travels and his processing approach has improved consistently while be shared his art.

However, Trey said that he saw other photographers whose work he considered as good, or better, than his own.  Why weren’t they getting the same attention as he received?

Attention is the new currency, Trey opined.  If not now, it will be.  Personally, I don’t agree.  I can pay my bills with currency, but I can’t pay them with attention.  That’s a simplistic view on my part.  If you have work that garners sufficient attention, you have a greater opportunity to make sales of your work. That’s a good thing, but I’m still on the side of selling out for currency, if I ever get to that point.

Access to HDR Spotting was limited, though, by invitation only.  As luck would have it, the workshop attendees received an invitation.  Now that I’m on the inside, I have codes to share to invite others who would like to join.  I’ve only shared one so far.  It does me no good to hoard these codes.  However, I don’t want to just toss them out there without any thought to who may end up using them.

So here’s my offer.  If you believe your work is as good as the other folks you see on HDR Spotting, leave a comment where I can see some samples.  If I agree, I’ll share a code.  It’s completely subjective and not guaranteed to be fair.  It’s just a matter of opinion.  I have eight codes to share and I would like to find some other folks with interesting HDR work to enjoy.  I plan on giving them all away, but I can’t do it if I don’t about you.

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Posted in Photography, Technology

  • http://www.kellyverdeck.com Kelly Verdeck

    I admit I was in the anti-HDR camp for some time, mainly because when the technique first became popular I saw so many over-the-top, surreal HDR images and it turned me off. But I’ve been following Trey’s blog for a while, and of course yours too, and I was finally sufficiently impressed with enough good HDR photos to give it a try myself over the past few weeks:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/rain0975/tags/hdr/
    I can’t pretend I’m even in the same galaxy as the folks on HDR Spotting, but I’m pleased enough so far to keep trying to get better at it, so I’ll throw my hat in the ring for a code. :)

    • http://www.williambeem.com William

      Thanks for the note. I sent the code to you by Flickr mail. Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

  • http://gerryrosser.wordpress.com gerry rosser

    Well, I’ll be bold enough to claim my HDR work is, at least at times, on a level with what I see from others. You already have seen some of them on my Flickr page, so I’ll trust your judgment.

    • http://www.williambeem.com William

      Absolutely! I just sent the invitation code to your e-mail address. Thanks for stopping by again and commenting. I’ll be interested to see what you submit to HDR Spotting.

  • http://stock-background-texture.com/ Rachael Towne

    I don’t actually need an invite code as I’ve already found one and joined HDR spotting.

    I just want to comment on the idea of “attention is the new currency”. I think Trey has some awesome HDR images…most of which would stand as good photographs if they weren’t HDR. This is to me, part of my internal critique of an HDR image. I also think he is a shrewd business man and from my observations he is making TONS of money with his “HDR Guru” status. I’m willing to bet that he probably enjoys the attention his work gets, but wouldn’t work so hard at self-promotion of no actual money were coming his way.

    Personally, I take photographs, both HDR and normal, partly for fun and partly for money. I think this is true for almost everybody who posts images Online.