NOTHING IS FREE, and if it is, is it worth it?

1,314 photographers saw something last week and did something about it. Not to disparage our cities surveillance advertising, but that was some turnout for Rob " A Photo Editor". Now all we have to do is wait for Rob's decree and in the process do like CNN or MSNBC and break down the social experiment aspect of the whole schbang till we are blue in the face. But seriously, it was very interesting to see who showed up for the dance and why. There were some old names I hadn't seen in a while, quite surprising. Plenty of names that were not familiar at all, but it was what people decided to show, not who, that was so interesting.... actually confounding. Andrew Hetherington wrote about taking part in the experiment and what he felt were the ups and downs of such an exercise, all of it I felt was really pertinent to how we behave as professionals in our business. Sometimes our business feels like high school, not quite professional, but what you gonna do . What I found mystifying is how people made their decisions on what to show. Over and over people put up images that had no real connection to the work on their websites. What in heavens name is that about. Yes its Flickr but do you really think that someone editing is going to pour over your trip to Italy, even though you shoot high end Still life in the real world. Get a grip. Have people learned nothing from reading these blogs in regards to producing and submitting coherent bodies of work? Some people decided to partake but made the images private, isn't the whole idea for people to see your work, or is it only the right sort of people are given the privilege. And then some people sent their images to Rob via email so as not to dain mixing with the Flickr riff raff. Egalitarian my ass. Maybe its the free aspect, I would like to talk to someone at PDN and asked them if a $40.00 entry fee makes any difference. I don't mean to be doggin anyone in particular here but if I read one more blog about how hard it is to find work and how can we get in the door, and this is how the business responds to a free "get in the door", well. Lets hope it turns out to be what it truly was supposed to be, but as they say the proof will be in the pudding. I am excited to see the outcome but I'm positive we will not have heard the last of this once the envy'd list is revealed