A Very Conscientious Thank You

It's been a week since we launched Expiration Notice, and I just want to thank all the people who made it over to participate either by viewing or submitting, as well as those kind enough to give us a shout out (most of whom can be seen directly to the right). We hope it garners the featured artists some much warranted attention that may help further their careers.

It's amazing the amount of well wishes we have received- Joe Reifer was even nice enough to inform us completely out of the blue that Blogger, via Picassa, automatically strips any metadata photographers may embed in their work. And that is indeed a good thing to be aware of- although I'm of the opinion that once you put a photo out on the net, if someone wants it bad enough...

And it's always sad, but not unexpected, to see how the other half reacts. One person was rather perturbed we didn't have a female photographer, and being a minority member pretty much all my life, I can share her... frustration. Actually, I was going to choose a female photographer for the first volume, but it was pointed out that she was currently featured on another online magazine- so I looked elsewhere. One of my favorites (male) for the upcoming issue is also currently featured elsewhere, so I'm looking elsewhere once again. Yes, sometimes there's more than gender, or even talent, to be considered. Quite frankly, I'm more concerned with getting a person of color (of any gender) on board, but as my colleague pointed out- it aint gonna happen till the work says so.

Then there's the case of one particular blogger who very deliberately chose to exclude us (more a petty than Conscientious maneuver on his part) from a recent post on new photo publications. Sometimes you hope that egos (and personal beefs?) can be checked at the door, particularly when it concerns promoting the work of others. Sigh...