I hover in the dpreview.com forums on a regular basis. More specifically, the PentaxSLR forum, owning an *istDS and all. A few of the members have gotten together and created a new site over at http://pentaxium.webvision.co.za. The idea is that all Pentax users will, on the same day (apparently 4 times a year), take a photo to be posted to the site. This is a neat idea, because it will get people out there shooting more, a problem most of us have. This is also a bad idea I think. Too many people put too much stock into their hardware and gear, and not nearly enough in taking pictures. Lot’s of folks will convince themselves their camera isn’t worth using and go find something else. Something more expensive. There are the few out there that will take pictures with whatever camera they have in their hands, be it a toy Holga or a multi-thousand dollar DSLR. And both sets of pictures are excellent pieces of art. Having a full site dedicated to taking pictures, and only allowing certain brand users to participate isn’t going to help this situation any. Now, understand that forums like dpreview.com has, where certain brand users can chat with each other, is a great thing. If I have a problem with my Pentax camera, a few thousand other Pentax users are the best people to ask. But when the topic at hand is stricly photos, and showing those photos, it loses something when you only allow a certain brand to participate.

But I nitpick and possibly make up issues that don’t exist. I’ll be participating all the same because I think it’ll be fun to interact with other photographers more. I also don’t whore myself nearly enough.

UPDATE:   Well, it appears I wasn’t interested after all, because I totally forgot about it.  I sat around, played video games and watched movies with the kids instead.  I even thought about going somewhere to take some photos too, but it was pretty cold and cloudy, so I decided against it.  Oops.