As the rules stand today, we don't allow photography or collage works in our art gallery. There is an exception for photography of things like sculptures. A few photography and collage submissions have been posted recently so I thought it might be time for us to revisit the rules

PaperDemon has had rules against photography since the early days. This site is themed more toward art like drawing, illustration, painting, crafts. If I remember right, I just didn't want this site to turn into a place for people to share their personal photos (like they would on facebook) but I think times have changed and people have other ways of sharing those sorts of things (e.g. Facebook, imgur) now.

What does everyone think about us revising the rules to allow photography (in the context of photography as an art form)? We'd of course create a gallery for it. But I would not want this to become the major focus of this site. I'd still expect drawing, painting, illustration to be the main focus.

How about collage works? This one is a little bit different. In the past I was concerned about people taking (someone else's) photographs and spending 10 minutes making slight alterations to them in photoshop or other software and then reclaiming it as their own and it flooding the gallery. For me the collage has to involve altering the work enough or compositing enough images that it becomes a completely new work rather than just looking like a minor edit to an existing work.

Thoughts?

"This site is themed more toward art like drawing, illustration, painting, crafts."

That is one of the things that 'drew' me to this site (puns! :D). A place I could come and browse this sort of thing without having to gloss over/scroll past all the photos of nudes/people/scenery/nudes/objects/nudes etc.

I haven't posted my own art here for a while but I still browse others' submissions. Personally, I don't mind seeing photos of a physical art project someone has done that obviously can't be scanned in for example...but I feel like galleries for photography art are plentiful and...elsewhere. Much in the way that this site was intended for a certain branch of creativity (drawing, illustration, painting etc), so are those intended for photography galleries where people who are genuinely interested in that kind of art go to see it. I come here to see illustrations, which means photography and photo collages are just like ads. My eyes glaze over and I scroll past them in my search for more of the stuff I came here for ^_^

Naturally, that's just my opinion and if I'm the minority then I'll just go back to scrolling past these submissions like I did with deviantart :)

Thanks for your input BloodlustSerenade.

Your preferences of not wanting to see photos mixed in with the illustrations echo my own. It's not that I don't like photography it just feels out of place. And as you said there's plenty of other sites for that.

I want to be inclusive and I hate to turn around new members especially if their primary medium is photography. But my gut is the best thing for the site long term is to stick to our drawing/illustration theme. Especially considering what I have planned for new features in 2018, photography doesn't have much of a place. There's going to be a big shift in the direction of this site later this year.

It should just be original content, or something manipulated so much it may as well be abstract. But it's up to you of course as an admin. Collages made with original drawings and such would be cool and fun as well! Also on a random note I do colored pencil work sometimes and can't seem to find a submission category for that.

I think that the rule against photography still makes sense, in cases where the photographs don't contain a user's artwork. There *are* abundant sites for showing your photos, and fewer dedicated exclusively to art! But collage...

I think that there should still be protections against cut-and-pasting bits of unidentified artworks together. But a) if a user wanted to make a manipulation involving their own works, that's a different thing, and b)...

I'm remembering an art prof I had who was fond of giving people exercises involving collage the old-fashioned way. Precise, detailed little cuttings out of old magazines with exacto knives, pasting together the thin glossy paper into new configurations on a sheet of artboard with layers of rubber cement. I think some of the stuff that came from those assignments *was* art - even if it still contained pieces of recognizable images. And I'm also thinking of the word "collage" used loosely to indicate "I put bits of things together to make something new" - chopping up photos for their color palettes and arranging the pieces in shapes, mixed with beads or shells or old metal standing off of them like relief sculptures.

I think... I think if someone is *either* using their own work, *or* using and altering stock as part of their work with evidence of the photographer's permission, or - magazine-clippings are a little shakier because they are commercial art for which you can't necessarily contact the photographer *for* permission but after they've been released into the world in bulk on cheap glossy paper in conjunction with articles and adverts for a number of years I'm not sure it makes an ethical difference how you use them? Basically, if you can show effort, show sources (at least to some extent, or at least have some standard of reasonable likelihood you aren't ripping another artist off), and show significant alterations from the original raw material, I think there might be a place for collage works here.

Thanks for your responses everyone. I'll find some time soon to revise the rules to allow collage under certain circumstances:

• Collage of your own photos such as to create a new work of art
• Collage of your own artwork
• Collage of others photos is allowed only if significant altering has taken place such as to constitute fair use.

Sweet! Thanks. ^_^