what is Lightstalkers for you?

Lightstalkers to me means different things at different times. Sometimes I am looking for professional information. Other times I am offering my knowledge to help others who can benefit. Then there are times when it’s enjoying the different perspectives people across the world have on subjects related to journalism and photography.

In the end it is the benefit of getting outside of yourself in a bigger way than just talking to people on the street, at work or at a cocktail party, and sharing with them some interests and common concerns.

I agree w/ Neal. I feel that for the most part I can trust the photographers here, and I can trust what they recommend. I am exposed to world news from many angles, from different points of view. I get exposed to alot of photographers work here. Their websites, and agencies. I hope I have provided good info to some. I am glad to have found this site.

I just like to come here to hang out with the masters of the trade.

Lightstalkers is a hub for fellow world citizens, seems to me. I enjoy the picture threads most of all though. Photography as a visual language is the most universial language of all.

Sarah, Neal, Ed, Paul, Thanks a lot for what you are sharing!

Hopefuly more will join soon, and share a bit about what lightstalkers is for you!

Though I am not a fotographer, i love photography, so here is a flower from my garden to say thanks:

Gabriela

Oh, to have a garden…

A lovely gift, very personal. I am touched. Thanks, Gabriela.

1. Cooperation. LS gives us a chance to counteract the competitiveness that prevails in our profession and inculcate a bit of cooperation and communal support.

2. Pedagogy. Definitely a place to learn and to teach. People share information freely here.

3. Logistical support: you need to travel to Timbuktoo and want info about the place, this is where you can get it.

4. Philosophical speculation: arguments/discussions about everything, LS is a good sounding board for testing ideas.

5. Virtual agency: your profile page acts as a kind of office on the internet, and editors can find you there. LS is a register and a yellow pages all in one.

6. Industry News source: a bit like PDN, you can learn everything that is happening in the biz and you can look over work from a broad variety of photographers.

7. An instrument promoting and supporting a free press.

8.A means of connecting people from all over the world, thereby bringing smaller countries into the limelight.

9. An aid to supporting independent careerists. It definitely provides help for smalltime independent producers of work.

Where is Mike the Hack when you really need him?

Yes, where is Mike the Hack!!!

Whos Mike the Hack?

Its about connection and learning for me. I learned that a fixer is different then the fixer used in the darkroom. I just learned the word “pedagogy” too.

What are lightstalkers to me? Underpaid for starters.

This site i find a good idea as we can all learn from each other no matter how good or bad… it’s all to do with communication and who shares what, it’s not easy getting to know people face to face so imagine trying to do it through a screen and with text. Liked the little joke about the fixer… i thourght it was a name for someone helping drug addicts.

Reminds me of things I don’t have access to most of the time. Of who’s around there also. It’s not so much about learning. It is about resituating things, people, what we do…

Pedagogy? Did you really mean that? How about self-promotion, I haven’t seen anyone mention that.

I think I’ve said before, for me it’s sort a combo of a family (with all our dysfunction and joys) and a journal, because it’s easier for me to think when I am talking to someone. It’s where I go after I check my email, so it’s part of me.

I also have a sense – right or wrong – about what each of the LS individuals are like. What you look like, what your voice sounds like, your home and habits..so it’s a place for my mind to expand and create and feel like I understand others a bit. Research says that if you watch a tv show repeatedly that has certain characters, over time the brain can’t distinguish them from real friends. Isn’t that creepy and sad? You get the same chemical reactions of shared happenings and involvement. I suppose it is even more so with virtual LS companions that interact, and as photographers a lot of us are loners to a degree, perhaps LS offsets that.

pedagogy:the activities of educating or instructing; activities that impart knowledge or skill
yep, both you Andy and Jon and others teach me all the time

I’ve also met with a handful of real live LSers, and learned directly over a a cuppa. Not to mention the all that I met at the LS gathering, so it is for me slowly turning into a ‘real’ community.

Well I certainly meant it when I said pedagogy - we are all learning from and teaching one another, or so it seems to me. I have learned a tremendous amount from various LS members here: Tommy Huynh, Art Rothfuss, Bob Black, Andy Levin, John Vink, Kenneth Jarecke, Aleph, Kenneth Dickerman, John Loomis, Alex Reshuan, - the list goes on and on. there were all sorts of things that I was unaware of before I came to LS and started schooling myself — digital stuff, business stuff and more. I have sought to return some of that energy in the form of the tutorials I have written up so other people and get some information in a centralized form.

Self promotion is certainly part of it, after all the profiles are there to be used as such, it is a built in component. Ithought that was implied by points number five and nine, but I guess not.

Teaching is more to the point Jon, though I think of it as giving back to the community. But why use a complex word when a simple one will do?

ha! cause I like Greek words.

search, find,discuss, reed,connect, choose a network, be choosen from some other in a network.
smart-ass, know-all, arrogance, wise guy, witty person, wisecracker…
selfpromotion, dreamer, hopeful….
photographer, buyer, artist, schnapper, worldplayers, humanity and crime against humanity.

Me too! Especially “malacca.”

Hallo Gabriela, i have a question more for the lightstalkers
wich connection there are betweeen lightstalker and flickr?
why put a profy photographer is photo on flickr?
why lightstalkers put the flickr gallery on the page?
did they get money from yahoo?
another question do you thing that the future of photography is to sale them for cheap and cheap?
is flickr a better self-promotion for you?

Gabriela, I’ve been a member of LS for maybe one year, I have never met a LS nor have any idea what they look like, and that I believe is it’s short coming. It’s true you have those small button photographs of the photographer, but that does not tell me much. Beyond the above key tab’s for tech support or travel deals, cameras or scanners for sale, LS is best when it’s an editorial or a forum on current, or past events. At times these online forums get long winded and can last for days, and I’m also guilty of that-but you are able to read viewpoints on the same issue which I find quite helpful and refreshing even if I don’t agree. Although LS is meant to showcase work of the total photographic community, the forums reveal more than their photographs do, you have anger, resentment, some people have even been taken off LS due to their comments and one English Woman disappeared due to an question of LS dating service, all part of this landscape of which you will write for a Ph.D..- so good luck and best of wishes for your Ph.D.. John Patrick Naughton

A positive addiction: u learn, share, makes u laugh and reflect, a company that respects your privacy, if i cant check same as my mail i have to control my nerves, i miss a lot these days that i don’t have a connection and have to stay a short time with: just a wonderful thing

A world of information and sometimes much fun. What happened with yesterday’s posting on lightstalkers as a dating agency? that was the funniest sunday i have had in long time.
But personally i have found incredible worth info on technichal, places to stay and logistics on places i have never been before. simply the best. And thanks for the flower, see, even beauty can be found here.
A beer on me for bridge boy, you know… when back in nyc.

Hi all,

Thanks a lot for those who have been sharing with one another and with me.

Reading you I’ve been wondering about how your professional practices related to photography, have (or maybe not) changed since the use of web technology. I’ll appreciate a lot if you could share, deepen in this issue from the point of view of your day to day work.

Also, hopefully more will join soon to the general conversation.

Gracias, muchas gracias a todos

Gabriela

As photographers, we tend to live very separate lives, live in odd places, work strange hours. Our paths don’t cross often. Lightstalkers is a way of connecting with people who have the same passions, either people you’ve met over the years in Perpinan or Paris or Palestine, or people you’ve not met yet, but whose work you know. It’s nice to know you’re not alone, that someone you met at a riot in Ramallah is now living in Singapore, still chasing pictures. And it’s handy to be able to chat about places you’ve never been to, find out about accomodation, exhibitions, or cameras, or computers, or publications.