Looking at the furniture made by others is often inspirational. This FWW website has a section entitled “Gallery” (from the “More” drop-down list at the top of a FWW webpage).
Clicking on the gallery reveals 1040 pages of entries, some as recent as 24/3/21.
Anyroadup, I decided to begin making Gallery posts of my own furniture. There’s a small dialogue box a little bit like the forum dialogue posting page that allows you to write a bit of descriptive blurb and post 5 pics for each gallery item. But it isn’t at all clear how anyone gets at these gallery posts once one has made them.
I can get at them via my account page then post the url of each of my gallery entry pages to the forum; or in an email. Clicking on those urls will show the gallery pages I posted.
But how would I get at any gallery pages of another member, without them having to explicitly post the urls of their gallery pages in the forum? I can see no obvious way to search on, for example, “the gallery posts of John_C2”. ……..
Lataxe
Replies
If you're looking at one of their pieces in the gallery, clicking on their name brings up a list of their gallery pieces.
If you've just got the member name and are curious whether they've posted gallery projects, you can try going to \https://www.finewoodworking.com/profile/[user name] (example: https://www.finewoodworking.com/profile/lthemick). However, that may not work in all cases - for instance, I don't see any gallery projects when I use your handle. It may be projects have to be explicitly shared somehow in settings or posted to the forum for them to appear.
I'd be interested in these responses too, Lataxe. I've looked at Gallery posts when they come up in search results. But I've never tried to search or browse the Gallery specifically. It would be nice.
If you click on the screen name above the comment it should pull up all gallery listings as well as forum threads by that member. At least that's how it works when I click my name above a comment I have made
There's an ancient vid (from 2009) about how to post to the gallery then publish it to readers of the website. However, the procedure illustrated (only just - the video quailty is awful) no longer seems to exist when one uses the current gallery posting thing.
Where is than Ben with the answer? Someone find him, tell him to put away that wooden thing he's making and get here with a complete, unambiguous and straightforward procedure that even I can follow and implement! Whaddyamean - it's a Sunday!? :-)
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If I try to follow the links I put in the Greene & Greene post to a couple of gallery entries I made, it won't link if I'm not logged in but will link if I am logged in. There seems to be some required process to publish to the FWW wider world what I created for the gallery ..... but I can't find it.
Lataxe
Well, it is the weekend for Ben . . . as his shop steward, I told him to take two days off.
Here is a shameless bump of this thread. BEN STRANO! Where are you, lad, with the answer? :-)
Lataxe
I love that my unlimited membership comes with 24/7/365 access to Ben Strano. I had him fix me a nice sandwich last Tuesday.
I'm still waiting for him to clean out my gutters. UNLIMITED! Hello? Does no one understand what that means?
Gutters? He does gutters?
Will he go up the teetering ladder or must we provide a scaffold? I am just an old pensioner and can't afford scaffolds!
When I were a lad, 274 years ago, rough men in battered top hats would push small boys up chimneys to clean 'em. I wouldn't go that far but it's time Benjamin fixed up that Gallery instead of having fun in a studio with his pal Micky.
Lataxe, a demanding customer.
This is why I now wait an hour before diving into comments. All ya'll have too much time on your hands!
So, the gallery!
I would think even Lat_axe would understand that any information created in 2009, on anything digital is the equivalent of 274 years out of date.
If you post to gallery and it's not showing up publicly yet, it's because we haven't moderated it yet. I don't know if everyone knows this, but people try and post things that are in fact NOT WOODWORKING and our dearest Betsy weeds those out before allowing the posts to be viewed by the delicate public.
Also, when we relaunched the site the gallery pieces were showing up in search interspersed with everything else. That was less than ideal, so they are excluded. Making a dedicated gallery search has been on someone's to-do list for awhile now. Bugging people about doing that has fallen off my to-do list. If there is still a need, I can continue bugging them.
Oh, now I feel like we need to send poor Betsy a fruit basket or something.
On the other hand, Betsy may be finding some gems of non-woodworking things in that gallery and keeping them for herself! Perhaps there are pics of kittens or even interesting spiders caught on camera in mid-meal?
As to that Ben letting things fall off his bug-list, especially about other things falling off someone else's to-do list .... well, I have no sympathy with this lackadaiscal stance and hereby issue a hiss of impatience. That'll teach him!
Anyroadup, I'll continue posting pages to the gallery whilst being careful not to mention anything not strictly woodworking; or posting pics of the collie, the corgi or even my fingers doing things that may or may not be woodworking.
Lataxe, always keen to bug a bug-er.
It's usually business spam. People trying to catch all of the google point they can in place they think nobody will see them.
For the gallery search, I think in the past few years we've had it brought up a couple of times. When there are limited resources, you have to use them wisely.
If a lot of people really need/want a feature, it'll get put back on the priority list.
You are redeemed, Ben, as some of those Gallery entries I made have now appeared. I look forward to many comments, consisting mostly of sneers, gasps of incredulity and hoots of derision. :-)
The thing about our lumps of furniture is that they fill out a picture of the posters in a way that mere words can't. I'm hoping that many who scull about this forum will take to posting in that Gallery, along with discussions in the forum about what can be seen there.
So get on with that Gallery search thing, then! :-)
Lataxe
Lataxe, put me down for a couple of gasps and one, no make that two, hoots. I found your G&G desk on the first Gallery page, it wasn't there yesterday! It obviously pays to have friends in high places.
I really like the details. Is the ebony looking piece of wood, where the top meets the bread board ends, functional joinery or decorative?
The hand work gives the whole piece a nice craft quality.
Those black curvy bits at the ends of the breadboards are part functional and part decorative. The function is to fill in the slot-ends of the grooves in which the spline sits that keeps the breadboard attached to the top. The two are glued and pinned only in the middle so the ends of breadboard and top can expand and contract differentially with any mositure changes.
The black slips (African blackwood - the stuff clarinets and similar used to be made from) allow that breadboard differential movement whilst covering the slot 'oles; but also provide yet another bit of cloud lift motif.
Lataxe
Bumpitty bump.
Can I not persuade some of you other lads to make Gallery posts of your stuff? I'm just dying to see them all!
Lataxe, up to about 7 now, I think.
I put some things on Instagram, though I usually forget to photograph my work at all.
I really would like to learn how to take decent photos, as I lack talent and skill in that area. But I guess I'd first have to remember to take any sort of photos at all.
John,
No talent needed to take good photos. After all, the camera does 49% of the work and the software to perfect and publish it does 49% leaving only 2% for us camera shutter-button pressers to do - point and shoot then press the "enhance button or simialr in Photoshop or similar.
The main trick is to frame something well and to keep out the background clutter as far as possible (not always possible).
I look forward to seeing your items in that Gallery then! :-)
Lataxe
As a commercial photographer in Mahattan for 35 years I disagree... but perhaps I am just being religious or binary.
If I get a photo I think is really good, it's pure luck. I was driving myself nuts a couple of years ago trying to get some nice pictures for an entry into a juried show. The woodworking was far easier than the photos.
No, MJ, I'm being a tease. :-)
On the other hand, you have to admit that modern cameras and the associated image-processing software is a bit like the advent of CNC routers in woodwork. It's certainly not as hard to get a decent photo these days as it was when we had to muck about (literally) in a dark room with dangerous chemicals, to make something out of a bit of cellulose that was exposed with no ability to see at the time if it had worked aright.
I would also argue that learning some basics of photo composition and even exposure (if one doesn't trust the camera's P mode) is a lot easier and quicker than learning the skills of woodworking - by far.
But now I yam slipping into tease-mode once more. Professional photography results must be a lot more "pleasing" than the stuff we casual snappers do merely to create prosthetic memories.
Lataxe
Just perused a few of the members gallery posts in this thread. Incredible work! Very inspiring to see what people in this community are capable of, and it gives extra context to their posts in the forum.
Lataxe, you are speaking about things you do not fully understand as though you do. I suppose I could argue (or tell you that you must admit) that Picasso was just operating the paintbrush, and the average person could get the same results today using Adobe Illustrator, but I wouldn't. Cranking out one of your gallery items overnight on a CNC would not be quite the same thing, or would it?
An artist uses the medium and the tools he or she has available to create. If you feel your tools are 50% or more responsible for the things you build it's kinda sad. To make such pronouncements about another branch of creativity is ignorant, or a the very least misguided.
Rant over.
Well ......
A camera is not really like a painter's brush is it? You can't press a button on a painter's brush and get a painting that you just have to touch up a bit to make better.
After all, the camera (unlike the brush or the chisel) is a copying machine.
It's not quite right to state that a photographer shoots a picture. In fact, the light rays bouncing off reality shoot the camera and the photographer's eye not the other way 'round. Reality and the camera create the picture, not the photographer. And the automated copying machine (a camera) renders reality's light patterns into a different medium ... instantly .... with a single button press.
Not to say that the photographer has no creative input into a photograph. We do "choose the moment" and we do "frame the scene". But those are rather easy things to do, really, compared to making a good painting .... or a piece of furniture.
These days we can also do (in a far easier and more automated fashion) what used to be a rather difficult task in a darkroom. We can twiddle the automated re-rendering tools of Photoshop. That's certainly a creative skill but it's not a difficult one to master. Adobe provide many step-by-step instructions that anyone can follow. And they now provide some of them as one-press buttons or sliders that operate a whole host of different image-editing effects in one press or slide. "Enhance"; "dehaze".
I read a lot on photographic matters and can fly Photoshop quite well. I have an ever-growing collection of (currently) 40-odd thousand pictures, from film (now scanned) and various digital cameras. Amateur stuff and not up to professional standards, no doubt ... but educative enough to enable me to understand the degree and nature of the skills required, even though I lack enough of them myself to claim that I'm "a good photographer".
Photography is a craft. I reckon it's about the same skill level as driving a car. Some can do both very well, some are merely competent and lots are useless at it. :-)
Personally I use the camera to create prosthetic memories, sometimes (but usually not) managing to manipulate the images enough to increase the "meanings" of the rememberances stimulated. That's not so very hard to do.
Perhaps photographers should be less self-centric and give reality, as well as the fantastic machine that is a camera, their due when claiming they have shot a really good picture? What we do is to use an auomated machine to make a 2D copy of 3D reality, then tweak it a bit with some more automated processes.
But if you disagree, please do explain what is so difficult to do in photography - skills that compare with those of painting a piece of art or making a good piece of furniture from planks or even a log.
Lataxe
I can't really say what exactly is so difficult about good photography -- mostly because I can't do it, and don't know why. I've put a little bit of effort into it, with poor results. To me, that's how I define "difficult."
I'm not talking about the type of photography where you point a camera and press a button. I can teach my cat to do that. I'm talking about photography, not snapping a picture.
I'm sure there are those who think woodworking is really easy and intuitive.
Perhaps, Lataxe, you find photography easy yourself, being an idiot savant?
I have a Mentor with a favorite saying: "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it irritates the pig."
No defense of photography, then, as a difficult practice requiring some sort of long training, talent or the kinds of efforts needed to become competant at woodwork, painting or other truly creative crafts? Avoidance of any meaningful attempt to discuss the matter is quite telling, eh? :-)
Still, it hardly matters does it. Happily this is not Digital Camera Review, full of fellows pretending to be "artists" because they took a pic of something rendered beautiful or otherwise interesting by nature or a genuine human craftsman.
But perhaps you are into CNC woodworking that includes an auto-copying mechanism available via one button press? The products can always be daubed with some of the many finishes available (also made by someone else, rather like Photoshop effects) then claimed as "what I made".
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I am teasing a bit but there is a serious underlying matter we could discuss. How far does the automation of craft tools take away the opportunity for the craft person to actually practice a craft rather than learn to operate a machine that automates a large percentage of the production process?
As you will know, the digital cameras in phones are begining to employ very sophisticated AI processes to render what were once called "haphazard snapshots" into photographs that have all the hallmarks of what was once named "the photographers art". There's a simialr trend with woodwork that's moving rapidly towards a situation requiring the user of a sophisticated CNC-driven machine with various cutters to do little but feed in a plan-program and some wood then press the button.
I'l try asking again...
What in modern photography is the equaivalent of learning how to design and construct a piece of furniture using tools that have just a little (and often no) automation? I can see the photographic proceses from 100 years ago being like that but now....?
Lataxe, quite a tranquil pig, fond of crooning a ditty or two.
That's a Heinlein quote, and one of my favorites.
I'll chime in on this as I do a fair amount of photography. I think taking a great photo of a woodworking project is a lot different than taking a great photo of a nature scene. Specifically, I'm referring to the lighting component. If you're taking an image of a desk, a table, a lamp, basically anything in an indoor environment the photographer is responsible for the lighting, as opposed to mother nature.
Photography literally means "drawing with light" so without great lighting you're not going to get a great photo. Understanding how to set up your lighting to showcase texture, color, shape, as well as depth of field, etc., Is critical for a great photo. The camera, no matter how advanced the technology, can't do that for you.
Lataxe, your request for a defense tells me what I need to know. You are purposely offering offense, then backtracking with words like "tease". I am not interested in having a discussion with someone who is trying to either injure or win. "Talent, training, effort" Really??
There's an internet name for this kind of behavior...
MJ,
It was you who chose to take my flippant aside to John C2 (that photography is not such a difficult thing to do) and turned it into some sort of imagined insult to your rather religious stance on the special abilities needed by photography. But, like many a dogmatist wanting his beliefs to be unquestioned and unquestionable, you refuse to defend them.
Personally I believe the notion that a camera is like a paint brush or a woodworking chisel is indefensible but you might at least try, if you're going to claim that people can only take a good photo if they've spent years perfecting the sort of difficult-to-acquire skills found in painting, playing a musical instrument or making cabinets.
My own belief is that the mental factor most at work in claims that photography is difficult is the desire to be thought clever or special - above the common herd of "second-raters". (Thank you Ayn Rand, for this aristocratic claptrap).
Katzy is right to mention that there ARE skills required to take a good photograph rather than the bad snap, such as arranging the lighting for a piece of furniture to portray it to best effect when the shutter button is pressed. But such skills are small, easily learnt and heavily reliant on a large degree of complex functionality put into the automated equipment used (camera, lights, editing software, printer & paper, etc.).
The skills needed to take a reasonably illustrative photo of furniture and its details are small and easily learnt. In posting photos to the FWW Gallery, we don't need to have super professional standards, especially those that manipulate the images to present what isn't really true a la advert imagery and other glamorous genres beloved of "professionals".
So .... I'll get back to the main point which is: photos of their fine woodwork posted by members here would provide a great deal of interest and information to other members, as well as some inspiration. The Gallery is not a professional photographers showcase but a means to illustrate our woodworking.
You stick with the photo-snobbery if you like. I'd rather just see pictures of your work than try to have a conversation with a bloke that goes off in a huff because I won't agree with his desire to big-up his special abilities with a camera. Would you take the same attitude about driving your truck to deliver the furniture? Does it need a professional driver and no one else could do it properly?
Lataxe
I saved myself 5 minutes by not reading. I hope that bridge keeps you dry.
Let me explain... No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
He compared a professional photographer to driving a truck.
Heh - exactly right. In fact, to drive a truck well probably takes a lot more knowledge and skill than framing a pic and pressing a shutter button at the right moment.
MJ has no rebuttal of my contention that photography is not the Great and Difficult Art many photographers claim it to be. Because I disagree with him I must be a troll. But the logic there is that, in disagreeing with me, he must be a troll too! To disagree is to troll, apparently.
Why do so many these days get all Duchess of Pout when their interlocutors won't form a mutual admiration club with them in which everyone must adhere to their opinions, no matter how bizarre, deluded or indefensible? Perhaps they are just following The Great Example, recently deposed?
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Anyway, where are the pics of your work? It would be better to return to discussing woodwork rather than stoking or stroking MJ's photography-ego
Lataxe
Thanks John, but I'm good. Having identified the species it no longer matters.
Not dropping any names, but someone here needs an intervention...I will have to admit that typing while wearing a straight jacket definitely requires more skill than driving a truck.
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