If you have aspirations as a “fine art” photographer, you know about 1x.com. In their own words, it’s “one of the world’s most exclusive art galleries” where “all photos… are selected by a team of professional gallery curators. ”
How does it work? It’s pay-to-play, which is understandable. Subscribe for a few dollars and submit photos for curation; if one gets approved, it appears briefly on the main page. But as they tell you up front, not much gets accepted: “getting published on 1x is a great achievement” and “less than 1% of all photographers uploading to 1x are published”.
I decided this sounded like a worthy goal, and signed up. So what sorts of photos get published? What are they looking for? I spent some time checking it out.
There’s some great work on 1x.com
Every “published” image has excellent technical quality. Many obviously took a great deal of time, preparation, patience, artistic sensibility, skill and even money to produce. There is creativity and cleverness, top drawer material with obvious commercial value.
But… it’s an “art” site. It publishes a lot of images that I look at and think – sorry, but I’m just not seeing it. Or, I’ve seen too many times.
– Overproduced, overprocessed, formulaic and melodramatic model shots. (Seriously, enough with the ballet dancers in incongruous settings.)
– Painstakingly constructed conceptual images that make powerful statements about [yawn] alienation, identity and the struggles of youth…
– Dreamlike landscapes of emptiness with nothing in focus – except for that one tree…
– Black and black and black and white. Apparently you can never have too much black.
– Amazing one-in-a-million wildlife shots. Some took $20,000, and 6 months hiding in a tent, to get. And a week to PhotoShop.
– Gritty urban minimalism (yes, street people in front of billboards with high fashion ads).
– Faces of old people who’ve worked hard all their lives, out in the sun.
Ok, I’m just a bitter crank, and YMMV. But many of these images are mostly about concept, production, and heavy-duty Photoshop. Think “cinematic”, i.e. director, model, costuming, makeup artist. Visualize every last bit of real-world clutter and imperfection ruthlessly removed. Dial the contrast, vignetting, saturation up to 10. Make the background a swirling oblivion of dream-like bokeh. Show someone obviously gripped by a strong emotion.
Sometimes it just gets too artsy for my taste, the visual equivalent of Smooth Jazz. Stuff you’d see on FStoppers.com in a story like “Get This Moody Look On Your Next Portrait Session” or “Create This Awesome Sci-Fi Background in Photoshop”.
I submitted some photos anyway. But I never did quite figure out what was going on.
First thing – the site has a sort of evil twin called gamma.1x.com. Apparently this is a newer version, never finished, perpetually in beta, which you’re now supposed to use instead – or maybe not. It’s not just a new look, it presents different information, and the submission process seems to diverge.
There’s a FAQ, but it’s a bit out of date. There’s a user forum, but little activity, and questions mostly went unanswered. I was never sure I really understood the process, and probably missed something important.
Basically, you upload a photo, submit it for “curation” and wait for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. The first round is approval by (I think) the general membership – you need 70 votes to advance to actual curation, but you never see how many you got… hmmm. Instead you get a “popularity” number, like 38%, “compared to other photos in the same category”. Um, what does that mean, exactly?
You may receive comments. They’re supposedly from the “curators”, but one was: “Many congratulations on your photo, remember that this is only the voting process, not the curator.” Confusing – but it didn’t matter, because the comments turned out to be vague, generic and generally all over the place, like this one:
“The idea for this shot, even if not original, could still be interesting. Greater attention in the editing phase would allow the shot to express its potential. Still a good shot, although several things can be improved.”
I got these two opposite reactions on the same photo:
“Very original composition, great creativity and good technique ”
“The key to all images is light. Without good light you don’t have an image to please others. You need to rethink your lighting. This is dull and lifeless. The colours lack the wonder of nature.”
Here’s a real zinger that I received a couple of times, on different photos:
“Photo assez banale, rien qui soit très attractif pour le regard. “
(Translation: Pretty banal photo, nothing that is very attractive to the eye.)
You also see what people (members or curators, I never knew) liked or disliked. A typical breakdown:
Liked:
subject matter 38%
composition 41%
originality 27%
Disliked:
subject matter 39%
composition 40%
originality 28%
Ok, you get the picture. I had a dim understanding of the process, no idea who was looking at my photos, and the feedback wasn’t very interesting. I tried to get the feel of things by submitting unusual images – some that I figured would go nowhere, and some that I thought were really good, but all I got was… you guessed it…
I expected this. No, really. Seriously. I told myself I’d just keep playing the game and maybe learn something. But before long, fatigue set in as I realized I was basically just paying for rejection. It was like an online dating site where you get shot down 100 times in a row without even finding out why – from a psychological point of view, not a healthy activity.
Then… after something like 20 submissions, I scored a hit.
This one was published:
Unlike my previous submissions, this one sat in the queue for days. That makes me think it was the only one that actually made it to that shadowy cabal of “curators” (faceless figures in dark hooded robes, seated at a long table…). I’d totally given up on it by the time I received an email notifying me it had been accepted. Then I got my run on the main page, and some nice comments from other photographers. Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame!
After that exhilarating success, I fired off a couple of my very best, which I’d been saving until I thought I had 1x.com figured out. But the game resumed as before:
“Brilliant choice of shooting point and original composition. Perfect technical execution.” REJECTED
Where was this all supposed to lead?
Positive comments are great, and like I said, some of these photographers are excellent. But my ultimate goal was to sell prints (even though 1x.com gives you no control over your pricing, something I was probably not going to accept in the long run).
Getting a photo published meant people could find it – that’s why I’d spent the time pounding in descriptions and keywords. So a couple of weeks after “Blue Jay in Winter” got approved, I checked out the Prints section and looked for my photo. Searching on “blue jay” returned 11 images of those handsome birds, some good, some IMHO pretty mediocre. But not mine. Ditto for “bluejay” and “bird winter”. My photo wasn’t showing up in search results. WTH?
Like I said earlier: I never really understood what was going on here. Apparently being published isn’t enough to get in on the sales, or at least on the public keyword search. Or maybe the search just doesn’t work, or isn’t being updated. Whatever the explanation, I was pretty annoyed. I felt like if I continued I’d be wasting effort on something that was never going to pay off, and that there was maybe something a little fishy about 1x.com overall. So I pulled the plug and closed my account,
Epilogue
It wasn’t a total loss because I did learn some things. Just looking through the 1x.com galleries improved my sense of what people respond to in a photo. I now look at my own work more objectively, I see some shortcomings, and I’ve been going back and re-editing some of it. But I’m out of the 1x.com game. If you understand it better, and can correct my misconceptions and misunderstandings, please do so.
Go ahead, leave a comment. If it includes the URL of your site, you get a nice SEO-juicy “dofollow” backlink.
Hi Jim, I enjoyed reading your frustrations with 1x, and had to laugh at the weary cynicism against artsy photography, I feel your pain! I found your post by wondering via google if the frustrations with the new version of 1x were widespread. But it doesn’t seem people care that much either way.
Basically 1x is a gallery run by the owners and what they show is up to them (and the shadowy curators… you can find the curators and their photo preferences if you look at the crew listings). Now, would you expect a real gallery to be any more picky about what they show? No, of course not. But new members often ‘expect’ their work to be accepted almost as a right. and then leave when they find it’s really not that easy. It’s hard on the ego for sure.
Remember that great pictures get rejected all the time. Not just here, everywhere. It’s a learning process. The new Gamma 1x version is a mess, a ‘work in progress’. Will I stay? Probably, because of so little alternative on-line to rival the quality of work published, despite the artsy/contrived nature of a lot of it. But that’s life (and art) I guess.
Peter, I’m glad someone got a chuckle. And well, I tried to be fair – I did say there’s lots of great stuff there, and of course I support their right to approve whatever they want.
My real complaint was that my ‘approved’ photo wasn’t available for sale – and remember, they’re charging money for participating in the site. That’s a bit scammy.
IMHO what they really need to do is just hire a developer and finish the darn site -so it’s clear what’s going on, and what they’re offering for that subsciption fee.
Jim, I agree with you. However, personally, I don’t give a damn about selling prints because frankly, nobody buys prints. Unless you are a ‘name’ of course. And then you wouldn’t be selling on 1x. You CAN sell on 1x, but it’s peanuts. Sometimes you can recover the membership fee, but that’s about it.
The ONLY reason I’m there is that it’s a place to showcase my work rather than have my own website that no one ever visits. (Yup, I’m that lazy…) But also because there ARE some terrific images published that are really damned good – and the front page, because it is curated, is not swamped by mediocre images from ‘friends’. (aka like some sites)
When you DO get an image published, the visibility of your image and portfolio there is greatly enhanced. I’ve met many fantastic photographers I never would have otherwise. So it’s not all about selling images I feel. But the new version is really annoying me… and not just me I think. Ah well…
I actually do sell a few on FAA. But you’re right, the market for wall art is very small and getting smaller.
I personally think 1x.com is a fantastic place to see some great images, and to have your own work subjected to some very valuable critique. Of course one’s perspective really comes down to how well your own images have fared through the curation process.
I’ve this far submitted 11 images, and have had 11 Published. The 12th is in curation at the moment. This is not to say my work is so outstanding as to warrant this high success rate. But the work I’ve chosen for consideration is top-notch, high-quality, with rally good composition. Each has been given a fair evaluation throughout the curation process and post-publishing. most importantly, I find in this result the “reward” that has come from devoting many years to this craft; unlike any other photo site, it is most definitely not a popularity contest—where crappy images (by most standards) get thousand of “likes” by “followers” who wouldn’t know quality work if it jumped out from behind their smartphone and bit them squarely on the nose.
For the first time I am trying 1x and enjoyed your comment immensely. I have been posting some of my wildlife photos on a social media platform and while I am not claiming to be some National Geographic contributor, my images are every bit as good as some that garner hundreds or thousands of “likes” while mine get between 6 and 10. Looking forward to the completion of my first curation process no matter what happens.
John, I checked your work and found you to be an amazing photographer. Good light my friend!
Kudos . I’ve found so many talented photos on 1x.
Hi just read your interesting point of view that remind me my beginning on 1X. But what makes difference between success and not success it’s the way you accept to keep moving forward (Rocky quote never thought I can use this). Look at great photo contest And you will see all that names on 1X… to put your name up you have to pursuit and never give up, be original, think about trending not today but of tomorrow. And also develop some strategy when you submit a picture if you see something close to yours don’t submit it keep it for the next month. And don’t forget even the best get rejections and sometimes you’ve got surprise you think a shot is great and not published when something you think not top can be… it’s not about your technic it’s about the meeting of your images and people taste at a moment.
It remind me a quote of Kent Kobersteen photo editors for natgeo : « we are looking for Koby Bryant or Christians Ronaldo… think like great players they doing hard, work again and again and they never give up and believe in their skills.… I just look your website you’ve got beautiful images but think you can get a higher lever playing with shutter speed think about what you want to create with birds look Bence Mate work for example to get higher level and find originality. But as I said you’ve got already a good level. It’s perhaps more about visualized your photo finish and think fineart. Hope that will help you and try again 😉
Thanks, Serge, for your very interesting and on-point comment. You’re right, of course, that I could have kept trying to understand the game at 1X and ultimately had more success. A big reason I didn’t was that my single approved photo wasn’t showing up in their keyword search, which for a paid membership seemed like an agreement not being honored. Also, I’m a low-output photographer, I don’t produce enough good work to be continually submitting in hopes of an occasional acceptance.
To me, 1X.com feels like a work in progress – except I’m not seeing any “progress”. I’ll continue to look at it from time to time and follow its evolution.
Dear Jim,
I agree with your points of view, you hit the nail on its head, as they say where I come from. I registered on 1x a few months back and was offered one month free of charge. So I submitted about 10 pictures and they all got published, with 2 of them getting even awarded. For some time I even had a go at curating and eventually became a grade 1 curator. That said, curating the pics is essentially down to your own taste. I rejected a lot of pictures that got published anyway. Some of the curators are even great photographers and that is not something you’re going to find in a real gallery. That said, once my free membership expired, my interest in the site expired along with it. It doesn’t make sense (at least to me) to pay a site for publishing my pictures. I have my own website for that. And selling on 1x would be commercial suicide: read the small print and you’ll see right away that it’s really only peanuts you get for shots you have put hundreds of dollars and weeks of time into.
Yes, without being able to set prices, having photos on 1X is basically just competing with yourself.
1x.com is nothing but a circle-jerk of photoshop wannabes. They shamelessly promote “dear friends” – those who spend A LOT of time writing sweet comments to curators (yes, list of curators with their headshots and portfolio links is available in “about” section) and editors.
I had about 70 images piblished and 11 awarded. They even sent me a nice “awarded photographer” certificate.
But the atmosphere of favoritism got too nauseating. In addition, even though you may get some pretty unpleasant comments in curation, writing ANYTHING OTHER THAN PRAISE on that website is expressly strictly forbidden by the rules. Khhm.. freedom of speech anyone?
I deleted all my photos and my account from 1x.com.
I agree with esteemed reviewer on most points.
I also tried 1x for a time and paid for membership, but I had 100% rejected. I just could not get to grips with what they were after. Some intriguing images on there, I must agree.
I’ve been a member of 1x for going on 14 years. While I can understand
the various complaints and disappointments from the folks who have responded I have always found it to be a place where I can continue to explore and grow as a photographer. I have found the owners to be fair and accessible and committed to constantly changing and improving the site. There have been failures and it is always a work in progress but I have yet to find any site that compares with it, and there have been many attempts to copy it.
Anyone who joins with the expectation of earning money from the sale of their work will also be disappointed. I have found that the exposure that I have gained from being on the site has been lucrative. Over the years I have been contacted by various international agencies asking to either purchase a photograph outright or for the rights to represent one for a royalty. …always an unexpected perk from being in a community that I respect and value.
Having work that you love rejected is never easy but if you respect the work of the photographers who submit to the site, there is always the opportunity to learn from them and from the editors who offer expert critique. At least that has been my experience.
Hi Jane,
Photography is many things to many people – and so is a web site. 1X.com is under no obligation to admit every type of photography, or even to disclose their approval process. And like I said, there’s some really great work there – including yours (I looked). With photography increasingly being pushed back by bogus “AI” imagery, I wish 1X.com continued success, whatever they’re doing.
Great review. Your comments are ‘spot on’ – and they saved me from wasting my time (and money) on such a questionable site.
Thank you.