I am privileged to be surrounded by cameras. Part of this is a reflection of our digital age with cameras in every cell phone, portable computer, and cereal box; however, mostly this is due to the amazingly creative community I live in. Whenever I organize an event like the Tweed Ride or Balsa Man, or whenever I craft a costume for grand spectacles like the Gorey Ball, there is invariably someone with DSLR and talent nearby.

I take this privilege for granted more than I really should. Without these creative individuals, with their photographic talent, many of my creative whims would be lost to the fragility of memory and the cardboard boxes of storage. Therefore I have decided to dedicate a series of posts to the masters of the shutter who craft tangibility out of fleeting moments‚ especially to those who make me look good.

This is the first in a series…

Neil Girling, aka Mr. Nightshade

Prim Queer Tea Time by Neil Girling

This photo taken during Prim Queer Tea 2008 is my most favorite recent photo of me. It was taken by the amazing Neil Girling (aka Mr. Nightshade).

Neil Girling has this magical ability to walk up to people and snap a photo, slinging his huge DSLR like it’s a small P&S, capturing the moment with the perfect balance of light, framing, and background. The above photo is a great example of this with the subtle yet striking shadow of the hat that falls across my face and lines of the windows behind me that adds depth but doesn’t serve to distract from the foreground elements. Even small elements like the Folsom Street Fair sticker that peeks over the saucer seem perfectly placed.

It’s unsurprising that several of my favorited flicker photos are his. For instance, when we went to the Dicken’s Fair, Neil took a fantastic photo of Slim, Nifer, and myself in our Dicken’s wear. Also, he was there with his camera while I was whittling away with balsa wood at Balsa Man Decompression.

If you haven’t really looked at his portfolio before, I highly recommend Neil Girling’s recent photos of the majestic Gorey Ball. He is also known in our community for his amazing ability to capture seemingly uncapturable dynamic acts such as the Vau de Vire Society and Gooferman. I also recommend that if you are organizing an event that you hire him to cover it ‚Äî seriously you won’t be disappointed.

Errata from Tweed Ride: The above Prim Queer Tea Time photo was also used by me on the flyer for my recent Tweed Ride, which if you received a flyer will notice that I accidentally failed to attribute him on. I can only say that I was rushing to create the flyer at 1am, but really I should have attributed him, and I humbly apologize for this grievous omission as he truly deserves credit.

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More pictures and video are starting to surface on the internet from Balsa Man 2008. I’ve created a Balsa Man 2008 Flickr group to collect all the best shots from the event

Links to Photos & Video (this list will be continuously updated as I receive links):

• EdRabbit’s Balsa Man 2008 photos
• EdRabbit’s videos (Balsa Man Burn, DDI Burn)
• The Temple Burn (video)
• Romzelino’s photos
• ~Jeanne~’s photos
• ebisue’s photos
• Jay Bain’s photos
• Balsa Man 2008 Flickr pool

If you have more photos or video to share please add a comment below with links and I will add it to this list. If you are a Flickr member please tag your photos “BalsaMan2008″ and add your favorites to the Balsa Man Flickr Group pool.

p.s. Also check out EdRabbit’s own blog post wrap up of the event on Geeked Info.

Video of the glorious burn:

Note, yes I failed to raise the arms. Torch in hand, I was too eager to light it. Well the majesty of the burn made up for it and at least now I have at least one way it will be better next year. How else will The Balsa Man be better next year?

• We have a theme for 2009 “Big Dreams Writ Small” — build a small maquette of the huge art project you always dreamed of building.
• We’ll have more time set aside for viewing the fabulous art.
• I’ll be conducting more burn tests, so it can burn even more grand! This burn was pretty amazing but we can make it better.
• I’ll be designing a more impressive platform for next year’s Balsa man that relates to the theme.
• Oh and I’m thinking lasers, cause lasers make everything better.
• And of course the Balsa Man will improve most due to the creativity and spirit of the Balsa Man community!

See you all next year — keep the tiny Balsa Man community spirit alive!

At least now Derek is being clear about the purpose and mission of Pixish. He has come out to say that it is basically a contest site. In which case, it’s not a whole lot different than the design contest sites DesignOutpost and 99designs.

Some people feel that design/photo/etc. contests are just spec work in a friendly disguise; however, I’m not as opposed to them because they are at least up front about it. For the same reason, I feel less of a need to “spin my gragger” about Pixish.

I still disagree with commenters such as GregM who argue that “designers are empowered by Pixish: they get to pick and choose what they work on in a marketplace.”

If the Pixish interface is good and easy to use then yes it will allow them flexibility to pick and choose assignments, but this is offset by the fact that they are submitting to a contest. Pixish does a whole lot more empowerment for the clients who get to compare a bunch of submissions. Granted if people are just submitting whatever they have laying around it ain’t too bad of a thing.

This latter point is why Derek makes the distinction between designers and art content creators (i.e. photographers, illustrators), and I agree with him here. Designers don’t have spare logos or collateral designs laying around for any old company — everything is usually made to order. Art content creators on the other hand often have a bunch of flotsam and jetsam that they can use for submissions to Pixish.

Derek has also stated more clearly that people who submit their work retain ownership until a client actually chooses to use that work; at which point the rights are subject to the deal set for the project. Thus, art content creators can submit their flotsam and jetsam to anything again and again until it get’s chosen.

All that being said, I may be less inclined to shout “BOYCOTT,” but I’m still not in love with the idea of Pixish — or any generic contest site. As it is, Derek has basically just reframed his business model without actually changing the underlying business model. Granted just slapping on a new coat of paint is much easier since this way he doesn’t need to change actual functionality or recode the site.

It would be better if Pixish were to do something that truly interesting. Something more in line with the suggestion that I made in an earlier post. Something that truly empowered the designers and art content creators.

In my last post, I complained about how broken the entire web2.0 spec work business model of Pixish was. And I stated how inadequate Derek Powazek’s response was to this critisim.

In this post, I’m gonna offer a couple of ideas on how to change it for the better. Actually, I’m just gonna offer one idea — it’s simple really:

1. Artists create portfolios/profiles, with pieces tagged for easy searchability.
2. Potential clients create an Assignment. Ask for what you want and state your price.
3. Get Portfolio submissions. Artists submit portfolios of their work and counter offers for payment.
4. Optional: Peer Review. Community voting helps find the best match.
5. Pick Winners. Select your favorite. Pay initial payment up front.
6. Client and Artist work together to develop final design/illustration/photo/etc.
7. Optional: Allow the comp process to be open and allow the community to offer critiques.
8. Artist gets published and paid.

See wasn’t that easy? It’s no longer spec work and it could even help both creatives and clients. You can keep your voting system (step 4) however frankly I don’t see much benefit there. The real benefit is to make it easy for designers to have their portfolio promoted and allow for them to quickly submit their portfolio to a project.

The open critique system (step 7), I just threw in. Don’t know if it would work but it’s an interesting idea. Might help designers and clients who feel like they are working in a vacuum and butting heads.

I hope Derek Powazek takes some of this and others advice on Pixish. I do think that designers could use a place to promote themselves better. Photographers have Flickr and other sites for promotion of their trade. Illustrators can use flickr too, but it isn’t as useful for them. Of course, illustrators who specialize in drawing furries have DeviantArt.

Designers often just build their own sites. This however makes it difficult for potential clients to find and compare designers styles and experience. It’s even worse for solo individuals, bands, non-profits, and the like who want a simple logo or graphic but don’t have much money. For them a small-time designer with little experience is great, but it’s hard to find people like that.

Connecting clients and creatives is a niche Pixish could fill, and unlike their current web2.0 spec work business model, it’s something I could support.

Some of you may have read about the Derek Powazek’s launch of Pixish. What is Pixish you might ask? Well according to the site pixish works as follows.

1. Create an Assignment. Ask for what you want.
2. Get Submissions. People create and submit their work.
3. Peer Review. Community voting helps find the best.
4. Pick Winners. Select your favorites and download.
5. Rewards! Winners get published and paid.

I.E., Pixish’s business model is to use Web2.0 to encourage spec work. You and a bunch of other artists do a bunch of work and maybe the client likes it and you get paid. Actually it’s worse than spec work as on Pixish, all you get is a fragging prize.

As a professional designer and illustrator, I find spec work insulting and damaging to the creative profession as a whole, as do others. I’m not only one to see Pixish in this light either: Adam Howell wrote an excellent post comparing Pixish to spec work.

On the Pixish blog, Derek Powazek, has replied to these criticisms. Well here’s my rebuttal:

1. We’re in beta. We’re nowhere near done yet. The reason we put the site out publicly at this early stage is to gather feedback, so trust me when I say that we’re listening and will be making changes. Thanks for helping!

Great. Well I hope you actually listen and don’t just plow ahead with criticism blinders on because you think your idea’s nifty.

2. One of the reasons spec work is evil is because it’s sometimes required by big companies, which takes advantage of small designers. But in Pixish, everything is in the hands of the artist. So if you think an assignment isn’t worth your time, don’t do it! It’s our hope that Pixish becomes a true marketplace, where publishers who list assignments with too few rewards will have to raise their pay to what the community thinks is fair. This is good for artists.

Actually the main reason that spec work is evil is that you are being asked to do work with no guarantee of pay. Your business model does nothing to change that it only makes it easier for the client to get a larger pool of spec artists. Thus, making sure that even more artists end up doing work for nothing.

3. Generally, when people talk about spec work, they’re talking about design. Pixish is not really for completed designs. It’s mainly for design elements: photos and illustrations that will be incorporated into a larger design project.

Actually, spec work has always also negatively affected photography and illustration — possibly even more so. Hell that’s one of the reasons I went into design rather than follow a career in illustration — even though I have a degree in illustration. The amount of unpaid/cheap work clients expect out of illustrators is painful to the wallet.

4. We’re sincere in our desire to help artists get paid. So we’re working on tools that will better distinguish paid assignments from the “just for fun” ones. Right now, the payment is left to the publisher and the winning artists to work out. In the near future we’ll be releasing tools that make this much more formal, making the process more secure for artists. [emphasis mine]

Pixish’s current business model: “loosing” artists get squat, and even the “winning” artists must beg to get any compensation.
Pixish’s future business model: “loosing” artists still get squat, and “winning” artists will probably get compensated (unless it’s labeled “just for fun!”)

The latter is slightly better than the former, but both of these models are still spec work.

5. No one owns your work but you, period. You are giving up no rights by uploading your work to Pixish, and you can remove it at any time. If you submit your work to an assignment, you’re entering into the terms set by the publisher. We’re working on tools to make those terms more explicit, but don’t worry, publishers have no rights to your work if you don’t submit it to them.

So I can upload whatever, but as soon as I submit my artwork to an assignment I loose the rights. So how is this different than spec work again?

6. There are lots more tools we’re developing to help artists. For example, a publisher will soon be able to offer an assignment directly to an artist, privately. This way, an artist can set up a great Pixish portfolio, get noticed by publishers, and get offers for paid work.

OK Great. How about this being the main emphasis of the site rather than this whole web2.0 spec work concept?

Here at Pixish, we know that none of this works without the trust and support of awesome artists like you. We’re going to do our best to help you get found, get published, and get paid. Thanks for giving us a chance.

Actually no what you’re offering is a means to streamline the process of spec work to make it easier for clients to get a bunch of designs/photos/art and only have to pay one person — if they pay them at all.

This response has done nothing to assuage my concerns about this project. I’m willing to change my opinion if Derek Powazek comes back with a real response to these issues. However for now I’m boycotting having anything to do with this site and encourage other designers, illustrators, and photographers to do the same.

UPDATE (Others who are also dismayed by the whole Pixish thing):

• The Pixish logo belongs next to ‚Äúspec work‚Äù on dictionary.com
• I Beg to Differ. Pixish is Work On Spec.
• Spec Work, Pixish, Design Contests and Unicorns
• Pixish = Spec Work
• Metafilter has a debate going on about it
• Lots of other blogs are talking about it as you can see by this google blog search

Related CatCubed Posts:

• How to fix the broken business model of Pixish
• Pixish is for spec work on pictures but not design?
• Pixish gets a new more palettable coat of paint