Hello to all and the curation team.  This post involves my ideas on photography, art and curation.

1x says that it is a "fine art" photography site, not a "fine photography" site.  Photography as art can take many forms, styles and shapes as a visit to a large museum can show.  There, anyone can see photos that break the rules about composition, light and technical perfection.

When curating those photos, the curators should try to leave behind their prejudices.  They should curate only the photo without regard to title, description or tech information.  This is hard to do because someones ego can get in the way.  Biases can result in having great photos rejected as the story below shows:

The painters Van Gogh, Georges Seurat and Claude Monet walk into a gallery and ask the curator to have their paintings excepted.

The curator looks at each one of the paintings and says to:

Van Goh - "I cannot accept your painting, because the paint is too thick and you colors are not realistic."

Georges Seurat - "Your painting is not accpetable.  It has too many dots.  Did you have enough paint?."

Claude Monet - "Why don't you paint like the painters of the past?  Your paintings are not clear.  Do you have problems with your eyes?"

Do you get my drift?  "Thinking outside the box" can expand your photography art, improve a gallery and possibly increase sales.

Have a wonderful art day!

Al, 

That's a great story.   I'm sure I read a similar one about some famous photographs - a Cartier Bresson work being slightly out of focus, etc.   I really like the photo you posted.  It's a good example of how an image can break the 'rules', but still be worthwhile.   To me it expresses the excitement of 'The Dance of Life'.  Without the blur and the exaggerated reds it wouldn't speak so clearly. 

Steven

Hi, here the question is quite complicated, photographs are born  for the sale, because photography has the ability to reproduce an artistic image, but also scientific one(or portrait). I have the impression that the comparison photography-painting is more used by photographers than the comparison photography-cinema.

if the film is a flop actors and director will have to revive their careers.

Even being an artist is a vocation but then a job. Otherwise, if you do not work change your profession, instead of painting and sell your paintings you could teach. Some professional photographers devote themselves to the workshop because it is difficult to sell photos.With the diffusion of photography, there are so many photos that the market for sales, professional and commercial photographs has collapsed.
All artists.170 (maybe) expert curators(and 5000 curators) will have a lot of work to do for them.Who knows if there is any artist in the middle or the son of an artist or painter or great photographer,or amateur photographer.Sometimes it is also easy to blame the critics or jurors who have failed to recognize talent.The number of participants should somehow balance out the errors of judgment. But when we try to critique, we begin to look at a number of possibilities, to understand why the image might work, or how it might be viewed by many other people in a negative way (because they have no artistic or photographic training).

Choosing the best and most marketable prints follows a precise logic.We don't have the sales data.

Hello.

It’s okay to question the commissioners, but it’s even better to question ourselves, our prejudices, and our egocentrism and learn to manage them the best we can.

Greetings.

There would be a dozen aspects to discuss in the context of curation. I just would like to respond to the sales aspect in your comment.

1x describes the site in its FAQ as an online gallery, not a museum. A gallery is a showroom for selling the exhibited work, no matter if it's a painting, sculptures or photography. I have asked quite a few members here who do portraits if they ever sell their photos, and the answer was always "little to nothing". Still, if you have a look at the front page, quite a significant portion of published and awarded work is portraits. So the artistic aspect of photography is respected by curators. Choices are not made by only commercial criteria. Landscapes sell well, abstracts do a bit, flower macros do okay. I shoot many genres at a reasonable level, and also staged models. I sell everything, but people shots very rarely, only boudoir sometimes. 

Best regards,

Mike

Hi Mike perfect,i'm not disputing this point,but as i said it's a complicated discussion.There are too many different assessments and even opposing points of view,while legitimate to take into consideration,that almost invariably can be overlooked while focusing on the answer. Let's assume one of these great painters who for some reason is often compared to photographer,the great painter who is not yet known subscribed to a website today with a percentage of sales for one of his paintings(original ideas).Luckily the painter has his own studio if he doesn't paint outdoors(he will have an electric car or go sailing).Of course he can painting for himself,but he may have gone to art school being a painter or even self-taught.He must install an application that reminds him not to start discussing.

Is a different mentality.Regards