Why is your photograph worth remembering?

[Desmond Chan]

On flickr there's a street photography group called Hardcore Street Photography. Everybody can add photo to the group I suppose, but the criterion the admins use to delete or keep your photo in the pool is basically:

Give us a reason to remember the photograph.

Simple, isn't it?

[Dave Mills]

Hi Desmond, I never felt a photographer should have to state a reason for their work. The photograph should be memorable to the viewer without an explanation. I strongly believe an image should speak for itself. Have you gone to a museum lately and looked at great works of art where the artist states a reason to remember their work?
I personally think the question is foolish...

[Desmond Chan]

Hi Desmond, I never felt a photographer should have to state a reason for their work.

Actually, Dave, they're not requiring the photographers to state a reason for their work. They're simply stating what they're looking for in a photograph for it to quality for their pool.

From here http://www.flickr.com/groups/onthestreet/ :

Give us a reason to remember the photograph. Ask yourself, what makes it so special, why is it worth remembering for more than a split second?

I don't think they literally ask the photographers to give them the reasons :S3:

Many photo magazines publish photos from readers. I remember Popular Photographer magazine, as an example, even posted a video on their site telling the readers what kind of photographs would have a better chance to be selected. Some of the things that got mentioned in the video include a photograph that makes the viewers laugh, make them say: "Wow !", or even was taken under unusual situations. As you can imagine, they see a lot of photographs everyday. It's understandable then that they would look for that something extra in a photograph rather than just another technically well executed, eye-pleasing photograph like many others out there.


The photograph should be memorable to the viewer without an explanation. And so they're saying: "Does your photograph have it?"

[Dave Mills]

After going to their site I see what your talking about. They aren't asking you to explain the image only the image must convey a reason for them to keep it. The image does have to speak for itself.
The way it was posted originally could have been easily misconstrued....

[Chris Ober]

Interesting idea but I think most of the selections are more mundane than memorable.

[Jay Gould]

Having just taken a look at the website - thanks for the intro - "Frankly Scarlet" - I would rather spend an hour browsing through the images on BPN, NS, and several other forums before I would go back to this Flickr site. I looked at the images under Admin's Favorites - OK.