Photography websites can be good, bad and indifferent. I recently was trolling for photographers to do work for an interactive app featuring travel guides to various cities of the world https://bobmadden.com/work/mobile-apps.php

I used Craigslist to place ads in a number of cities, and asked the photographers to put in the subject line the city that the ad appeared. In the body of their return email, I asked for a link to their work. I received hundreds of emails in return. I organized them by city and then opened the emails, immediately looking for the link and going to the images.

NGS Stock Sales

Even though I had specified that it was an editorial job, I received wedding sites, fashion sites, vacation picture sites on Flicker and Picasa, etc. Some played music, some took ages to load, some had slide shows, etc. Most had galleries, a biography and a contact page. It was a sobering experience. Reminds me of the joke: “What is the definition of ego? It’s the little bit of photographer that everyone carries down deep inside.”In my net travels, I have come up with a few photography-oriented sites that I thought I would share.

Above is the link to my stock images at National Geographic. Note that these pictures are editorial in nature and are quite different than the images on bobmadden.com. These images are placed there for commercial sales, and bobmadden.com deals with consumer sales. Once on the NGS site, under “Quick Explore” type in robert (space) madden and you can search my images and buy them.

Photo Society

Another site that aggregates like-minded photographers is The Photo Society whose mission statement reads “We are a group of contributing photographers for National Geographic Magazine, committed to telling the world’s stories through pictures” Again if you click on the logo when you are in my area of the site, it will take you to the home page. This site is extremely valuable to me, as all of these photographers shoot high quality images the world over. A client can get right to my site and me with one click, or browse through pages such as “Vignettes” or “Why We Do It”.

An interesting aggregation site is burn magazine, and the mission is “an evolving journal for emerging photographers.” Started and curated by David Allan Harvey, this site features photographic essays from all over the world and has a lively forum for comments/criticisms.

James Nachtwey Home Page

Individual photographers have compelling sites as well. One that is powerful and disturbing is James Nachtwey’s. His mission is described on his home page as follows: “I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.” It’s hard to forget these images.

Can you see a pattern here?  Mission. Purpose. These sites are more than the massaging of a libido.

Steve McCurry Home Page

Now, I would like to direct you to Steve McCurry’s site. His images are breathtaking and each is a jewel of color, composition and subject matter. The blog is different, as it is made up of images and poetry. Unexpected, but gripping.

Finally, if you are aware of any extraordinary photographic websites out there, please send me the URL and I will amend this blog to include them (Not YOURS silly. Remember the joke about ego?).