It's a while ago there was a call to volunteer for the role of an Ambassador.

The idea was to promote succesful photographers and enrich the 1x portfolio.

I find the "unlimited" members work easy to find. They are unconventional for 1x, and often I perceive them questionable, if not far below 1x "standard".

Sorry I have to put some people on display to make my point, I would not know how to do it as clear, without showing what I mean.

<<< formerly given three examples from three unlimited portfolios, who was interested already saw what I mean >>>

Who checks our ambassodors work? To me it looks like - next to some interesting photographers(!) - also buddies are pulled in.

The real succesful don't even sell their works here, so what's the use for a online gallery like 1x? Their work can be found in many other places when looking them up by google. I think it just occupies  slots on the front page, it's in most cases not inspiring me at all, and the final proof that nobody really cares is that they are rarely found in the popular ranking - unless they show celebrities like Jimi Hendrix in former times.

I question this is a big win for 1x, many works just lower the quality of this brilliant site.

And I would like to see less - what I believe are - hobby photographers, like most of us, becoming unlimited members

Well done Mike someone had to step up and say it as it is.. You could not have put it any better...

I also thank you for this contribution. It finds my complete approval. 

Instead, 1x.com should take care of those who have actively made the site into what it was recently with their work in recent years and who are now holding back here due to the current development.

Well done Mike. Thank you for your clear thoughts on the current situation.

My best regards.

Francesco

Hi Mike,

I don't agree with your statement about the "far below 1x" quality of the photos by invited photographers. You say that you OFTEN perceive them questionable.

We have already seen a lot of sublime images by the new 1x members on the frontpage and in interviews as well. And there is some more already in the pipeline.

I recommend to read the interviews with Sergey Fett, Daniel Kordan, Jonathan Critchley, Hong Zuo and Bobby Joshi. 

The interview with Sergey has no permalink yet, it's the recent article in the magazine.

Links to the other interviews:

https://1x.com/magazine/permalink/9220

https://1x.com/magazine/permalink/9195

https://1x.com/magazine/permalink/9201

https://1x.com/magazine/permalink/9208

Happy reading,

Hans-Martin

Hello Hans-Martin,

Thank you for your constructive response, your a good team lead.

"Sublime" is exactly the word I remember the team of ambassadors should be looking for, next to a few other attributes, like well-known, succesful.

The idea of succesful photography merging into the 1x portfolio is the goal of ambassador work.

The people you and the team invite to 1x as unlimited members receive a big privilege. Their work, everything they post, will get exposure at the place we all apply for, the 1x front page. So in my view, it is in the responsibilty of your team to make sure these people deserved this priviliege. 

I did not say there is no positive outcome, I personally like many photos of Dash_and_Mari, Akif Hakan Celebi, and a few others. Most. There is a reason these people are succesful, their work has an unusual attitude.

But the three photographers I pointed to are not. In that sense I feel they lower the quality of the best thing 1x has to offer, the front page.

If you can explain me what exactly your team has to look for and why these had to be added, I'm very willing to think about my statement, which is still not more than my opinion, of course.

The number of "Likes" to my original post tells me I'm not the only one having this, though.

Best regards,

Mike

Well, these three photographers have uploaded 20 images in total since their invitation. 4 + 6 + 10. Within 3 months. I don't think that this has significantly lowered the quality of the front page.

We will continue to search for acclaimed photographers with international merits.

Good light,

Hans-Martin

Hi Hans - Martin,

You are the Head of the Ambassadors the King Maker if you like, this is happening on your watch. It's time in my opinion to tighten up quality control of who get the nod to be the next King. Or don't you think there is a problem.

I honestly feel the whole idea of inviting so called social media famous photographers and making them unlimited free members here is a huge injustice to every 1x photographer who has been here for more than a decade and slogging themselves for getting published in the eyes of probably a difficult phase of curation and still posting pics relentlessly trusting the whole process and idea of what 1x stands for. 
be it any photographer, no one would mind them being given unlimited privileges, but publishing their images without them going through the test is just wrong and unjust on other photographers . 

Dear friends,

Just like all of you, I had to go through all the changes without any explanation.

According to the Ambassador's team, indeed some outstanding photographers were discovered - Masha and Mari for instance and to name just one.
As for the interviews recently published, such as Hakif Celebi, Daniel Kordan, Sergey Fett, Bobby Joshi, Jonathan Chritchley, I invited them even before the Ambassador's team was created (some were recommanded by Ralf, some were discovered on the site by me).

The Editorial team has discovered many world famous photographers over the years (last year there was Alexander Petrosyan) and many others since 2016.
They all got an unlimited account.
And yes, I agree that not all the photographers 'discovered' by the ambassadors are that excellent compared to the photography quality of the long-standing members who have made 1x big over the years.
It is a bit of a jaw blow that some newbies (unlimited accounts)  got ALL their images automatically published and AWARDED without going through curation even if from lesser quality.

Hans-Martin:  All articles - as soon as published, got a permalink.  To see it, go to the magazine, click on archives and on the last article and the permalink appears.  And yes, in the beginning there have been some issues when the 'Blog' on the Classic version was changed into 'Magazine' on the Gamma version.
No one was informed of this, not a single crew member and me neither.

Mike Kreiten: thanks for this topic.  I agree and hope the Critique section will get a nice place in the Gamma version.

To all ambassadors: thanks for the good job you're doing and I hope to collaborate with you to provide unique interviews from outstanding photographers.

Try to be more selective: quality is worth more than quantity.

Sorry to bother you, it's not my habit.

Respectful greetings to all

Yvette

Hi swapnil,

try to get Steve McCurry on board. And then tell him that 1x only will publish his images if they pass the member curation and the curation by the head curators. What do you think he will tell you ?

Yes Yvette,

and to avoid misunderstandings, some of them were invited by Ralf personally (in total 13 so far). And the invited photographers are not all newbies to 1x, some of them had a "sleeping" 1x account and we considered to offer them an unlimited account to see new works by them.

Ralf did this with Pedro Jarque Krebs, I did it with Tina Signesdottir Hult (Hasselblad Master 2018). And there are still some more names.

Well, I recently considered to do the same with Maria Svarbova (former 1x user name Aria Baro) but I cancelled this idea after facing these massive complaints by 1x members. So we have to live with the fact that she showed her last work to 1x three years ago. And we won't see here any of her new work. Is that what 1x members really want ?  

The idea of ​​exempting the invited members from beeing curated was, in addition to being ridiculous, the fact that they do not burden the capacities of the member and head curators.

Cheers, Hans-Martin

Do we want to make a national geographic out of 1x? Each forum has certain agendas when they are formed. If an xyz world class photographer does bot abide by the rules its ok, both must agree to disagree and move on. 
bending the rules so we get to see works of world class people is unfair. We already have some of the best out here and sad to see many of them leaving because of the uncanny changes to the site and curations. 
i am not criticising anyone here hans sir, i an jus putting my point of view of how an amateur 1x photographer will think who has spent years here. 

Hooray, a new high point in the pursuit of an exclusive photo gallery.

1xstudioIII, today 419 published photos.

I must be dreaming.

Luc 

these flood of new published artwork reinforces my feeling that my work is no longer needed in 1x.com

Hans-Wolfgang

a nightmare ...

The best pictures at 1x now look like this https://1x.com/photo/2105202/published and so on.

In the last few months I've had the impression that 1x is moving more and more in the direction of Insta. But it's getting worse, as you can see today. Who made this selection?  1x Studio III internals from 1x?

Thanks to Mike Kreiten, I absolutely agree.

Uschi

This is depressing, just plain and simple, depressing.

I must admit this work form 1x studio I to III looks like a whole other category of photography... a lot more like stock for designers of wall papers... must be commercially rather attractive to the owners, otherwise I miss the point of these type of additions... feels conflicting with the artistic standards so far...

Well, I don't think that it is (in most cases) photography but another art form. Some works reminds me of Picasso sketches.

https://1x.com/photo/2008610

https://1x.com/photo/2008608

I like these two works.

But please note, this issue has nothing to do with the 1x ambassadors' work.

So please post any more complaints in another forum.

Kind regards,

Hans-Martin

The situation is more serious than that: the “1x studio I” and “1x studio II” accounts contain published and awarded photos !

It's so ridiculous it looks like a joke.

Hopefully, officials quickly correct this situation, before members' anger mounts.

It becomes obvious that the work of the ambassadors must be supervised, in order to avoid obtaining photos incompatible with the requirements of the curation.

Please, Eric,

read my previous post.

This has nothing to do with ambassadors' work !

Sorry Hans-Martin, I did not see your message, it is indeed important to know that these 3 accounts have nothing to do with the work of the ambassadors.

My sentence generally remains valid for this forum topic.

Ambassadors have shown us that they are able to invite interesting and rewarding photographers. This is fine, but they have to make sure that their photos are not incompatible with the requirements of the curation, it is essential to keep the good mood of the 1x site.

Kind regards,

Eric

Sorry Hans Martin, I posted this in the Ambassadors tread. Glad to know it is not under your wings.

Luc

I read these examples as excellent photoshop work based on / derived from a photo source, might be wrong... 

note I responded to an earlier post ....

you are correct in itself this is not ambassador work in the first place... however for me the ambassadors are gatekeepers of the artistic values too...

I'm an ambassador. I totally agree we need some kind of 'quality control' protocol established and monitored. It is still in the early stages as this is a fairly new 'concept' with the ambassadors. I hope management is reading and will correct the situation. When a new project is launched anywhere and we see that is not going well as hoped for at 100%, it is time to pause it, analyze, correct mistakes, brainstorm and relaunch. Obviously, we are at this point. As we are all seeing, the same is a happening with the new version of 1x, many of us (including me) are giving feedback of what could be improved, what we would like to see carried over from the old 1x to the new 1x and we also report bugs etc that we see on the new 1x. I see this ambassador role promoting photographers project in the same light, there are bugs that need fixing. The sooner we address these issues, the better. It is a good project to keep but needs to be improved and possibly curated. Yes curated like everything else, there could be a curation process in choosing which 'successful award winning' photographers get invited, why not...to be certain that they ' fit ' well with 1x. We can do a team of 4 ambassadors, or 2 head curators and 2 ambassadors( head ambassadort and another)  if there is a tie (2 accept but 2 refuse the candidate) , we call in a 5th person (or head ambassador) as the tie-breaker. I am just putting a few suggestions on the table, there are several scenarios we can do. I know the head curators are already very busy. Maybe all the ambassadors can put all their chosen candidates in a basket, ( lets say once a month) then send to head curators and head team ambassador(s), they make the decision to accept or refuse, they send us (ambassador) final decisions, we proceed with invitations. There are several ways we can proceed. Ambassadors still have key roles to search the best of the best out there, but must now present the candidates to another level for acceptance or refusal from a small team made of mixed ambassadors / curators. Of course the whole process of inviting top photographers will be much slower since they have to screened and approved of by 4 or 5 people before the actual inviation is sent, but it could a better way to advance from now on. Regards. Joe

Thank you Joe,

For sharing your view, thoughts and good suggestions. I 100% agree with all you've said, in fact you brought the origin of my post back on table. 

I could not foresee the recent developments, and the dynamics of this discussion. 

In fact I think we all agree bringing in "fresh" photography does not harm generally and the work of ambassadors leads to enrichment of the 1x portfolio when done properly and thoughtful.

The 1x Studio work for me is not in line with 1x "style", indeed looking like stock content and in most cases, not even photography. But never mind, we all disagree in what has been selected once in a while. If it's not a few hundred at a time, there is no point in getting upset.

Thanks again, I appreciate you shared a view of an ambassador who's goal is obviously what I would expect this role to be.

Mike

Dear Hans-Martin

It is totally irrelevant to mention Steve McCurry here.  Once he was judge here for the yearly 1x Photo Awards.  We tried several times to invite him for an interview offering him an account to have some of his images in the 1x gallery.  Ralf did, I did it again and again.  I even have a personal and great questionnaire but he never answered.
Same happened in 2020 by inviting Sebastian Salgado.  Those are famous and worldwide known photographers (Magnum photographers except that Salgado isn't anymore).  I don't think one single member would mind to see his images published and awarded.  

My hat of if one of the ambassadors can get Steve McCurry or Salgado on board.  Oh wow ...
It is just that so many photographers who often aren't better than many ancient members, are invited, accepted and published/awarded without any curation.
On the other side, respect for the great ones discovered since the ambassador's team was created !!!

But it is a fact that there is some 'quality controle' protocol needed to be established as many are claiming here.

Furthermore, and sorry for that ... but I know very well about all the photographers invited by Ralf (some 1x sleeping accounts, some Ralf wanted me to invite for an interview, not knowing they were already 1x members like Jonathan Chritchley).    I was amazed by Pedro Jark's invitation because he is still very active on 1x and had a great interview a few years ago in the magazine.

So, instead of arguing who found the most, the best photographers, we should work together to 'Pursuit the sublime'.

Best greetings,

Yvette

A lot of misunderstanding here, dear Yvette ! I did not want to ask swapnil to invite Steve McCurry.

swapnil's statement: no one would mind them being given unlimited privileges, but publishing their images without them going through the test is just wrong and unjust on other photographers.

With the example "Steve McCurry" I only wanted to express that a photographer like him (or Sebastiao Salgado or Annie Leibovitz) surely would not accept that their images are evaluated by 1x members if they are good enough to be awarded or not. 

You're right that in cases where the invited photographer is not as famous as the above mentioned persons their images should go to the head curators to be awarded or not.

But this procedure was exactly so planned according to Ralf's initial statement from May 2021 if I remember right. Automatic publishing of images by invited members and then passing them through to the head curators for a decision "awarded" or "not awarded".  No automatic award.

By the way, the "unlimited priviliges" mentioned by swapnil must be relativated. The invited members are offered a free account (means they don't pay a fee) but it is neither umlimited concerning time (runs out after 6 months or so) nor unlimited concerning number of image uploads. It depends on each ambassador how to handle the number of uploads. Concerning my personal invitations: I limited the initial upload by 20. I don't think that it makes sense to show more images as a cross section of someone's work. There is a close collaboration between me and the photographers I invited, concerning the selection of images for the 1x profile and the concept of an exhibition (selection of images, order of images, additional text and so on). And that's why also the number of invited photographers (at least for me) is limited. I see this limit by 10 photographers. For time reasons I'm not able to care for and collaborate in detail with more than 10 photographers. Maybe this will change a little but let's say 30 or 50 ist totally unthinkable.

I don't know how the other ambassadors handle these issues in detail but I don't think that any of the ambassadors sees his task as taking part in a competition

"who finds the most, the best photographers".  We all try to find suitable candidates whose join to 1x can ensure the high quality of the 1x gallery. 

Good light, Hans-Martin

 Hi Mike, there is a CORRECTION I need to do in my posts. 

I am no longer an ambassador. 

My thoughts and I guess what you described as my good suggestions and my other 'different' ideas seem to have not fit so well into the mold. 

I was hoping / wishing for some improvements and changes in the very near future...and was looking forward to the progress, but got 'unplugged'. 

Will now watch the drama unfold as a non-ambassador and I'm back to being a regular member now.

any other details will be discussed in private messages for those interested, grab the popcorn.

Regards,

Joe

Well that's a shame, Joe, thanks for letting us know. I found you just had the right spirit for this task, sad to see your open style in communication led to this.

I still believe this thread has shown there were some downsides of ambassadors work outcome, as it was shown and proved there are also positive results and future selections will probably done with more care. However, I also read there aren't many rules and limits defined to give invited members exposure. I seriously hope these will be discussed and I think that's the responsibility of a team leader, if not Ralf and Jacob themselves.

I hope you still enjoy 1x and stay, this platform needs people who speak up whilst it's undergoing so many changes at once. Feels a bit like an open-heart surgery sometimes, where the defibrillator should be in reach ...

Regards,

Mike

Russell Allen Jacobsen is from Norway. His profession is vascular surgeon. He is a hobby photographer. 

With the invitation program we are not only aiming on rising the quality but we are also looking for images which are different from the usual style seen in the gallery. Apparently the ambassador had this in mind when he invited Russell Allen Jacobsen to upload 4 images that could meet this requirement.

The links to the other three images:

https://1x.com/photo/2081069

https://1x.com/photo/2081070

https://1x.com/photo/2081071

It does not play a role how many followers a photographer has on 500px (only 19, what a shame) and which quality his overall portfolio has, most important is the quality of the uploaded 4 images. 

Look at the comments and at the number of likes, then you will see that these 4 images are not considered as garbage by the 1x members.

I hope, the photographer from Norway will not read your initial statement here in the forum. It's quite unpolite and if I would read this about my photography, I immediatlely would delete my account and say bye bye to 1x.

Regards, Hans-Martin

May I suggest to end this topic... Mike and Hans Martin give eachother a call to discuss...

I would expect management somehow to facilitate discussion between leaders away from the public..,

It doesn't help anyone and starts to become potentially damaging... imo

With all due respect, I think new and not well thought through (curation and ambassadors) processes are more damaging than any open discussion could be. By the way, this does not imply that I think that they are not thought through well, I'm still trying to evaluate that. Because of those processes I'm re-considering if I'd like to re-new my paid membership or not.

What's wrong with a bit of transparancy? It shows that leaders care.

I asked Hans Martin why certain people were added and he explained. I don't have to agree with the motivation to invite people since this is none of my business. Readers can have their own opinion about it. As said before, I think the discussion has potentially sensitised part of the ambassador team for future choices since it became visible many members don't agree to past decisions. All is said from my perspective, Wicher.

That's a novelty for me. My post from yesterday was deleted!!!!

The new way of discussion control at 1x?

I have expressed in short form that I do not find good the in my opinion aggressively presented and in parts wrong representation of Hans Martin.

Since here all are striving for harmony, I deny myself the arguments.

H

Apologies from my side. I hit the wrong button on my i-phone to withdraw  a piece of text I wrote and which I had difficulty in removing.  Moderators have a delete button and will use it after consulting or in request of the author. 

Luc Vangindertael

moderator

the forum is the heartbeat of the platform, you cannot silence this topic nor any other topic. As everybody has read sometimes good things are said and sometimes bad things are said. Those are critiques and needed in anything that is art related, that is how we evolve and understand. Even management come read the forums to feel the pulse of the membesrs and adjust, correct, improve or whatever. So, I completely disagree, it is not damaging and it helps everyone. This way nobody remains in the shadows. We are all grown adults and are responsible of what we write and will live with the consequences. I have seen worse things written in forums than this thread, arguments etc , sometimes a little rude too.. C'est la vie... To me, nothing I have read so far anywhere was really out of place that would of merited a deletion. This is a paying platform and its normal people what to know what they are paying for and what they will be paying for in the near future and then decide for themselves what they want to do...and since most of the updated information about what is happening on the platform is here on the forums and not on the FAQs....., this is the place to learn and understand. This topic about the ambassador process is failrly new and its thanks to these types of posts that already changes are being made and several have realized their errors (admitting them is another story...) ;-) 

Joe

Hello Luc,

thank you for the explanation.

Have a nice weekend

Erhard