500px’s pivot to a platform for selling photography in the strictest sense of the word has some older users that made more extensive use of Photoshop and editing tools feeling unwelcome.
In fact, it seems that the website has made them aware of the fact that they are unwelcome with one photographer that was once hailed as a “Photoshop Master” by 500px among them. PetaPixel is reporting that Polish photographer Michal Karcz is part of a wave of bans that are targeting users who post photographs that are not “photographic enough” to use the website’s words.
The email sent to Karcz reads as follows,
“This email is to notify you that our Moderators have found non-photographic content posted on your account. 500px is a photography community, and we do not currently allow non-photographic content to be uploaded to the site. This includes screenshots, graphic designs, drawings/illustrations, video game screen captures, and other non-photographic content that we deem to be in violation of our Terms of Service. If our Moderators continue to find non-photographic material posted to your account, it may result in your account being banned. Thank you for your cooperation, 500px.”
Karcz explained to 500px that, in order to comply with this new direction, he would need to wipe most of his collection as his work is based on photomanipulation. As mentioned above, he’s quite an acclaimed member of the 500px community so wiping out all of his work would be a total restart for his account in essence. He spoke with a rep from 500px which told him the following according to PetaPixel:
“Hi there, Unfortunately photomanipulations based on photography is not photography and our website in the current iteration is evolving into a purely photography website. Not only that, our terms of service require you to be the copyright owner of the images you upload so if you’re editing bits and pieces of other peoples imagery then you’re in violation of that. I personally am a fan of your artwork but unfortunately it doesn’t fit within the conditions of our site at the moment.”
Of course, 500px isn’t the only platform out there but that is probably no consolation for Karcz. That said, you can view his work on Facebook and on his website.
We’d love to know your thoughts on this story. Do you use 500px? What do you think of their new policy? What does “photographic enough” mean to you? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
You can also read other photography news stories from Light Stalking by clicking here.
4 Comments
Well i hope they know that they need to just close out their program. All photos are manipulated. especially RAW has to be. what the heck? let’s go back to film and the dark room where editing is done and just say nothing is photography. “Unfortunately photomanipulations based on photography is not photography and our website in the current iteration is evolving into a purely photography website.” is the stupidest thing i have ever heard. someone is running that company that knows nothing about photography. Wow, that was a bit of a rant but seriously!
Michael’s response to you people should be, go screw yourselves. Wake up to the future people… The future is Photoshop.
Just like the past was the darkroom.
Taking great pictures is 75% of the solution… The other 25% is Photoshop.
This seems legit…
Not only that, our terms of service require you to be the copyright owner of the images you upload
Someone left a comment that Photoshop is the future. 🙄 Ps and Lr have been around for quite some time and are definitely NOT the future. If you truly love photography and care about the integrity of your images, you learn all you can about the craft of photography so you can take the best image you can in camera and only use an editing app ( if you choose too) to enhance your photos not completely change them into something else. This is , of course, when you are posting photos to a site like 500px, Flickr, ViewBug, etc. If you want to change you photos into something else that doesn’t resemble a photo at all for your own gallery, portfolio, etc. that’s completely different.